Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has opened up about collaborating with Queen’s Brian May on his upcoming solo album, From The Dark.
Talking to Loudwire, Iommi, 78, calls May, 79, his best friend, having known him for “56, 58” years. “And of course, Eddie Van Halen was,” he adds. “We always stayed in touch a lot. They were the only two I really did stay in touch with.”
He goes on to describe the process of getting May to contribute to Death Wake, the sixth song on the From The Dark tracklisting. He details a very casual process where May “came to my house, and we always have a little fiddle about”.
“He brings a guitar or I’ve got one here and he’ll use that,” he continues. “I said, ‘Oh, bring your guitar when you come,’ he brought his guitar and I said, ‘You’re going to be playing on this track here.’ He’s great.”
He reveals that he wanted May to play on more From The Dark songs, but that the guitarist politely declined: “I said to him, ‘Play on some other tracks,’ but he went, ‘Oh no, it’s your album.' That’s the relationship we’ve had with each other for all these years. We’ve played a lot together. He is a great friend.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Iommi looks back at Black Sabbath’s final show, Back To The Beginning, which took place at Villa Park stadium in their hometown of Birmingham on July 2, 2025. The guitarist calls the show a “great honour” but “unusual” due to singer Ozzy Osbourne’s declining health at the time. Ozzy died of a heart attack 17 days later, aged 76.
“For me, it was difficult because seeing Ozzy sitting in a throne is not the way I see him,” says Iommi. “Always [when] we’ve been onstage, he’s been running around and he’d run up to Geezer [Butler, bass] and pull a face jokingly and come over to me and pull a face or the drummer or whatever.
“We always had a little laugh onstage and enjoy when he’d run about. But at Back To The Beginning, of course, he's in a throne and I couldn’t see him, which felt very unusual.”
From The Dark is set to drop on October 23 and will be Iommi’s first solo album since 2005. Joining the pioneering heavy metal axeman on every song will be singer Jørn Lande (Masterplan, Avantasia, etc.), bassist Becky Baldwin (Mercyful Fate) and drummer Karl Brazil (Robbie Williams). Iommi and his longtime collaborator Mike Exeter co-produce.
Iommi unveiled the album’s details and screened the music video for its lead single, World Alone, at a Birmingham launch event on July 29, where he took part in a Q&A with stand-up comedian Frank Skinner. The guitarist commented: “It’s an album we’ve really enjoyed making. We’re not trying to prove anything – it’s a great album, it rocks!”
Iommi isn’t the only Sabbath member to continue a solo career following the band’s retirement. Drummer Bill Ward said in June last year that he has two new solo albums in the works. He revealed last month that he now needs a wheelchair to get about, but defiantly added, “I’m still a drummer.”
