Tony Iommi has given the simplest possible answer for why his second solo album took twenty one years. Nobody was waiting for it.
"The thing is I can come in here, just put some ideas down, and that's it," he told Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News' podcast Ways to Change the World, speaking about his home studio. "Always in the past with Sabbath stuff or any stuff, you've had a time limit. You've had to have a rehearsal for six weeks to write the stuff, and then, of course, book the studio and do that. And then you're on tour for 18 months."
"But this time I've had no pressure. I could just come in and do it when I want."
It is worth hearing from a man who spent fifty years inside the other arrangement. From The Dark came out on 23 October through BMG, with Jorn Lande singing and co-writing throughout, Becky Baldwin on bass and Karl Brazil on drums, co-produced with Mike Exeter.
He is seventy eight. The reason he gives for still doing it is that he enjoys it and it keeps him going, which from the man who wrote the riff that started all of this is as good a reason as exists.