Geezer Butler says he has “no idea” if Black Sabbath’s final tour will ever happen.
The bassist and guitarist Tony Iommi reunited with estranged drummer Bill Ward at Thursday’s Ivor Novello Awards in London where the band were given the Lifetime Achievement Award. Singer Ozzy Osbourne was not at the ceremony.
Months after Osbourne’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne said the band would play their “farewell show” at Ozzfest Japan in November, that appearance was then cancelled and Ozzy suggested a final tour and album would be coming in 2016.
However, Butler is not entirely convinced. Saying he has “no idea” if it will happen, he tells the NME: “I’d love to keep going, I’d desperately want to keep going before I kick the bucket.”
Iommi adds: “It’d be lovely to do a last tour, it’d be really nice to do that.”
Ward repeated his stance that his issues with Ozzy would need to be sorted out if there was any chance of him returning for a final hurrah with Sabbath.
He says: “I’m in a huge dispute with Ozzy so that doesn’t really help and as far as I’m concerned, until that dispute is finished then I’m not gonna participate.
”They’ve already made an album without me so I’m sure they’d go on without me playing and that’s OK with me – I still love them just the same. I’d love to think I could, but the things I’m asking for may be out of reach.”
