On the last record, Forbidden, you had yet another Black Sabbath lineup. After all of these personnel changes, have you found certain combinations of people easier to work with than others?

Well, the Forbidden combination works well, and we all get on well. With other bands I've had, we'd never getout all the troubles so that we could get on with plauyng, which is really ridiculous. The thing I like about this one is that I can go on and say "We're doing this, we're doing that" and they say "Right, okay" because everybody wants to play, and really enjoys playing. With some of the last lineups - without mentioning names - some of them went on about things like "Where are we staying?" or "I don't want to do this" before we ever actyually got to the playing. There was this big regamarole of sorting it out and getting involved with everybody. My feeling si simple in those regards. I say "This is what we want to do. If you don't want to do it, then get out." I've gone through so many problems in my own personal life because of Sabbath, because I'm the one sitting there night and day in a studio, working on this stuff. And you know, it's taken up a major part of my life, and consequently it's upset my married life. So, it's been annoying when people in the band called up and said "Right, I'm going off on holiday," leavme in in the studio wheil they're going and sunning themselves. Then they'd come back and ask "How's it going?" which I didn't particulary like very much. But now everybody's involved with it, they love what they're doing and I'm enjoying it more. If there are any problems now, everybody's going to share those problems.

Could that be a function of this lineup having worked together before?

It could well be, because everybody appreciates what we've got, especially after breaking this lineup to do the Dio thing with Dehumanizer. Because you don't realize what you've got until you lose it. With Geezer & Dio, the old problems started again. Now we've got something that's a working tream, and you don't have those problems because everybody's got a different attitude.

A lot of the people you work with have also spent considerable tine with Ritchie Blackmore. You two seem to be the only guitarists who can keep bands going in spite or a myriad of changes.

It's all been very much in that circle with Ritchie, yeah. There's Cozy Powell, of course, and Glenn Hughes and Ian Gillan, and we even used the first bass player from Rainbow for a bit, Craig Gruber. And we alomst used David Coverdale, too [laughs]. I called Coverdale up when Ronnie first left, and I called Cozy up at the same time, and Coverdale said "Right, okay," and then something happened, somebody came b ack or something and it didn't happen. Some time later I saw Coverdale again, and when we eere ready for another singer, and he said "Ah, if you had only called me two days ago, I'd be able to do it! But I just signed this deal..", and then he did Whitesnake. So that almost happened. We've also had other people, though, like Rick Wakeman who played on "Who are You" from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. He was great, really great. He was wild back then. We took Yes on tour with us, and brought them to America on their first tour. But Rick used to travel with us, and not Yes for some reason.

You've been a musician most of your adult life. Do you ever geel the need to prove yourself as a musician outside of Black Sabbath?

Yeah, I have to do that. In fact, that's one of my things - to make an actual solo album like Geezer's made a solo album, but not have it become a Black Sabbath record. I may even do that as the next album. And if not the next one, then certainly after the end of the next Sabbath tour, towards the end of the year. I'm not talking about breaking Sabbath up - but I'd just do a different project so that I can do a bit more musically than what I do in Sabbath. It will probably knock on some parts of Sabbath, but I can't help that, that's who I am. But I would like to do some more jazz stuff, blues, and instrumental stuff.

Would you bring in other musicians for a solo project or would you try it mostly on your own?

I'd bring other people in. I'm not that self indulgent to think I can play drums and all the rest of it. I'd probably have to use different people than in the past so it gets away from Sabbath, maybe just bring in a drummer and a bass player.

Are there people whom you'd like to play with that you haven't had the opportunity to work with?

Phil Collins, actually. I like him, what he does, and I like his voice, his choice of music.

If you weren't still playing guitar for a living, what do you think you'd be doing?