Black Sabbath Legend Reveals Strange Behind-The-Scenes Tension With Famous Producer
· Vice
Black Sabbath released their final album, 13, after an 18-year break following Forbidden from 1995. This album marked Ozzy Osbourne’s first with the band since 1978, and also brought bassist Geezer Butler back after almost 20 years. For the first time in decades, three original members of Black Sabbath were making an album together—Osbourne, Butler, and guitarist Tony Iommi.
But as Iommi revealed in an October 2026 interview with Planet Rock, working with legendary producer Rick Rubin on that album wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. Rubin is widely known for his eccentric work ethic and philosophies. But in this case, Iommi found his behavior more strange than eccentric.
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“On our last Sabbath album we did with [producer] Rick Rubin, we didn’t have time to absorb what we’d done,” Iommi began. “Because Rick wouldn’t talk to the others. He talked to me, and I’d have to tell them. I don’t know what happened there.”
Producer Rick Rubin Only Spoke to the Rest of Black Sabbath Through Guitarist Tony Iommi During ’13’ Recording Sessions
Speaking of the recording sessions for Black Sabbath’s 2013 final album, Tony Iommi recalled a specific moment of weirdness. They recorded most of the album at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California, and Iommi described an incident that occurred right before taking a weekend off.
“Rick phoned me on the Friday and said, ‘Oh, could you come up with a song like ‘Planet Caravan’ [from Black Sabbath’s 1970 album Paranoid] to record on Monday?'” Iommi said. “I went, ‘What?!’ [He said] ‘You come up with a song.’ [I went], ‘Blimey!'”
He added, “So, I worked on this idea and [Rubin] said, ‘We can record it Monday.’ But nobody else [in Black Sabbath] knew.” Because of Rick Rubin’s unexplainable decision to only speak with Black Sabbath through Tony Iommi, no one else in the band was aware of the new song.
“We got in there Monday, and Rick said, ‘We’re going to put this song down,'” Iommi continued. “Geezer went, ‘What song?!’ [Rubin replied], ‘Well, Tony’s done a song here. We’re going to put that down.’ [Geezer] went, ‘I don’t even know what it is. I don’t know what key [it] is.'”
Talk about being blindsided. The band ended up getting the song down, said Iommi, “But it was such an awkward situation.”
Geezer Butler Called Rubin’s Work Ethic ‘Mad’, but Also ‘Good For Publicity’
In 2022, Geezer Butler discussed 13 on an episode of The Eddie Trunk Podcast, recalling the process of working with Rubin. While his own opinions on the producer leaned more favorable overall, he did recall several moments that seemed a bit ridiculous. For example, Rubin told them to pretend they weren’t a heavy metal band.
“That was the first thing [Rick Rubin] said to us,” said Butler. “He played us our very first album, and he said, ‘Cast your mind back to then when there was no such thing as heavy metal or anything like that, and pretend it’s the follow-up album to that.’ Which is a ridiculous thing to think.”
Butler also mentioned that Rubin pushed Ozzy Osbourne to redo so many vocal tracks that the frontman eventually exploded. “I think Ozzy one day went nuts ’cause he’d done, like, 10 different vocals, and Rick kept saying, ‘Yeah, that’s great, but do another one,'” said Butler. “And Ozzy was, like, ‘If it’s great, why am I doing another one?’ He just lost it.”
Photo by Chelsea Lauren/WireImage
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