Maynard James Keenan reveals how Tool was invited to play at Black Sabbath’s farewell show

Tool first turned down the opportunity to play at the live farewell show, which was planned for the groundbreaking heavy metal band Black Sabbath and their renowned frontman Ozzy Osbourne this July, according to vocalist Maynard James Keenan. On July 5th, metal and hard rock icons will pay homage to Sabbath and Osbourne in an event called “Back To Beginning” at Villa Park in Birmingham, UK. It turns out that Keenan first learned about the event while he was performing at Osbourne‘s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year.

The conversation first came up when I was at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, hanging out with Wolfgang [Van Halen] and some of the guys, I think even Robert Trujillo. We were on the travel over there, just going, ‘Okay, well, there’s a rumor about the Black Sabbath show.’ I was like, ‘Well, let’s do something.’ So I kinda had planned a song to do and all of a sudden I’m at home and I get the call, ‘Hey, Tool‘s been asked to do a song,’ and I’m like ‘Fuck.’ Now I have to call back Wolfgang and those guys and go, ‘I’m going to do it with Tool, sorry.’ But that’s kinda how it came up. But I think for me, seeing Ozzy moving around at that event, the idea of him playing a show at all, if we’re being honest, you know, the conversation about going to do the song was like, ‘we’ll have this conversation, but, ahh… I don’t know that this gonna happen.’ And even now, I’m cautious about saying, ‘Yeah! All in, he’s gonna do it.’ Because man, I don’t know what kind of modern miracles we’ll come up with to get him on stage to do the songs, but this is gonna be a challenge for them. So, I’m honored to be a part of it, but I’m kinda preparing for the worst — but hoping for the best, as they say.

But at the beginning, he was hesitant.

I wasn’t sure who the call was coming from. And having seen Ozzy move around I was doubtful it was gonna happen at all. Initially we passed because I was like, I don’t know how this is going to go. So when it came back up, I was like, OK, I guess I can hop on a plane and go over and do the song with a couple of guys on site, rather than dragging the whole band and going through all that. With Tool, nothing’s easy. Nothing is a simple decision of just ‘Yes! Let’s go!’ It always ends up being something difficult, so I didn’t think it was going to happen. But then everybody was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ Oh, okay. Let’s do it then.

Later, Keenan continued to discuss the influence Sabbath and Ozzy have had on him, stating that Black Sabbath‘s debut album is why he is performing. Keenan has also talked about how Black Sabbath influenced his musical upbringing in the past. Regretfully, Keenan has good reason to be concerned about Osbourne‘s health. Osbourne himself disclosed earlier this year that he was unable to walk without assistance because of the numerous injuries he sustained over the years and his worsening Parkinson’s disease.