Tommy Clufetos reflects on missing Black Sabbath’s 13 album sessions

Tommy Clufetos revisited his absence from Black Sabbath’s 13 sessions in a new interview with Remzi Jam Man Yates, and he treated the story as history, not grievance. The touring drummer said the split between the stage chair and the studio chair was “water under the bridge,” even though he had carried Sabbath through the reunion era. That divide still matters to drummers because 13 was the band’s first new studio album in 35 years from the original lineup.

The album was cut with Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine on drums and Rick Rubin producing, a lineup choice that reportedly ran against what Ozzy Osbourne and Sabbath wanted. The official Sabbath pages list 13 as an eight-song set running nearly sixty minutes, with “End Of The Beginning,” “God Is Dead?,” “Loner,” “Zeitgeist,” “Age Of Reason,” “Live Forever,” “Damaged Soul,” and “Dear Father.” For Clufetos, that meant the man trusted to drive the tour was left off the record that defined the era.

That gap was part of why the decision landed so hard inside the band’s orbit. Ozzy Osbourne said the drummer call left him “pissed off” and that he felt the handling was unfair to Tommy Clufetos, while Bill Ward later said, “I was offered a contract, and I couldn’t sign it,” making clear the reunion drama went beyond one replacement decision. When 13 was announced on January 13, 2013, Brad Wilk was already named, and the project had been in development for years before the lineup settled.

The record still landed like a comeback should. It was released on June 11, 2013, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 155,000 copies sold in its first U.S. week, and later drew Grammy nominations for Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song, and Best Metal Performance for “God Is Dead?” Clufetos’ reflection lands in that shadow: a drummer can be central to the live identity of a band and still be invisible when the credit line gets written.

For drummers, the 13 story still turns on that exact split. Clufetos carried the band in front of massive crowds, Wilk cut the album, and the space between those two jobs is where the credit dispute lived.