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Black Sabbath announce 'The End' world tour and vow it will be their last

Three of the four longtime members of the heavy metal pioneers, including Ozzy Osbourne, to play 24 dates across the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

Black Sabbath, who pioneered heavy metal more than four decades ago, on Thursday announced a final tour and vowed it would be the band’s last.

The English rockers, known for their thunderous guitars and dark subject matter, said that “The End” tour would feature three of the band’s four longtime members including flamboyant frontman Ozzy Osbourne.

“It promises to surpass all previous tours with their most mesmerizing production ever. When the tour concludes, it will truly be the end,” said a voiceover on a video announcement on the band’s website.

The band announced 24 dates for the tour, which will start on 20 January in Omaha, Nebraska in the US midwest, a hotbed for heavy metal fans.

The tour will cover the United States, including New York’s Madison Square Garden, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand .

The final date – the real “The End” – is scheduled for 30 April in the southern New Zealand city of Dunedin.

The tour does not feature any shows in Europe, including the band’s native city of Birmingham, England.

Osbourne has pursued a successful solo career and lives in Los Angeles, where his family was featured a decade ago on the MTV reality series The Osbournes.

Guitarist Tony Iommi has stayed in England and in recent years struggled with cancer, a factor that has clouded previous chatter about a new Black Sabbath tour.

Black Sabbath went on an 84-date reunion tour from 2012 to 2014 that opened in Birmingham and closed in London’s Hyde Park.

The extensive tour brought out original bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler, who will again play in “The End” shows.

But longtime drummer Bill Ward was not listed to participate in the final tour. Ward also did not play on the 2012-2014 tour or on the band’s last album, the 2013 release 13, amid a feud with Osbourne.

Black Sabbath started out with a self-titled first album in 1970.

The band took a root of the American blues but brought in a heavier guitar sound as well as often macabre themes.

“Iron Man,” one of the band’s most identifiable songs, tells of a man who travels in time and wreaks revenge on humanity after being turned into steel.

Black Sabbath and Osbourne’s later solo work often alarmed Christian groups who saw dangerous or Satanic messages in the music.

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The Drummers of Black Sabbath

From Bill Ward to Tommy Clufetos

Bill Ward (1969-1980, various until 1994, 1997-2012)

“I’ve always regarded Sabbath as a live band and not particularly as a studio band,” recalls Ward of his early days with theb and, “so when I listen back to the albums I have to remember that we used to walk in, grab some mic stands, record the songs and then walk back out again!”

When asked at what point he began to feel that he was playing at an advanced level, Ward told Rhythm: “It was starting to happen on Master Of Reality. The bass drum sound had started to smooth out on Vol. 4, and then by the time we got to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, we were really coming along very well. When we did Paranoid, our band was out working 365 days of the year – so it was very much a band in transit. We were in and out of the clubs and theatres, and getting close to playing in stadiums by the time the album came out. We were making incredible progress as far as our live shows were concerned.”

Vinny Appice

Vinny Appice (1980-1982, various until 1997)

The younger of the famous hard-rock drumming brothers, Vinny was brought in initially to keep the seat warm for Bill Ward but ended up a more permanent fixture, recording Mob Rules and Dehumanizer .

“They were about midway into the Heaven And Hell album tour when I got in. As the tour went on, it became obvious that Bill wasn’t coming back so we started getting tighter and tighter and becoming a band. Then it was, ‘Alright, we’re going to do an album.’ ‘Okay, fantastic!’ We recorded in LA with Martin Birch producing. I had to play like myself and yet I had to think, ‘What would Bill do?’”

Bev Bevan (1983-1984, 1987)

Bev Bevan, drummer with The Move and ELO, was one of the famous generation of West Midlands drummers who basically invented hard rock in the late ’60s and early ’70s. He

Cozy Powell. He was a touring drummer with Sabbath in 1983 and 1984 and contributed to the 1987 album Eternal Idol after two changes in record producer. Recalling his and his contemporaries’ early days, he told Rhythm: “That was the thing in Birmingham; we were all really loud bastards. Me, Johnny Bonham, Cozy Powell and Bill Ward. Bonham used to watch me play and then steal my ideas.”

Eric Singer

Eric Singer (1985-1987)

Prior to donning cat face paint for KISS, Singer had been Lita Ford’s drummer for just a year when he found himself drafted in to record Sabbath’s 1986 album Seventh Star .

“It was the first actual record i did for anybody! It was going to be a Tony Iommi solo album with lots of different singers but ended up becoming Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi and had Glenn Hughes singing on the whole record. Most of those songs started with just us jamming riffs; there were no melodies or arrangements, per se, with a vocalist in mind. It does help when you know what the vocal phrasing is going to be because as a drummer you can accentuate and be more melodic and enhance the arrangements. We didn’t have that luxury.”

Singer also played on the initial sessions 1987 for Eternal Idol .

Terry Chimes

Terry Chimes (1987)

The Clash’s original drummer Terry Chimes joined up with Tony Iommi’s touring Black Sabbath in 1987 (an Ozzy and Geezer-less line-up with Tony Martin on vocals).

A messy time for producer and line-up changes saw ELO’s Bev Bevan replace Eric Singer to finish Eternal Idol, but refuse to do shows promoting the album. So Chimes was brought in for live duties.

Chimes told Rhythm: “My manager said Black Sabbath needed a drummer and I said I’d love to do that, I really like that band, and being a drummer in a heavy metal band you get to do massive solos, massive drum kits, gongs, all sorts of things. So he phoned them up and they said, ‘Tell him to learn two or three songs.’ Well I actually got the live album and the other albums and i learned all of them, all the songs on the live album because I think that’s what you have to do. It’s very competitive, it’s very tough so you’ve got to work harder than everyone else, you’ve got to be better than anyone else. They’d been through drugs and drink and women and god knows what else and they said, ‘We aren’t going to be drinking or anything like that, we’re gonna go on stage and play our set and be on time.’ and I thought thank god, I’ve never had that before; a band that actually turns up on time and plays sober.”

Cozy Powell

Cozy Powell (1988-1991, 1994-1995)

The Rainbow and ‘Dance With The Devil’ rock drumming maestro had a couple of stints with Sabbath, mainly as touring drummer. He had begun to work on Sabbath’s 1990 album Dehumanizer with Geezer, Tommy and Ronnie James Dio, but suffered a hip injury in a horse riding accident, so Vinny Appice was brought in to record much to Cozy’s chagrin: “I was kicked out of the band because a horse fell on top of me,” he said. “I was disappointed [Tony Iommi] didn’t wait for me to recover.” Nevertheless he would return to Sabbath for touring duties in 1994.

Mike Bordin

Mike Bordin (1997)

Faith No More’s dreadlocked groove monster spent a couple of decades as Ozzy’s go-to guy, and once stepped in to help Sabbath out on some live dates in the ’90s. On working with Black Sabbath’s bat-eating genius, Puffy told Rhythm:

“A few years back, in Berlin, we were playing ‘Flying High Again’. Ozzy turned to me with a devilish look in his eyes and said, ‘I’m gonna get you!’ He started singing out of time just to fuck me up – and he got me! On the last run of dates, Ozzy sprayed the monitor desk with a foam gun! The tech decided to turn off the stage monitors so they wouldn’t blow. We couldn’t hear each other and we were totally off.”

Brad Wilk (2013)

Brad had the very real honour of playing on Black Sabbath’s 2013 album, 13 , when contractual wranglings between Ward and the other Sabs resulted in the band’s founding drummer being left out of their reunion.

If anyone had to replace Bill, the band made a good choice as the Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave man has been majorly influenced by Ward. Of his hard rock wallop and tendency to play a little behind the beat, Wilk told Rhythm, “"To me, the backbeat is everything. I spent years listening to players who play on the backbeat. Bonham is absolutely one of my biggest influences. Even Bill Ward, when he played verse, he played on the back end of things. A lot of that whole backbeat thing has to do with where you put the grace note from the same drum that comes just before the 'one'. I really believe that that's something that is more felt than heard."

Tommy Clufetos

Tommy Clufetos (2012-present)

Sabbath’s current touring drummer and Rhythm cover star is the obvious choice for the hallowed drum seat, having played with Ozzy Osbourne since replacing Mike Bordin in 2010.

“I couldn’t ask for more,” he says in the March 2014 issue of Rhythm. “To play with Ozzy and then to play with Geezer and Tony, I just can’t ask for more than that. It’s been the pinnacle of my life so far. I’m learning and think I’ve gotten way better as a drummer. The only way to get better as a musician, a drummer or whatever is to do what you do with people that are better than you. So this is the ultimate in that and it has pushed me and that is the greatest gift.”

Read more of our great interview with Tommy, and find out just what it takes to be Black Sabbath’s sticksman in the new issue of Rhythm .

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Bill Ward has made a masterpiece and no one wants to release it

Bill Ward was an integral part of Black Sabbath and of heavy metal’s genesis. Here he reflects on his eventful life thus far and his piles of unreleased albums

When Bill Ward was a young kid growing up in post-war Birmingham, he used to walk past the factories where they stamped the edges of sheets of metal, and make up rhymes and rhythms in his head. Back then he never dreamed, of course, that the noises he was imagining would eventually lead him into a career as a successful musician and one of the founding fathers of an entire genre. 

As the original drummer with Black Sabbath , Ward was there at heavy metal’s Big Bang moment. His drumming – powerful yet jazzy, like Gene Krupa in a patchouli-soaked denim shirt – is embedded in the DNA of so many people who came along after him. His friend and contemporary John Bonham had the volume, but Bill Ward had the swing. 

“I knew from the day we went into Aston Community Centre and played Black Sabbath for the first time that we were different,” he says. “We had something I didn’t understand, and I knew that I loved it.” 

The softly-spoken 73-year-old, who has lived in California since 1980, is a world away from the Bill Ward of legend. That Bill Ward was a bearded wildman who could give Ozzy Osbourne a run for his money in the lunacy stakes; someone equally likely to be found drunkenly climbing a lamp-post as having his facial hair set on fire by his bandmates. 

There may be some truth in that, but it isn’t wholly accurate – watch footage from the early 70s on YouTube and you’ll see a thoughtful, intense young man who seems to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. That intensity is still there today. Ward’s journey, musical and personal, has seen him face the best and worst that life has to offer. 

The plan was for our conversation to cover it all, but it’s made clear before we speak that some topics are off limits. He won’t talk about his struggles with alcohol, his departure from Black Sabbath in the early 80s, or his acrimonious split with the band in 2012 shortly after the original line-up’s second reunion. Nor will he address his relationship with his former bandmates today. 

The message is that he wants to focus on the positive. That’s fine. Even without the metaphorical highs and lows, Bill Ward’s life and career is worth celebrating.

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William Thomas Ward was born in the Birmingham suburb of Aston in 1948, three years after World War II ended. He grew up next to a patch of bombed land – the Wards’ house was the last on their row left standing after the German Luftwaffe blitzed Birmingham. His mother would tell how the family would crouch under the stairs to hide from the bombs. 

“There’s something so fragile and tender about that,” he says. “So brave.” 

Over the past 25 years, Ward has spent time talking to US military veterans. He learned about post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition triggered by traumatic events such as war. 

“It was almost healing for me, because they put a name on something I recognised,” he says. “It helped me to understand my household growing up, because everybody had [PTSD]. When I was a child and I was blamed for something, I thought I’d done something wrong. Now I know it wasn’t about me, but about the after-effects of what they went through.” 

Ward’s dad wanted his son to follow him into the factories, but that didn’t look appealing. He’d been hooked by music: Elvis Presley and Little Richard at first, followed by the jazz, swing and R&B records that would eventually bleed into his own playing. Then, of course, there were the ever-present rhythms of the machines all around town. 

“I was born into drums,” he says. “I wanted to play music, I wanted to take it as far as I could, I wanted to become whatever I could, I wanted to roll the dice on it.” 

He started young, joining his first band, The Rest, at 15. They would head out on the road in a knackered old van. 

“For a kid from Aston, that was a big deal, coming out of the city and going into the countryside. That’s when I met some of the musicians that would become friends of mine for a number of years to come.”

One of these kids was a guitarist named Tony Iommi , who had just left another local group, The Rockin’ Chevrolets. Iommi had a reputation on the Birmingham scene as a great player, and The Rest wanted him in their band. So much so that they trooped to his house, almost as if they were auditioning for him. 

“It was the first time I’d ever gotten close to what I considered a real guitar player,” says Ward. “He played Johnny B. Goode , and it was wild. I thought I was out of my depth, to be honest: ‘Wow, this guy is really good.’” 

Except Bill Ward wasn’t out of his depth. Iommi joined The Rest for a while, then he and Ward spent the next few years in and out of each other’s bands, eventually moving up to Carlisle in Cumbria to sign up for blues-rock workhorses Mythology. When that band fell apart a couple of months after a cannabis bust in mid-1968, Ward and Iommi headed home to Birmingham – and to the beginnings of what would become Black Sabbath.

Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne only lived on opposite sides of Aston Villa’s football ground, but they never met until the would-be singer placed an advert in a local music shop saying: “Ozzy Zig requires gig, owns his own PA.” More than 50 years on, there’s fondness in the drummer’s voice when he talks about his old bandmate. 

“He walked in, and I think it took ten minutes before we started rattling,” he says. “Ozzy had an amazing blues voice. I remember in our very, very early days, before we had made a record, we were rehearsing and he was warming up. I thought: ‘Wow, that’s so powerful.’ He had everything there.” 

So did Bill Ward. The chops he’d learned listening to jazz drummers Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Elvin Jones brought something different to the music they were playing. 

“Bill was a fanatic for jazz, which was brilliant, because it threw a different angle on the music for us,” Tony Iommi told Classic Rock in 2020. “He played that jazzy style in certain songs, and it meant we could try different ideas.” 

Ward said he knew this group – originally The Polka Tulk Blues Band, then Earth, then Black Sabbath, after a Boris Karloff B-movie that bassist Geezer Butler’s brother had seen – were on to something special the very first time they played the song they’d named after their band. 

“I came away knowing that we were different and that everybody would probably hate us,” he says, laughing. “And I was right. But at twenty-one I was unstoppable. I was in Black Sabbath, what did you expect?”

The press did hate Black Sabbath. “The whole album is a shuck,” Rolling Stone sneered in their review of Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, released in February 1970. But the reaction, combined with endless hours cooped in a van rattling around the motorways and B-roads of Britain, only brought them closer together. 

“It was us against the world,” says Ward. “The camaraderie was amazing. We were always fucking around and cracking jokes and at each other’s expenses, but we respected each other’s abilities and the friendships we had. We were all from the same place, same background; we had a common language.” 

That background – the streets of post-war Aston – was evident in their music, the volume of which matched that of the factories their drummer used to walk past. It was there in their attitude too; there was none of the posturing of their peers. 

“We played like punks on stage,” says Ward. “The band was just fucking crazy. There was this force, all this resentment and anger that was coming out. It came from what we thought was bullshit at the time: politics and war, and upbringing and people’s ways of life. And [PTSD].” 

The six albums Sabbath made from their debut to 1975’s Sabotage ( Master Of Reality , from 1971, is Ward’s favourite Sabbath record, if you were wondering) is equalled only by Led Zeppelin . Ward knew the members of Zeppelin, particularly their West Midlands contingent Robert Plant and John Bonham . 

“Bonham really loved [Sabbath’s 1972 song] Supernaut ,” says Ward. “He really had that song down. We were in the studio one day and he came by. He saw I was playing the double bass drum. He said: ‘I’ll do it on one.’ He was, without question, the best rock drummer in the world.” 

A few years ago, Ward attended the Bonzo Bash, a tribute to the John Bonham at the NAMM music industry festival. That night, former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo and Whitesnake guitarist Brian Tichy teamed up for a version of Stairway To Heaven . Ward, watching from the floor rather than the side of the stage, was suddenly overcome with emotion. 

“I just cried my eyeballs out,” he says. “It’s very difficult to listen to those things when I was of that time. It took me back – the smell of the grass, the Vietnam War, playing the halls in London or wherever, the times when the guys from Led Zeppelin would come over and fuck around. And all that’s changed. All that’s gone now."

Bill Ward got sober in 1984. He’d left Black Sabbath for the second time the previous year, shortly after finishing recording the Ian Gillan-fronted Born Again album. Ward had been completely drink- and drug-free during those sessions, after struggling with alcohol and panic attacks during his time with Sabbath in the 70s. But the prospect of touring scared him and he fell back into old drinking habits. He later told the LA Times things got so bad that at one point he was homeless and contemplating suicide. Thankfully, he got help and dried out for good. 

“I last drank in January 1984,” he says. “And I spent some time thinking about a lot of the mistakes I made, the amends that I owed, and what I need to move forward musically to make a living.” 

The latter took a while to figure out. He finally released his debut solo album, Ward One: Along The Way , in 1990. That record is a lost treasure, as quirky and unexpected as the cover photo of Ward in a bowler hat and plaid trousers and a bass drum strapped to his back like an old-fashioned one-man band. He sang on most of it himself, with former Cream frontman Jack Bruce chipping in on a couple of tracks. 

The most notable track, profile-wise, was the single Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays) , sung by Ozzy Osbourne – the first time the two men had worked together in more than a decade. “Oz called me and said: ‘If you could do with some help, I’d be more than happy to sing a track,’” says Ward. “I’m proud of my writing skills, proud of the fact that I had the courage to do it. My sobriety taught me that, okay, I can actually deliver the goods if I need to.”

Yet despite half of Black Sabbath’s original lineup being on it, barely anyone noticed Ward One . The same went for the follow-up, 1997’s When The Bough Breaks , released following Sabbath’s high-profile reunion. That album features the killer one-two of stellar soul-tinged ballad Nighthawks Stars & Pines and the Lennon-esque Try Life , which stands shoulder to shoulder with anything any of his Sabbath bandmates have recorded away from the band. 

“It was about being sober and coming through the darkness of myself and into a different life,” Ward says of the latter song. “That’s not always been an easy task. But I’ve managed it.” 

It was another 18 years before he released his third solo album, 2015’s Accountable Beasts . During that time he joined and then bailed on a reunion of the Ronnie James Dio -fronted Sabbath line-up in 2008 (they later went out under the name Heaven And Hell, with Ward’s place taken by Vinnie Appice). He did the same four years later, shortly after the original foursome announced a reunion tour, unhappy with the contract he had been offered by Sharon Osbourne. He won’t address the latter event, except to describe it as “the big thing we went through in 2012”. 

Today Ward says he’s sitting on a pile of unreleased albums – seven in total. One of these, Beyond Aston , germinated in the early 1990s and was finally finished in 2019. “It sounds incredible,” he says. “A fucking masterpiece, even though I say so myself.” 

He has “surrendered to the idea” that he could release these albums digitally, and says that may yet happen. But he wants to find someone who will put them out in physical formats, although he’s had no joy so far. 

“It’s not for lack of trying,” he says, sighing. “I think I got a bad rap a few years ago and people didn’t want to touch me. We’re within an industry that’s very tiny. I walked out on a deal, y’know…”

Despite that, he still writes every day – not only songs, but also poetry and prose. He plans to publish a couple of books, one “about life experiences in a kind of poetry format”, the other an autobiography that addresses the post-traumatic stress disorder he witnessed around him as a kid. 

The man who did as much as anyone to define the sound of a genre still plays, although not as much as he used to. He last sat behind the kit a few months before we spoke. 

“We were working out drum parts for tracks I was working on,” he says. “I did okay. I hadn’t played for a while.” 

It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Bill Ward. He was as integral as anybody to the success of Black Sabbath and everything that followed, but a combination of circumstances and choices means he hasn’t benefited from that legacy as much as his former bandmates. But you have to admire him, not just for escaping the factory and surviving everything that followed, but also for his integrity and refusal to back down from what he believes. 

“I’m in a good place every day,” he says. “I cherish what I’ve been through, and I cherish what I have left in my life. I make the best of the best."

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock , Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw , not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo , the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill . He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

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Black Sabbath Drummer Has No Idea Why He Was Hired Instead Of Bill Ward

By Andrew Magnotta @AndrewMagnotta

May 6, 2021

Touring Black Sabbath drummer Tommy Clufetos , who performed with the band on its 'The End' farewell tour, says he doesn't fully understand why he got co-founding drummer Bill Ward 's job.

Asked on Rocking With Jam Man whether Ward "should" have taken the drum throne for Sabbath's last-ever show (which was in the band's hometown of Birmingham, England), Clufetos explained that answers to those questions were well above his pay-grade at the time.

"I'm the last guy in the world who has any idea of what goes on there, so I can't say, 'Should he? Shouldn't he?' because I don't know what was really going on," Clufetos said. "All I know is that I was asked to play drums. So I don't really concern myself with things that aren't in my control. That's between him and the band. So you're asking the wrong guy the question, 'cause I'm just a drummer and I keep my mouth shut."

Clufetos has been Ozzy Osbourne 's live drummer since 2010. Being entrusted with replicating Ward's influential sound in Black Sabbath, he says, was one of the great honors of his career.

"It was a wonderful feeling...and it was an honor and a privilege to go on stage and be the guy [who was asked] to carry the torch to bring the music to the fans," he said. "And I really tried hard, my best that I could, to do justice to the great music that they created together — the four guys: Ozzy, Tony [Iommi] , Bill and Geezer [Butler] . So I just tried to revere the music and bring the same vibe that the fans were expecting. And I was proud of what I did with those guys onstage. So it was a thrill and an honor for me."

While Clufetos kept his head down to focus on the gig, he might not have gotten answers if he started asking what happened to Ward. Ozzy and Iommi were admittedly unsure as to what happened between Ward and management that caused his absence.

Leading up to the conclusion of 'The End' tour in 2017, Iommi openly wondered "what the f---k happened" with Ward not being in Black Sabbath . He explained that since he was going through cancer treatments at the time , he didn't ask too many questions himself. The band wasn't sure how long Iommi's health would hold up, so there was pressure on it to forge ahead while Iommi was able.

Ozzy later told Kerrang! that he "didn't like the fact that Bill Ward wasn't there" on the final tour, but wasn't entirely sure what happened. Up until suffering a series of health setbacks in 2018 and 2019, the Prince of Darkness was hopeful for at least one last Black Sabbath show with Ward .

Ward has maintained that the contract he was offered by Black Sabbath's management circa 2013 for the final album and tour was unsignable. As much as he regrets not being part of the band's farewell, there are no hard feelings on his part, and he remains open to a future collaboration with Iommi, Butler and Ozzy , though he says his touring days are likely over.

Photo: Getty Images

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Tommy Clufetos

Black Sabbath Drummer Tommy Clufetos Joins The Dead Daisies

by Paul Cashmere on April 12, 2015

Tommy Clufetos, last seen drumming for Black Sabbath, will join Aussie supergroup The Dead Daisies on their European tour.

Clufetos was the replacement drummer for Bill Ward in Black Sabbath when Ward and the band failed to reach an agreement for the last world tour. (Rage Against The Machine’s drummer Brad Wilk played on the last Sabbath album ‘13’).

Clufetos was the drummer for Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band. He has also worked on albums for Alice Cooper (Dirty Diamonds), Ted Nugent (Craveman and Love Grenade), Rob Zombie (Educated Horses, Zombie Live, Hellbilly Deluxe 2) and Osbourne (Scream).

The Dead Daisies have just completed work on their second album ‘Revolución’ in Sydney with Jackie Barnes (Jimmy Barnes Band) on drums and with new lead singer John Corabi, formerly of Motley Crue. Corabi was Vince Neil’s replacement in Motley Crue from 1992-1996 and sang lead on the 1994 self-titled Motley Crue album.

The Dead Daisies will tour Europe in May and June with Kiss and also tour with Kiss on their Australian dates.

The Dead Daisies dates

Sat, May 30 – Rockavaria (Munich, Germany) Sun, May 31 – Der Ring (Gelsenkirchen, Germany) Tue, June 2 – 02 Arena (Hamburg, Germany) with KISS Wed, June 3 – 02 Arena (Berlin, Germany) with KISS Thur, June 4 – Leipzig Arena (Leipzig Germany) with KISS Sat, June 6 – Rock In Vienna Festival (Vienna, Austria) Mon, June 8 – Prague 02 Arena (Prague Czech Republic) with KISS Wed, June 10 – Zurich Hallenstadion (Zurich, Switzerland) with KISS Thur, June 11 – Verona Arena (Verona, Italy) with KISS Sun, June 14 – Download Festival (Derby, UK) Tue, June 16 Le Zenith (Paris, France) with KISS Thur, June 18 Ziggo Dome (Amsterdam Holland) with KISS Fri, June 19 Graspop Festival (Graspop, Belgium) Sun, June 21 Barcelona Palau San Jordi (Barcelona, Spain) with KISS Mon, June 22 Barclaycard Arena (Madrid, Spain) with KISS

The Dead Daisies, the Noise11 interview

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A writing archive covering a variety of topics: travel, film, music and more., black sabbath | new album and tour in 2015.

On Sept. 29, 2014 news spread like wildfire that Black Sabbath  are to finish their career with one last final album and tour, likely to be produced by Rick Rubin. The story seemed to appear first as a  “world exclusive” on  Classic Rock , then was picked up by music news sites around the world. Joe Siegler’s  Black Sabbath online  page, an encyclopedic fan page dedicated to the band, was forced to post an  update on Sept. 29  stating that the announcement was not yet officially confirmed.

Fans waited with bated breath for a retraction from the band’s management, skeptical since the news seemed a little too good to be true. A retraction never came, and on Oct. 22 Ozzy re-confirmed the news in an  Esquire interview .  Note: there is still no official announcement from the band or from individual members, but it looks like the album will be moving forward! There remain several questions as how to this will all pan out. Below is a discussion of some of the variables regarding the new album and tour.

Who will produce?

Rick Rubin remains the most likely producer of the new Black Sabbath album. He’s a world-famous producer with a long string of classic albums under his belt. Any project with his name attached automatically becomes larger in scope: higher budget, more publicity, bigger financial return. Yet Rubin has also developed a reputation for producing critically acclaimed albums for bands and then moving on to the next project.

Will Rubin want to produce Black Sabbath again, or did he complete what he wanted to with the release of  13 ? Rubin went so far as to edit the final song of  13 , “Dear Father”, to include thunder and church bells (without the band’s approval, incidentally) to create a continuity with Black Sabbath’s self-titled song from their debut album. Rubin without a doubt believed 13  to be the band’s final album. I could see how he may want to skip this last album in order to avoid risking his own legacy with the band. After all,  13  has sold over 1,000,000 copies worldwide and became the band’s first and only No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. It’s going to be difficult to match that success.

Whether or not Rubin ends up producing, the choice of producer will have an immense impact on the final sound of the album. If Rubin ends up producing, expect a continuation of the  13  sound, capturing the sound and spirit of the early 70’s. With  13  Rubin did an immense job of persuading the band to re-live their early years, before “heavy metal” existed as a genre and the band’s music was influenced more by blues/jazz and live jam sessions. At the time, Black Sabbath had more in common with bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and other hard rock icons of the time.

If someone besides Rubin produces I think it’s more likely that the band comes out with a more modern production. If you look at the band’s output as a band, and also including all solo projects, all members of Black Sabbath have been playing in a “heavy metal” style since at least the mid-80’s. Without Rubin at the helm I think it’s more likely that the band naturally reverts to more of a heavy metal sound, perhaps similar to Ozzy’s solo material.

Who will drum?

The other main question is who will drum on a new Black Sabbath album? This question I think is necessarily linked to who will produce. If Rubin ends up producing, the stakes are much higher. I expect the studio and Rubin himself to push strongly for Bill Ward’s return to the band. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if Rubin’s role as producer is actually predicated on having Bill Ward on drums. However, as has long been the case, it remains unclear if Ward is physically up to the role or if the financial details can be successfully worked out. If Ward is unable to play, I expect Rubin’s second choice would again be Brad Wilk, if he’s available. It’s not clear if Wilk himself would be interested, as he was not selected to be drummer for the 13  tour and in interviews the band came off as somewhat indifferent to his album performance.

If a different producer is chosen, I would expect the band to also try to reconcile with Bill Ward, up to a point. If it doesn’t work with Ward, I would expect the band to reward Tommy Clufetos for his loyalty. Clufetos, a long-term drummer for Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band, was passed over for the recording of  13 , only to be picked up for the tour. By most accounts his drumming has improved considerably during the  13  tour and today he could be a better match for the band in the studio. If Clufetos is selected as drummer, that may also push the next album in more of a heavy metal direction, given his main gigs have been with Ozzy’s solo band and with Rob Zombie.

Other drummer names periodically come up, but they are much less likely. Die-hard Black Sabbath fans would surely push for Vinny Appice, who has a long history playing with Black Sabbath, mostly the Ronnie James Dio years, and with Dio’s solo band. Rick Rubin reportedly suggested Cream’s Ginger Baker for  13 , who Tony Iommi dismissed outright for unspecified, presumably personality-related, reasons. Other names reportedly considered have included Phil Collins of Genesis and Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but these are even less likely. Fans frequently suggest names like Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Vinnie Paul of Pantera, but there is nothing to indicate either has been seriously considered.

If you look at Black Sabbath’s long history of drummers, though, it’s clear that the band doesn’t pick people based on name or reputation, or even necessarily skill. They may only want Bill Ward on drums and if that doesn’t work out, they will probably be fine with Clufetos or Wilk. At this late point in their career the band is acutely aware that their recording/touring time is quickly running out and that they don’t have time to audition and select the perfect drummer. A perfect drummer in this case, apart from Ward, may be a young drummer with lots of stamina who does what he is told and does not expect a huge paycheck.

What happened to the extra ’13’ songs?

Another question that remains is what exactly happened to the 4 unreleased songs from the 13  sessions? They have not been released to date, so presumably the band is holding these tracks back in the event there’s a need to use them for the upcoming album. Tony Iommi has stated previously that he does not like to use old songs in this manner, but if there are any problems recording the next album, I think we can expect these tracks to surface to fill in any gaps.

With that possibility in mind, a mixed production seems a very real possibility, with perhaps half the album produced by Rubin (the 4 unreleased songs) and the other half produced by someone else (or multiple producers). The same could be said of the drummer situation; maybe some songs will feature Wilk and some will feature Clufetos. There are reportedly also demos made with Bill Ward before he left the ‘13’ sessions, so perhaps there’s even a possibility of using some of those demos for the upcoming album.

Who will be the live drummer and how extensive will the tour be?

Finally, who will be on the drum stool for the upcoming tour? If Bill Ward is selected, expect the band to have a replacement drummer waiting in the wings, ready to step in in case Ward cannot continue. This has long been a band practice, as Ward’s live performances have been questionable since at least the mid-2000’s. If Ward is not selected, it’s very likely that Clufetos will continue to be the live drummer. He knows all the songs, he has the stamina and he has won over a skeptical fan base.

It’s possible that Clufetos will play the bulk of the live shows and then Ward may take the stage to do 2-3 songs. Regardless of what happens with Ward, most fans would love to see him play some role in this last saga of the band’s history. Ideally, I think the final show should be in the band’s hometown of Birmingham, England, with Ward on drums for one last time. It’s also very likely that Ward could be selected just for the album, where he can play in a safe and controlled environment, and that Clufetos will end up playing all or the bulk of the live shows.

How long should fans expect this final tour to last? That truly is something very unpredictable, especially with Tony Iommi’s ongoing cancer treatments. It will be interesting to see what is finally decided upon. My gut feeling is that the tour this time around will only hit major markets, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and places like that. But we’ll see! The touring side of this is definitely something that can’t really be commented on at this time.

Looking for more info? Be sure to check out Joe Siegler’s  Black Sabbath online  page. Everything you ever wanted to know about the band is available, including an  extensive timeline  of the band. The forum section is also a great resource to connect with other fans and to answer any questions you may have. 2015 should be a great year for rock ‘n’ roll, when Black Sabbath, the “godfathers of metal” return for one last album and tour. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that all goes as planned, ideally with Bill Ward behind the drum kit for one last time.

Ultimately, Black Sabbath did not decide to record a follow-up to 13 . Four unreleased songs from the 13 sessions were released as “bonus” tracks on some versions of 13 , most notably the Best Buy Deluxe version , which included all four songs and a lenticular/hologram cover. The four unreleased songs were “Methademic,” “Peace of Mind,” “Pariah,” and “Naïveté In Black.”

As it turns out there were additional songs from the 13 sessions that were later released. On Jan. 20, 2016 the band released The End EP which was sold as a concert exclusive for the band’s final world tour. The EP contained four additional tracks never heard before, including “Season of the Dead,” “Cry All Night,” “Take Me Home,” and “Isolated Man”. Rounding out the EP were four live recordings captured during the 2013-2014 tour. Brad Wilk played drums on the studio recordings; Tommy Clufetos played drums on the live recordings.

With a total of eight unreleased songs from the 13 sessions it was almost as if fans really did receive a whole new album. Unfortunately, due to the haphazard manner of release, and especially regarding The End EP , many of these songs were not heard by fans and they did not receive the attention they should have. The End EP is particularly an expensive collector’s item now and is frequently bootlegged. Many of the songs were just as good as the songs on 13 , or even better. Purists may also appreciate that the unreleased songs are “underproduced” and retain a certain raw aesthetic.

The final Black Sabbath world tour, also entitled The End , began on Jan. 20, 2016 in Omaha, Nebraska, coinciding with the release of The End EP , of course. The final show of the tour, and their final tour to date, was on Feb. 4, 2017 in the band’s hometown of Birmingham. Tommy Clufetos played for the entire tour, including the final dates in Birmingham.

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Watch: OZZY OSBOURNE/BLACK SABBATH Touring Drummer TOMMY CLUFETOS Performs In Westland, Michigan

TOMMY'S ROCKTRIP , drummer Tommy Clufetos 's ( OZZY OSBOURNE , BLACK SABBATH ) new hard rock outfit, where he offers his take on the rock 'n roll influences that made him one of the most sought-after drummers in the current hard rock scene, performed this past Thursday (March 28) at the Token Lounge in Westland, Michigan. Fan-filmed video of the concert, which featured original tracks as well as songs by the artists with whom Tommy has played, can be seen below (courtesy of the BIGKEV420   YouTube channel).

Performing with Clufetos in TOMMY'S ROCKTRIP 's current touring lineup are three members of the band LOST HEARTS : Max Frye on vocals and guitar, JT Shea on bass, and Victor Adriel on guitar.

Clufetos told The Detroit News : "I'm going on tour as a little experiment, to get out some pent-up rock 'n' roll energy.

"It's a melding of the styles I enjoy, updated with a youthful rock 'n' roll attitude," he said. "It is pile-driving hard rock 'n' roll. My own tunes are hard rock with a little more blues than what's going on with modern rock radio.

"It has that raw and real in-your-face feel," he added. "We’re just four musicians playing together, which is a dying thing. We have guitars, bass, drums, vocals, no filters, no click tracks, no pre-recorded anything. We're just four guys, for better or for worse. It could be great, or it could be a train wreck. We'll see what happens."

Osbourne told The Detroit News : "I'm really proud that Tommy is going out and doing his own shows. Not only is he one of the best drummers I've ever played with in my life, but I consider him a friend. I understand he'll be playing 'War Pigs' [by BLACK SABBATH ] in his set. Believe me, I would love to be up there singing it, with him playing drums."

In a recent interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station, Clufetos spoke about what it was like to play with Osbourne for eight years, first as a member of Ozzy 's solo band and then as the replacement for Bill Ward in BLACK SABBATH 's touring lineup. He said: " Ozzy , he gets it. I mean, the guy's been doing it for 50 years. He's had enormous success. And I've played on stage with a bunch of people. And when I'm behind Ozzy , we go to war together… I like to look up to my elders, put it that way. It's like when I was a kid and my grandpa would be sitting there. Maybe your grandpa doesn't speak all the time. They know when to speak.

"You can pick up a lot of things from older musicians because they have the experience and they're five times more experienced down the line than you are," Tommy explained. "And if you watch, you can pick up a lot of clever tricks. And I've learned so much from Ozzy . I've learned so much from [playing with] Ted Nugent — where you can go, 'Oh, in 20 years, I'm gonna use that trick that they just did.' It was one split second. So all these little showbiz tricks, I have a lot of things in my back pocket from working with very experienced, talented people. And I've been so lucky for that."

Regarding what it was like to play his first show with BLACK SABBATH , sharing the stage with the band's original members Ozzy , guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler , Tommy said: "It's — the steps. The steps to playing locally in Detroit, the steps to learning to back other people. When I started playing with my dad, we would play all these so-called oldies shows where there would be five, six, seven acts on a show. And you had to learn how to read the front singers and play different styles of music. So I've done all these little different, many different, millions of different things of learning to play in different situations that it all adds up to playing with BLACK SABBATH and being ready when that opportunity presents itself."

He continued: "I talk to a lot of young kids, and they'll think some old people are kind of cheesy and goofy, and I point out to them, 'Well, back in the '60s, those were the rock stars. Maybe they're 75 now and they may look goofy to you, but you can learn a lot.' I used to play for LITTLE ANTHONY AND THE IMPERIALS , which is a big, I'd say doo-wop '60s group who had a bunch of hits — four wonderful black singers, and, at the time, they were in their 60s. And they would all get ready together and put on their suits together and make sure their hair looked good and they danced and the moves and just soaking this energy in of always being professional, always going up there and giving it your best.

"When I go up with my own thing [on my upcoming tour with TOMMY'S ROCKTRIP ], it's not gonna be any different. I can honestly say, from being in Detroit, from being raised the right way by my parents, through having a work ethic and being professional and wanting to be the best that I can be, it all adds up to what you're doing. So I'm going to bring the best of what I have [to those shows]."

In May 2021, TOMMY'S ROCKTRIP released its debut album, "Beat Up By Rock 'N' Roll" , via Frontiers Music Srl . Eric Dover , known for singing and playing guitar with JELLYFISH , SLASH'S SNAKEPIT and Alice Cooper , handled lead vocals on the LP (though Tommy grabbed the mic for three tracks). Eliot Lorengo (bass), Hank Schneekluth (guitar) and Nao Nakashima (guitar) rounded out the supporting cast.

Clufetos worked with such rock icons as Ted Nugent , Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie before joining Ozzy Osbourne in 2010. That led to a spot as the drummer on BLACK SABBATH 's last two world tours.

In a 2021 interview with Jason Saulnier , Clufetos was asked if he ever finds himself looking back on the fact that he played drums for BLACK SABBATH on the legendary heavy metal band's final tour. "I always feel blessed that I was lucky, I was honored to play with those guys 'cause they're a great musicians," he said. "But I don't look at it as — I was never a member. Once a gig's over, a gig's over. So I don't really live in the past concerning that; I always have to plow forward — as does everybody. I can't look back. I can appreciate it — that's not saying I don't appreciate it — but I'm also not gonna dwell on I played with BLACK SABBATH one time, because then you're living in the past. I've got many more years to move forward to continue my career and pay my bills. It doesn't mean that I don't love what I do, but it is my job, and it's my craft, and it's an ongoing thing to me. So that was that gig, and that ended, and now it's, what do you do next? It's always that."

He continued: "Every tour ends; every band ends eventually… To me, it's work. To, that works to me. And I'm working to be better, and I'm working to get better. Hopefully I'm a better drummer than [I was] then. And it's always been the process; I'm always chipping away at the stone. And my drums are right there. And after I get done with these interviews, I will go right there and play and see what else comes out of me going right there and playing. 'Cause everything has come out of me sitting at the drums trying to be the best that I can be."

Clufetos did not play on the SABBATH reunion album, "13" , a role that was filled by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE drummer Brad Wilk . Ozzy Osbourne told The Pulse Of Radio at the time that Clufetos was gong to play on the record until producer Rick Rubin stepped in.

Although original BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward was initially announced as part of the reunion in late 2011, he dropped out within a couple of months, saying he was offered an "unsignable" contract.

The members of SABBATH were reportedly concerned that Ward 's health would not hold up on the road and allegedly asked him to accept the use of a second drummer on tour, which he refused.

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Drummer for Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper and others steps into the spotlight

Tommy Clufetos never wanted to do “his own thing.”

Clufetos — raised in Rochester by way of Redford Township — worked as a hired gun, playing drums behind the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie and fellow former Detroiters Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper.

The tide has turned, though, and now he is on a short tour of the Midwest with his band, Tommy’s RockTrip. The itinerary includes a stop at Westland’s Token Lounge on Thursday.

“I’m going on tour as a little experiment, to get out some pent-up rock ‘n’ roll energy,” said Clufetos, who now lives near Nashville with his wife and daughter.

The show will feature original tracks as well as songs by the artists with whom he’s performed. He’ll also sprinkle in unexpected tunes.

“It’s a melding of the styles I enjoy, updated with a youthful rock ‘n’ roll attitude,” he said. “It is pile-driving hard rock ‘n’ roll. My own tunes are hard rock with a little more blues than what's going on with modern rock radio.”

Among the songs on the set list is “War Pigs” by the Osbourne-led Black Sabbath.

“I’m really proud that Tommy is going out and doing his own shows,” Osbourne told The Detroit News. “Not only is he one of the best drummers I’ve ever played with in my life, but I consider him a friend. I understand he’ll be playing ‘War Pigs’ in his set. Believe me, I would love to be up there singing it, with him playing drums.”

Clufetos began drumming at age 6, when he received his first pair of sticks. He balanced school and playing the drums in his dad’s act — Tommy C. and the Gamut Band — throughout his formative years, often attending class on only a few hours of sleep.

In his early teens, Clufetos was voted the best drummer younger than 16 in North America at the Music West Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Representatives of Pearl Drums, a manufacturer of percussion instruments, along with Charlie Quintana, drummer for Bob Dylan and Izzy Stradlin, and Gregg Bissonette, drummer for David Lee Roth, and Joe Satriani were judges.

Clufetos and 14-year-old Leo Coodin of Vancouver were chosen from 1,500 drummers who sent in performance tapes to the drum company to compete for the title. Clufetos’ prize was a $1,200 Pearl Forum series drum kit.

Early in his career, Clufetos played with Mitch Ryder. However, he got his break, thanks to Bob Seger saxophonist Alto Reed, who asked him to play on a movie soundtrack. Nugent was performing on it, too.

“I was working on the soundtrack for Jeff Daniels’ ‘Escanaba In da Moonlight’ movie with Michael Lutz and the late, great Alto Reed at our Tazmania Studios in Ann Arbor, and word on the street was there was another killer young drummer in Detroit by the name of Tommy Clufetos,” Nugent told The Detroit News.

“We got him in the studio to record a few high-energy rockers and he came on like a Johnny Bee — gangbusters with power and Motorcity (sic) groove. I knew right away he could nail my powerhouse songs live, and hired him on the spot,” Nugent said.

Clufetos parlayed his talents into runs with a veritable who’s who of rock bands, performing with Cooper and Zombie before joining Osbourne in 2010. Black Sabbath subsequently hired Clufetos to play on two world tours.

In May 2021, Tommy’s Rocktrip released its debut collection “Beat Up by Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Jellyfish’s Eric Dover and Clufetos shared vocal duties.

Clufetos is enthusiastic when he talks about his music and he’s confident ticketholders will dig it.

“It has that raw and real in-your-face feel,” he said. “We’re just four musicians playing together, which is a dying thing. We have guitars, bass, drums, vocals, no filters, no click tracks, no pre-recorded anything.

“We’re just four guys, for better or for worse. It could be great, or it could be a train wreck. We’ll see what happens.”

At age 44, Clufetos calls himself middle-aged, but that hasn’t tempered his drive. He’s more intense; he works harder and says, “I like that about myself.” 

Clufetos enjoys the struggle, as it creates the required tension on stage.

“I like that edge,” he said. “I’m bringing that to Detroit. That’s really what sets Detroit apart from other cities. The music has an edge — at least it used to.

“I was listening to the Temptations the other day. It was just so good. They’re so tight, so perfect and that means that the musicians cared about the music. They’re invested in what they do. I’m invested in what I do.”

Tommy’s RockTrip w/Creeping Chaos

7:30 p.m. Thursday

The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Road, Westland

Tickets start at $15

Call 734-513-5030 or visit tokenlounge.com