Ozzy Osbourne confessed during a recent interview with Stereogum that he doesn't consider 13 a Black Sabbath . The album, released in 2013, marked the group's last studio album.
When asked if 13 served as a closure, a final point, for him and the band, Ozzy replied: “No, because, to be quite honest, I didn’t really get any credit for the album. Although [producer] Rick Rubin is a good friend of mine, I wasn’t really… I was just singing.”
He continued: “It was like going back in time, but it wasn’t a glorious period. Although Geezer [ Butler ] wrote a lot of lyrics for me, which he’s very, very good at. It wasn’t a devastating experience for me.”
13 wasn't made by the original Black Sabbath lineup either. Drummer Bill Ward was replaced by Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine . And that was something Ozzy didn't like.
“The only thing I really regret, to be honest, is that Bill Ward didn’t play on the album,” said Ozzy. “It wasn’t really a Black Sabbath album… I’m not saying that one day we can’t walk into a room and create the perfect Black Sabbath album. But I will say, [ 13 ] it wasn’t recorded the way Black Sabbath recorded albums. We had gone past the point where we took control, back to when someone else had total control of our recording. Which we never did on Vol. 4 onwards.”
Ozzy's statement aligns with what Geezer Butler believes about the album. Butler said, during an interview with Eddie Trunk (via Blabbermouth ), that recording 13 was a strange experience and that Rubin's direction on the record was "ridiculous."
He explained: “It was strange, especially after hearing that we needed to forget we were a heavy metal band. That was the first thing [Rick] told us. He put on our first album and said, 'Put yourselves back in a time when there was no heavy metal or anything like that, and pretend you're going to make the successor to this album,' which was ridiculous to think about.”
Despite Black Sabbath being quite comfortable in the past, Ozzy Osbourne is as active as ever.
The Prince of Darkness recently released the album Patient Number 9 with several special guests and says he wants to go back to touring.