Tony Iommi has opened up about the possibility of more Black Sabbath shows following their farewell tour, saying “You can never say never, can you?”

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Black Sabbath finished off their 81-date farewell tour The End in 2017 with a homecoming show at Birmingham’s Genting Arena. In a new interview with Planet Rock, though, Iommi says a reunion isn’t impossible.

“You can never say never, can you? We’ve known in this band you can never say, ‘That’s never gonna happen again,’ because every time we said that, it has. We never thought we’d get back with Ozzy after the early years. We never thought we’d get back with [Ronnie James] Dio again; we did. So you just can’t say it’s never gonna happen.”

“It’s just the major touring that has come to a stop. I wouldn’t wanna do 18-month tours again but that doesn’t say we wouldn’t do any one-off stuff,” he continued.

However, last September, Ozzy Osbourne admitted he didn’t have the “slightest interest” in a return for Black Sabbath. “It’s done,” the frontman said, while bassist Geezer Butler confirmed “there will definitely be no more Sabbath” that November.

Iommi has also revealed that he’ll feature on Ozzy Osbourne’s upcoming solo album. “I wrote the whole track and played on it and played the solo on it,” he said. “It’s horrible, really….No. I’m joking. No, it’s good. It’s really good. And I like what Ozzy sang on it. I think he did a really good job. And I think they had Chad [Smith, of Red Hot Chili Peppers] play drums on it. I’ve left it in their hands now.”

The former Sabbath frontman recently confirmed that 15 songs have been recorded for his follow-up to 2020’s Ordinary Man. Last month Ozzy told Metal Hammer that his new album will be “similar in tone to Ordinary Man – but I can’t describe it completely”.

“I’ve not heard it for a while because it keeps going over to the next person to add their parts – we’re fucking around with it all the time,” he said.

According to a recent financial statement issued by Sony, Osbourne’s next solo album is “anticipated over the next six months“.