As far as comparing it to Sabbath or Ozzy, on this one I'm in total control.
As long as kids who pay money to see it are fine with it, fine by me.
Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everybody joined in and we just did it.
Dogs of Whore is about a warring general. My lyrics are about what's happening with people in the outer world.
However long the song is was how long it took us to write it.
I can't sit down and listen to a whole album. I like listening to musicianship rather than a sound kind of thing.
I could do something on bass that was terrible and nobody told me.
I did not want to put to many songs that sounded the same on the same album.
I don't feel a lack of hope. It's just disappointment that after all these years we're still fighting meaningless wars for a handful of people.
I don't really listen to modern metal music these days.
I have millions of riffs from over the years and we just basically played a few tapes and turned riffs into songs.
I just have fun doing what I do. I am certainly not doing it for the money because there is certainly not any money in it.
I just prefer playing straight bass.
I like to deal in the reality of life. I'm too old to sing about women and things like that.
I like to do things quickly because I do not have much patience.
I like to get more definition by using a pick. I'm getting used to using a pick. Before I couldn' t do it.
I listened to the Fear Factory. We brought him over to England and played him the music and he loved it and we went from there.
I love soccer. That's all I ever watch. I'll watch it all day if I can. But I'm too bloody old to play now.
I never picked a bass up before Sabbath started.
I never try and sound like Sabbath.
I tend to sort of try something and then once I've done it I really don't go back to it.
I think I finally got the direction right. For the last seven years I have been writing tons of songs, but they are in different directions.
I thought, well, Sabbath's finished now so I'm just going to do me own thing.
I wanted to be able to play live or in a rehearsal situation. The keyboard stuff I was doing was strictly studio.
I was auditioning drummers in England and I wasn't getting anywhere. I was doing the Ozzy album.
I was so frustrated in Sabbath after the last few albums. I just didn't like the musical direction Sabbath was going in.
I was writing lots and lots of stuff and I felt that it was more fulfilling than the stuff we were doing.
I was writing some jazz stuff, keyboard stuff, some acoustic stuff. We decided to go in a heavy direction for this record.
I would not want to write something about something I do not think about.
I'm just focusing on what pleases me at the time.
I've been perfectly happily married for 25 years, and have a nice life. Inane things don't interest me.
I've felt that a lot of the newer bands are doing what Sabbath should be doing.
If you are a pop band, don't say you're a metal band. Poison and Warrant were about as metal as the Backstreet Boys.
If you polish things too much, it loses the feeling.
It doesn't matter who you vote for. It's still the same billionaires that run the world.
It is nice all these years later to be still playing and be acclaimed for doing it.
It seems like the older bands are bigger than ever. We get a mixed crowd where you have kids and old blokes like me.
It was incredible to have that much enthusiasm for once, instead of going in and going, Oh, what are we gonna do on this one?
It's certainly not music to make us millionaires. That's all I can say, just honest.
It's totally produced now. It's almost like a conveyor belt of what metal's supposed to be like these days. It's not music to me.
Jack Bruce, as soon as I saw him, it changed me. I didn't even know what bass players did until I saw Cream.
Lately, I've been listening to some jazz albums. I love the new Pat Metheny album. John Coltrane. I still like good metal, though!
Musically, we've gone back to the way it was in 1970. We sound a lot like that still.
Nobody's ever gonna replace Bill Ward on the old stuff, because we just sort of grew together. I never even played bass until I met Bill.
Ozzy wanted to get us back together. It's been 20 years. We did a couple of songs during his farewell in 1992 and that got the ball rolling.
People said we were wasting our time. They said, Go get real jobs. My parents threw me out. To have made the album, we said, Hey, look, we did this.
Politicians are just there to give the public something that they think they're doing something about.
The '80s were the worst period. You had these horrible pop bands growing their hair and calling themselves metal.
The Geezer album, Black Science, had a lot of keyboards and it did not work.
The high point was recording our first album. We had something concrete to say.
The only reason I did the Ozzy album was because all I had to do was go in, put me bass down and that was it.
To do the Ozzfest again would be great. I'd like to finish with a final Sabbath album. You always feel that it is still a challenge.
To me, Sabbath was always JUSt a really heavy blues band. That s all we were. We just took those blues roots and made them heavier.
Toward the later days of Sabbath, instead of going in and knocking out what songs we did in rehearsal, we would polish them to death.
We experimented with bluegrass mixed with metal. It is a totally different sound but I want to get it right before I put it on album.
We grew up in an era when you just could not be old.
We had so many songs. We picked about 16 and worked on them. So we have been seriously working on them for about a year.
We had two weeks in the studio, two days of which were rehearsals and we had never worked together before. Everybody was so into it.
We just couldn't talk about it anymore in Sabbath. The easiest possible way without upsetting anybody was to just go along with it.
We just used to go to the studio and jam for two or three hours and see what came out.
We still have a following. It is nice to be able to play the old songs.
We were into Hendrix and Cream, who were like the heaviest bands around at that time. We just wanted to be heavier than everybody else!
We were just doing it for a laugh, really. We didn't think we'd make a career out of it. You don't realize how good it is at the time.
We weren't going for any poet prizes. We just did it purely and simply for what we were feeling at the time.
What I used to play was rhythm guitar before I saw Jack Bruce. I said, That's what I want to do in life. He was definitely the main influence.
When I go into the studio it has to be raw and to the point.
When we first got together there were loads of soul clubs in England and all anybody wanted to do was dance music, plus there were blues clubs.
When we first started, people put us down, said we were not relevant, said our music was not real music, totally put us down.
When you look back, you realize it has stood the test of time. It's really great to have that catalogue of work that I can look back on.
When you realize you've got your own sound, you can just pick up on that and just keep it in one direction.
When you see all of these bands citing you as influences, it makes you feel relevant.
Without a doubt, Ozzy is the craziest person I've ever met. Son of Sam is a close second.
A golf course is nothing but a pool room moved outdoors.
Bishops are like umpires. You have to have them to call the close decisions.
I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas.
The joy of giving is indeed a pleasure, especially when you get rid of something you don't want.
When I was 18, I thought my father was pretty dumb. After a while when I got to be 21, I was amazed to find out how much he'd learned in three years.
He was one of the first bassists to use a Wah-wah pedal on his bass guitar.
He has been a vegetarian since he was eight years old.
His first band was Rare Breed, with schoolmate Ozzy Osbourne.
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