While plans for a second farewell album from Black Sabbath featuring all the original members ultimately fell through, producer Andrew Watt has confirmed that some new Ozzy Osbourne songs remain unreleased from their work together towards the end of Osbourne‘s career. Watt sat behind the boards and played on Ozzy‘s final two studio albums, “Ordinary Man” and “Patient Number 9“.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Watt went on to speak about that unreleased material:
“There are some songs that we made for a specific reason, and yeah, that’s all I can say. They’re hard for me to listen to. I haven’t listened to them [since Ozzy passed.]”
Watt did however relay that the night prior to the ‘Back To The Beginning‘ concert (July 04th, 2025), he and Ozzy did go over that material together. Watt stated:
“…We sat and we listened to the stuff that we had made, and made notes. And that and the next day were the last times I got to see him. … But we had a beautiful listening session and talked about a lot of stuff. It’s hard to think about, but I miss him every day.”
Planned as a final live sendoff for Ozzy and Black Sabbath, ‘Back To The Beginning‘ would ultimately serve as Ozzy‘s last performance, as he passed away weeks afterward at the age of 76. As for another ‘final’ Black Sabbath album, this time featuring the band’s classic lineup, failing to materialize; and guitarist Tony Iommi‘s recent comments of Watt being too “excited” about trying to get that album off the ground, Watt newly told Rolling Stone:
“You know me. I’m definitely an excited musician, person. … That would be a true statement. But that’s not why it didn’t happen…. [Ozzy] was just like, ‘Let’s make a Sabbath album.’ He’s like, ‘We didn’t do an album with [drummer] Bill Ward.’ As Ozzy does, he gave me the marching orders: ‘Call Tony. Then you call Geezer. Then you call Bill.’ … So I called Tony. ‘Would you wanna do it?’ ‘Yeah, that sounds cool, if Bill would do it, yes.’ Geezer, ‘If Bill would do it, yes.’ It was all about, ‘If Bill would do it, yes.’
So then I had to have a conversation with Bill, and that was one of the strangest and funniest and coolest, at the same time, ’cause you’re talking to Bill Ward, conversations. Ward was unable to do the album for personal reasons,” which killed the project.”
Regarding Iommi‘s take on the matter in recent press, Watt said:
I think he’s just taking the piss. … Which anyone that wants to do that with me, they absolutely should.”