Black Sabbath announced via Twitter earlier today that the band will reunite for a tour in 2012—a tour that will be in support of a new album produced by Rick Rubin.
The quartet has begun rehearsing and Rubin said it sounds like the four guys in Black Sabbath getting together and playing.
“It’s really back to the old Sabbath style and sound,” Butler told Rolling Stone.
Henry Rollins emceed Friday’s press conference at the Whiskey A Go Go, and talked about the impact the band had on his life.
“I was a very alienated young person,” Rollins said, “and when I heard Black Sabbath I realized my life had a soundtrack. This is true outsider music.”
Rollins then brought out Rubin and the four members of Black Sabbath—singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, Butler and drummer Bill Ward—and hosted a Q&A before the band answered questions from the assembled press corps.
“Why now?” Rollins asked the band. Osbourne summed it up: “It’s just time.”
Iommi added, “it’s now or never. We get along great, everything’s really good.”
The band also credited Rubin for helping get them back in the studio. “He phoned us every five minutes,” Iommi joked.
Osbourne added, “I’ve known Rick for many years, he wanted to do it a long time ago.”
This isn’t the first time Black Sabbath has reunited. The band played abbreviated sets at 1985’s Live Aid concert and during Osbourne’s 1992 “farewell” show. The band also toured behind 1998’s Reunion live album, and headlined numerous Ozzfest tours.
But the album will be Black Sabbath’s first full-length release since 1978’s Never Say Die.
