Iommi revealed the project's existence after he was asked about the status of his much-rumored collaboration with QUEEN's Brian May

 

"We've been talking for years about doing something together, and we haven't gotten around to it yet," Tony said. "It's been difficult, because certainly, for both of us, we were on tour, and then, of course, I was off tour, and then Brian's on tour doing the QUEEN tour, which became very successful. So they've been constantly touring. We haven't really gone any further with it. And, of course, at the moment, Brian's been going through a lot of medical things. But who knows? Yeah, it'd be nice, at some point, to do something.

 

"At the moment, I've actually started putting some ideas down myself now," he continued. "And I played on a track with Nick Mason a few weeks ago. We're doing a charity record for cancer. I was asked if I'd play and come up with some riffs for it. There's a lot of other celebrities doing something for this album, so I said, 'Yeah, it'd be nice to do that.' I think there's Nick Mason, myself, and I think Ronnie Wood is gonna play a bit on this track as well. I'm not sure. But, yeah, it was just interesting to do that."

 

Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2012, shortly after SABBATH announced a reunion tour and album. He underwent treatment throughout the recording of the disc, titled "13", and the subsequent tour to promote it.

 

The BLACK SABBATH guitarist successfully underwent an operation in January 2017 to remove a noncancerous lump from his throat.