Good news, Black Sabbath fans: Your long wait for new material from the band is just about over.

Bassist Geezer Butler shared the news with 'That Metal Show' host Eddie Trunk during an interview conducted at the NAMM show in California this week, saying, "We've finished recording it." Quickly amending that statement to add that guitarist Tony Iommi is currently "back in England putting down a couple of solos," Butler concluded, "we start mixing it in Febraury and it will be out in June. The provisional title is '13' -- unless we can come up with something more constructive."

Mention of Iommi naturally brought up questions of his health, to which Butler replied, "He's doing well; he's really responding well. He has to go and have his medication every six weeks. But yeah, he's really coming along well; he's really doing well."

With the record just about in the can and Iommi on the mend, the band is ready to focus on a year full of touring. According to Butler, "We start at the end of April in New Zealand, then we go to Australia, then Japan. June, we'll be promoting the album, then July and August, USA. Then October is South America and Europe in November and December."

Trunk asked Butler if he'd held on to his traditional post as Sabbath lyricist for the new songs, and he affirmed, "Yeah, I've written most of the lyrics. Ozzy comes up with the titles and then gives me an inspiration to write the lyrics. I think we've got 16 songs and I've written 14 sets of lyrics."

With all this renewed activity on the Black Sabbath front, fans of Butler's solo project GZR might be feeling a little ignored, but not to worry -- as he told Trunk, "When I finish this cycle for the Sabbath touring and album and everything else, we'll start work on the next GZR album. There's a lot of material written. It's just getting the time to record it. It'll probably be sometime next year."

Eddie Trunk interviews Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath

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