The collaboration between Queen guitarist Brian May and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi has almost become a rock mythos at this point. Though shouldn’t give up hope yet, there may be a chance that the long-rumoured collaboration will see the light of day.
In a recent interview with Guitar World, May has revealed that the long-awaited collaboration may soon come into release fruition. May and Iommi have spent many hours talking over and chipping away at riffs Iommi has written but never used.
“I think there is a chance,” May shared of the likelihood that we’ll hear what the guitar titans have written together. “We do more talking than anything else, but we do a lot of talking. [Iommi] is really my dearest friend in the business and has been for so many years.
He continued: “I could write books about Tony because he’s just the most [pauses]… I don’t even know how to put it into words. You know, he’s a luminous human being is Tony, with a wonderful, kind nature and an incredibly baffling sense of humour.
“And, of course, he is the father of heavy metal. He did that. He made that happen. And it’s from his fingers and his mind. That young ex-welder, he made that happen. So, you know, he forever wears that medal, I think. He founded this stuff, heavy metal, in my opinion. I mean, I think probably most people would agree.”
Iommi delved into the fabled collaboration between him and May in an interview with Birmingham Mail back in 2013, revealing that the collaborative partnership between the two rockers first bubbled when the pair met up after Iommi’s cancer diagnosis.
“When I was first ill, Brian May came to visit me at my house in Lapworth,” Iommi shared. “I played him some of my stuff, rock riffs that I’d never quite got round to developing, or decided not to use. He said I ought to do something with them.
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“It’s early days yet, and all my attention in on Sabbath for the foreseeable future, but we may well find some way of working together on them, and making them available in some shape or form.
“One of the ideas we had is that we could make the riffs available, get fans to use them in songs of their own, and see what they come up with. That way they’d effectively be recording with Brian and myself.”
