Black Sabbath released Never Say Die! in September 1978. Their eighth studio album followed a reunion that had already complicated the recording process: Ozzy Osbourne returned just before the band left for Toronto, where guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward had to reconsider material developed in his absence.
The four musicians also appeared together in the video for “A Hard Road,” filmed during a soundcheck at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1978. It captured the original lineup promoting an album whose recording had required them to work through a change of singer, unfinished songs and disagreements about what to record.
Former Savoy Brown vocalist Dave Walker had stepped in during Osbourne’s absence and performed with Sabbath on BBC television in January 1978. His involvement went beyond filling a live vacancy. The band wrote songs with him, leaving a practical problem when Osbourne came back. In a Guitar World interview published in July 2001, Iommi recalled that Osbourne would not sing the material they had prepared. With the studio already booked, Sabbath began developing new songs in a bitterly cold rented cinema, then recording them at night.
The studio itself required work. Iommi told Classic Rock that he had booked the Toronto facility without visiting it, having learned that the Rolling Stones had used it. Once there, he found the room too acoustically dead and had its carpet removed. The daily schedule left little opportunity to sit with new material before committing it to tape. Writing, rehearsing and recording were happening almost on top of one another, with the band trying to solve both musical and practical problems as they went.
Even under those conditions, Sabbath continued experimenting. In the same Classic Rock retrospective, published in 2015, Ward connected the album’s jazz excursions to approaches the group had explored earlier in its career. He singled out “Johnny Blade” and “Air Dance” as songs he liked. Butler also praised “Air Dance,” although his memories of making the record remained unhappy. The musicians could value individual tracks without remembering the sessions fondly.
Keyboardist Don Airey experienced a calmer part of the process. In a 2018 interview with Classic Rock Revisited, he recalled arriving to find Iommi and Osbourne offering him tea, with the control room feeling like a family sitting room. His two days of work were orderly and professional. “They couldn’t have been nicer to me, or more professional,” Airey said. Ward did express concern about Osbourne, but Airey’s account described musicians who were welcoming and focused during his visit.
Vocal duties shifted on the finished album, too. Ward sang its closing song, “Swinging the Chain.” In Guitar World’s Holiday 2008 interview, Iommi explained that the drummer took the lead because Osbourne refused to sing it. The arrangement placed another band member’s voice at the end of an album already shaped by uncertainty over its singer.
Completing the record did not resolve that uncertainty. After touring with Van Halen, Sabbath attempted another album in Los Angeles. Iommi recalled in the 2008 interview that the sessions stalled, with drug use and Osbourne’s lack of participation making it difficult to continue. The band decided to replace its vocalist rather than break up. Osbourne was dismissed in 1979; his next Black Sabbath studio album was 13, released in 2013.
