Black Sabbath's bassist Geezer Butler was recently interviewed by Jonathan Clarke, host of Out Of The Box on New York's classic rock station Q104.3. During the course of their conversation, he shared some thoughts on the band's "The End" tour, which wrapped up in February 2017 in their hometown of Birmingham, England.
Reflecting on the experience, Butler said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): "It was great. I mean, we knew that physically it was becoming hard, especially since Tony had cancer at the time and he just said, 'I think I've got one more tour left in me and that's it. That's all I can do.' And so we put that tour together as the final thing. We all would have loved to have Bill [Ward, original Sabbath's drummer] with us, but Bill's a proud guy. He's had heart problems and everything. And we said, 'Well, just come out and do, like, three songs or something,' and he said, 'No. I either do the whole thing or I'm not doing any of it.' And so, fair enough. And so we just carried on to the end, and that was it."
When asked about Ozzy Osbourne's recent statement expressing his desire for a reunion of the original band, including Ward, for one final show, Butler responded: "Yeah. Ozzy desperately wants to do, 'cause of his health conditions, he desperately wants to do a final Ozzy Osbourne [solo] concert. And he said to me, 'I'd love Sabbath to do a couple of songs, two or three songs, as the final show ever' — Ozzy's final show and Sabbath's final show. And I said, 'Yeah, I'm up for it, definitely.' But I'm not sure what the others are up to. Me and Ozzy, we're up for it. But whether Tony and Bill would do it, I don't know."
Butler was also recently interviewed by BraveWords, and when asked about a final Black Sabbath show with the original line-up, he shared a much less optimistic outlook: “Ozzy has been texting me about doing one final show with Bill and that’s it, but it’s just not going to happen. But I always said that the original Black Sabbath would never get back together. So you say these things hoping if a miracle happens, that would be great to do it. But it’s up to everyone’s health, but I can’t see it happening. I’d love it to happen, even if it was one final song with the original four of us, with Bill on the drums. Even if it’s just one song.”
