I played the track 'Exciter' backwards and suggested to the judge that what he'd heard was, 'I asked her for a peppermint. I asked her to get me one'. When the judge heard it, his eyes lit up. It was as if he realized how ridiculous the whole thing was.

The only advice we gave Richie Faulkner was we wanted Richie to be his own guy. You have to let your musicians in your band be who they are.

I'll always have a totally open mind to endless possibilities. I want to do a dance album. Not Techno, but a record that's exclusively designed for people to dance to. That whole dance genre is kinda into its own world. I'd just like to get in there and mess around with that.

The last thing we wanted was a copycat. When we saw [Richie Faulkner] play, we thought, "We don't have to tell this guy anything. He's got it."

They were and still are a groundbreaking band. Even though they haven't released any new music in ages, you can put on the first Black Sabbath album and it still sounds as fresh today as it did 30-odd years ago. And that's because great music has a timeless ability: To me, Sabbath are in the same league as the Beatles or Mozart. They're on the leading edge of something extraordinary.

You gotta have fun. Even now we have fun onstage.

That's the life really isn't it? You write. You record. You play. And it never grows old.