{"id":605874,"date":"2026-08-27T04:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T04:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/605874\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T04:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T04:58:25","slug":"tony-iommi-on-collaborating-with-best-friend-brian-may-for-new-solo-album-from-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/605874\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Iommi on collaborating with \u201cbest friend\u201d Brian May for new solo album From The Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Sabbath<\/a> guitarist Tony Iommi has opened up about collaborating with Queen<\/a>\u2019s Brian May on his upcoming solo album, From The Dark.<\/p>\n

Talking to Loudwire<\/a>, Iommi, 78, calls May, 79, his best friend, having known him for \u201c56, 58\u201d years. \u201cAnd of course, Eddie Van Halen was,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe always stayed in touch a lot. They were the only two I really did stay in touch with.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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 \u201ccame to my house, and we always have a little fiddle about\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe brings a guitar or I\u2019ve got one here and he\u2019ll use that,\u201d he continues. \u201cI said, \u2018Oh, bring your guitar when you come,\u2019 he brought his guitar and I said, \u2018You\u2019re going to be playing on this track here.\u2019 He\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reveals that he wanted May to play on more From The Dark songs, but that the guitarist politely declined: \u201cI said to him, \u2018Play on some other tracks,\u2019 but he went, \u2018Oh no, it\u2019s your album.’ That\u2019s the relationship we\u2019ve had with each other for all these years. We\u2019ve played a lot together. He is a great friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, Iommi looks back at Black Sabbath\u2019s final show, Back To The Beginning<\/a>, which took place at Villa Park stadium in their hometown of Birmingham on July 2, 2025. The guitarist calls the show a \u201cgreat honour\u201d but \u201cunusual\u201d due to singer Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s declining health at the time. Ozzy died of a heart attack 17 days later, aged 76.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it was difficult because seeing Ozzy sitting in a throne is not the way I see him,\u201d says Iommi. \u201cAlways [when] we\u2019ve been onstage, he\u2019s been running around and he\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe always had a little laugh onstage and enjoy when he\u2019d run about. But at Back To The Beginning, of course, he’s in a throne and I couldn\u2019t see him, which felt very unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

From The Dark is set to drop on October 23 and will be Iommi\u2019s first solo album since 2005. Joining the pioneering heavy metal<\/a> axeman on every song will be singer J\u00f8rn Lande (Masterplan, Avantasia, etc.), bassist Becky Baldwin (Mercyful Fate) and drummer Karl Brazil (Robbie Williams). Iommi and his longtime collaborator Mike Exeter co-produce.<\/p>\n

Iommi unveiled the album\u2019s details<\/a> 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: \u201cIt\u2019s an album we\u2019ve really enjoyed making. We\u2019re not trying to prove anything \u2013 it\u2019s a great album, it rocks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Iommi isn\u2019t the only Sabbath member to continue a solo career following the band\u2019s retirement. Drummer Bill Ward said in June last year that he has two new solo albums in the works<\/a>. He revealed last month that he now needs a wheelchair to get about<\/a>, but defiantly added, \u201cI\u2019m still a drummer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has opened up about collaborating with Queen\u2019s Brian May on his upcoming solo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-605874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}