Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi is making a solo album

Tony Iommi sat and holding a microphone in 2023

(Image credit: Ollie Millington/Getty Images)

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has said that he is working on a new solo record.

The 76-year-old, who was the sole constant member of Sabbath from their 1968 founding to their disbanding 49 years later, makes the revelation in a new conversation with Full Metal Jackie.

“I am writing stuff now for my own, for an album,” Iommi states (per Blabbermouth).

“So that’s exciting too. And there’s no pressure.

“I just do stuff when I feel like it, because, obviously, I’ve got a life to live and I like to do all the different stuff.

“But I’ve really enjoyed doing this stuff, as I did with Ozz [Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne] when I’d done a couple of tracks for his last [solo] album [2022’s Patient Number 9], which was good, to work with Ozz again.

“And I’m quite open for all that now. Whatever comes, and I like it, I do it.”

When asked if he’s going to do a “proper record” under his own name, Iommi doubles down, saying: “No, I’m gonna do a record. And I’ve got a lot of stuff [written].

“But now we’re actually getting around to sort of putting it together, myself and the engineer. So it’s been good fun, really.

“And as I say, there’s no pressure. I can just do it – I don’t have to do it by next week. And because of everything else [that has] been lurking around, I have to take my time in doing things.

“But it’s been fun. And that’s what it's all about, really. And I’m looking forward to actually doing it and an album coming out.”

Iommi has released two solo records already: Iommi (2000) and Fused (2005).

The 1986 Sabbath album Seventh Star was intended to be the guitarist’s solo debut, but record label pressures forced it to be released under the name “Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi”.

Iommi’s most recent piece of solo music was the standalone track Scent Of Dark, released in 2021 to promote the guitarist’s fragrance of the same name.

Iommi teamed with System Of A Down vocalist Serj Tankian and Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian on a song called Deconstruction last year.

The guitarist reveals in the Full Metal Jackie interview that a second Xerjoff/Tony Iommi fragrance is currently being worked on.

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.