Black Sabbath planned blues album after 13

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has revealed that the band were planning to record a blues album as a follow-up to 2013’s 13.

Frontman Ozzy Osbourne told Metal Hammer in 2014 that they were planning another album - but with 81 tour dates subsequently booked in North and South America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand on Sabbath’s The End tour, those plans were shelved.

And when asked if there was a possibility of him returning to the band’s roots on a blues project, Butler now tells Music Radar: “The follow-up to 13 was going to be a blues album, but the tour got in the way.

“It would take something like two or three years to do it properly, and we thought we might not all be here by that time, so it would be better to do the final tour first and then maybe we’ll do a blues record later.”

Black Sabbath brought the curtain down on their 49-year career with a sold out show at Birmingham’s Genting Arena in February – although guitarist Tony Iommi has hinted that one-off shows could happen in the future.

In an interview with Classic Rock when asked if playing another show in their hometown of Birmingham to mark their 50th anniversary next year could happen, Iommi reported: “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? But again, there’s nothing planned. Not to my knowledge, anyway, but if we were offered something like that I think it would be great.”

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