3D

Michelle Mills of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune recently spoke to BLACK SABBATH bassist Geezer Butler about the making of the band's new album, "13" — the first in 35 years to feature Geezer, singer Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Tony Iommi — and their current North American tour. "For the first time in years, we're finally doing some new material on stage with the new album we've got out," Butler said. "It's a definite change for us because it's the first time in 30 years that we've actually come up with something new and the crowd is really loving it. It's good playing it and it fits in really well with the old stuff." Butler also talked about the physical demands of touring and how being on the road has changed over the years. "We take it a lot easier now — we do one show on and then we have a day off," Butler said. "So we only play every other day and that keeps the whole thing much fresher instead of wearing ourselves out." Regarding the songwriting process for "13", which earned the band its first No. 1 album in the U.S., Butler said: "In the past, we'd just go to a rehearsal situation and jam until we came out with something that we liked and then we'd work on that. But this time was different because when we got together, Tony had about 40 or 50 different riffs that he had written, so we were able to pick some of those riffs and immediately have a starting point on them."