Black Sabbath guitar legend Tony Iommi has shared a year-end video message, summing up his 2023. Check it out below.
Following is an excerpt:
"Last year when I did my message, I did say we'd have a (Tony Martin era) box set coming out. Well, now I've been informed that it'll be out in May. It's been held up with paperwork and legal stuff. But anyway, it's coming out in May now, if you're interested, and I hope you are."
"It's been an interesting year again this year. It's great, great fun. A lot of different things happening. I was working with the Birmingham Royal Ballet with Carlos Acosta on doing the Black Sabbath Ballet, which was absolutely marvelous. I mean, they've done such a brilliant job. And the dancers are fantastic. Just all the people involved in it were just so into it, and it was great fun. And I was making an appearance on the end of some of the shows; not all of them; just some of them. But as soon as they put it on sale, the tickets sold out like that, which was fantastic. We had a lot of Sabbath fans come in who really enjoyed it. So, hopefully next year, or this year, of course, by the time you get this message, they're talking of taking it to America and Europe. So hopefully that'll happen, and everybody can get to see it. But it's well worth watching. Fantastic."
In December 2022, Iommi confirmed that Black Sabbath's I.R.S. Records-era albums, which feature Tony Martin, would be released in 2023. Martin was with Black Sabbath from 1987 - 1991, then again between 1993 - 1997. He recorded five albums with the band: The Eternal Idol (1987), Headless Cross (1989), Tyr (1990), Cross Purposes (1994), and Forbidden (1995).
Martin discussed the box set with Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from Canada's The Metal Voice in November 2022, saying "They're re-releasing the Tony Martin-era albums. I have no idea what's happening with it. I know it's going to be next year but that's all I know, and it was the same back then, that I never really knew anything. I had my own personal manager Tony (Iommi) had a manager, Geezer Butler had a manager, it was a bit like Spinal Tap everybody's got their own manager. You'd speak to your manager, then he'd phone up somebody else's manager to go down to them and then he'd come back up to me. So it was a bit mad you know, being in the band and a lot of the time it was reading between the lines to try and get an idea of what was happening because direct questions didn't really work."
