Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath - Tony Iommi, T.J. Lammers (2011)

Chapter 83. Fused with Glenn again

Late in 2004 I started working on my next solo album. First we tried a singer called Jørn Lande from the German band Masterplan. He was a nice lad with a great voice who sounded very much like Ronnie James Dio. But then it turned out Glenn Hughes was free to work on a record with me again. Glenn is really talented, he is good to work with and we get on really well, so it seemed good for us to have another go at making an album.

We went into a rehearsal room in Birmingham to work on the songs of what was to become Fused. The first day we got together we met Mike Exeter there, who is the engineer in my own studio at home. Mike said: ‘Do you want a cup of coffee, Glenn?’

‘Yes, please.’

It was fatal to give Glenn a cup of coffee, because as soon as he had it, he went into overdrive. Bang! It was just like he’d had three lines of coke again. He drove us up the wall getting all excited like that.

‘Well, Tone, is it all right, Tone, let’s go, Tone!’

He couldn’t sit still for five seconds.

I said: ‘Glenn!’

He was fidgeting and talking away: ‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry, I don’t drink coffee! And I … I … I shouldn’t drink it really!’

He wouldn’t shut up. Mike came in and I said: ‘No more coffee for him!’

Just like I’d done for the DEP sessions, I played Glenn some riffs. He is the sort of bloke who will sing on anything you play him.

‘Oh, I like that one. And I like that one. And that one!’

‘Which one do you want to do then?’

We’d pick one and build it into a song.

We had a bash for a couple of days and then we brought Bob Marlette in to work on some more songs and produce the record. I said to Bob: ‘Let’s put a few tracks down, let’s have a little bash’, and we came up with four or five tracks in no time at all. We recorded them at my house and most of those tapes were actually used for the final tracks.

Since working with Kenny Aronoff on the Iommi album I just thought he was a really good drummer, so we brought him over. The four of us worked on the songs, we did rough takes of all the tracks and we took it to the Monnow Valley Studios in Monmouth to record it properly there. It was all very quick: got together, wrote it and recorded it.

Fused was released in July 2005 on Sanctuary Records. We did a promotional tour for that, with quite a lot of radio stuff, but we didn’t support the album with a concert tour, because I was out with Black Sabbath doing Ozzfest at the time. It was good to see that it was received very well by the critics and the audience alike. After having been met with terrible reviews and negative articles for most of my career, it shouldn’t have mattered to me that much any more, but it was nice to see so many people appreciating our music that much.