Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi talks about his health status

The legendary Black Sabbath co-founder and guitarist Tony Iommi, who is the only member of the group that was part of all the recordings of they ever made, talked in an interview with Eddie Trunk (Transcribed by Blabbermouth) about his currently health status.

The 75-year-old Riffmaster battled about a decade ago with an early-stage lymphoma during the record of Sabbath’s final studio album “13” released in 2013.

Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi talks about his health status

“I’m up and down. I go for my checks. In fact, I was there the day before yesterday, just getting different checks again. It’s like any old person (laughs) — you have problems. But, no, all in all, it’s been pretty good. Certainly as far as the cancer side of it, it’s been — dare I say — good. I get other ailments, like your hands ache and feet and things like that. But apart from that, it’s good. And I think doing what I’m doing keeps me up. I don’t sit at home just sitting on the couch; I’m out and about doing stuff. And it’s good — it keeps you motivated; it keeps you moving.”

“Regarding where his cancer battle stands at the moment, Tony said: “Well, they keep it under control. They check the immune system all the time to make sure you keep it up. I have (vitamin) B12 shots and just try and eat a bit better and try and look after your health a bit more. That’s why, really, I had to stop these major tours, because they were long tours and late-night tours.”

He continued:

“By the time you’d finished playing, especially when we were in the States, and we’d have a base, say, in New York, for 10 days, and we’d have our own plane and fly out to different places and come back. And by the time we get back to the hotel, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“And these late nights were affecting me a bit. And my oncologist said, ‘You know, you shouldn’t really be flying as much and doing this amount of work.’ So that’s sort of why it came to the end of me touring for 18 months. But, yeah, I loved it — I love touring; I love playing; I love seeing the audience. And I still wanna get out and play, but I won’t be able to do major tours like that.”

“As I said before, maybe a week or two or whatever, but it’s hard to do that, because you’ve got the crews that work — you have top-notch crews, and you can’t expect them to just do two weeks. They wanna get out and do a U.S. tour. But I will be going out, I suppose, doing something along the line. I’ve been asked to do various things, and we’ll see what happens,” Tony Iommi said.