Tony Iommi Says Brian May Is the Only Guest Guitarist on His New Solo Album—And the Reason Says Everything About Their Friendship

There are guitar collaborations that happen because a label sees a headline. Then there are the rare ones that mean something before anyone starts talking about release dates, streaming numbers or social clips.

Tony Iommi and Brian May belong firmly in the second category.

Iommi's forthcoming solo album, From the Dark, will be his first since 2005's Fused, and it is already shaping up as one of the year's most important hard-rock releases. The Black Sabbath guitarist has put together a proper band for the record—vocalist Jørn Lande, bassist Becky Baldwin and drummer Karl Brazil—but there is one high-profile guest guitarist on the album: Queen's Brian May.

Just one.

May appears on the track "Death Wake," and Iommi has now revealed that the Queen legend could have played on more of the record. Iommi invited him to do exactly that. May declined.

According to Iommi, May's response was simple: this was Iommi's album, and Iommi's own solos deserved to be at the center of it.

For two musicians whose careers are built on some of the most recognizable guitar voices in rock history, it is an unusually revealing detail. There is no competition in it. No attempt to turn a long-awaited Tony Iommi album into a celebrity guitar summit. Just one guitarist respecting another guitarist's identity.

And that is exactly why "Death Wake" is going to matter.

Two Guitar Languages That Changed Rock

On paper, Iommi and May could hardly be more different.

Tony Iommi is the father of the heavy riff. His playing helped invent the vocabulary of metal: detuned weight, evil intervals, massive bends, riffs that hit with the force of machinery and solos that sound less like decoration than a warning siren cutting through the smoke.

Brian May, meanwhile, made guitar sound cinematic. His homemade Red Special, treble-boosted Vox sound and stacked harmonies turned leads into orchestration. Even when he plays a single line, there is always a sense of architecture behind it. May does not just play a solo—he builds a world around it.

But they have more in common than most people realize.

Both are instantly identifiable within seconds. Both understood early that guitar tone is not merely gear; it is personality made audible. Both learned how to write guitar parts that serve a song rather than overwhelm it. And both helped define the sound of British hard rock without ever sounding interchangeable.

That makes this collaboration more interesting than the usual "two legends trade solos" story. It is not about who plays faster or who has the louder rig. It is about the meeting of two guitarists who each built a complete sonic universe around their own voice.

A Friendship That Goes Back More Than Five Decades

Iommi has described May as one of his closest friends in music, a relationship that reaches back to the early 1970s. The two have crossed paths repeatedly through the decades, including Brian May's celebrated appearance on the Black Sabbath track "When Death Calls" from 1989's Headless Cross.

They have also played together live, including performances of Sabbath material such as "Paranoid." The chemistry has always made sense: May has enough personality to stand next to Iommi without disappearing, but enough musical intelligence to know that an Iommi riff does not need to be "fixed."

That history adds weight to May being the only featured guitarist on From the Dark.

Iommi's earlier solo work often embraced a guest-driven format. His 2000 album Iommi featured a rotating cast that included Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Grohl, Phil Anselmo, Billy Corgan, Serj Tankian, Peter Steele and more. It was a fascinating record precisely because it allowed Iommi's riffs to collide with radically different singers and styles.

From the Dark appears to be taking a different path.

This is not a collection of famous names orbiting a legendary guitarist. It is Tony Iommi returning with a band, a direction and something to prove only to himself.

Why Brian May's Restraint Is the Coolest Part of the Story

The most interesting part of this news is not that Brian May plays on a Tony Iommi song. It is that he reportedly refused the invitation to appear more heavily across the album.

That is not false modesty. It is musical judgment.

May knows as well as anyone how easy it is for a famous guest appearance to become the story. A distinctive Brian May solo would immediately pull ears in its direction. The Red Special sound is so unique that it can feel like another vocalist entering the mix.

But May understood what Iommi was making.

After 21 years away from solo albums, the last thing Tony Iommi needs is someone else's identity distracting from his own. Fans are waiting to hear the man who turned a damaged fingertip into one of the most feared sounds in rock. They want riffs that only Iommi would write, bends that only Iommi would phrase and a guitar tone that still feels like it was forged in Birmingham steel.

May's decision leaves room for that.

It also makes "Death Wake" more intriguing. If there is only one Brian May appearance on the album, it will not feel like a cameo pasted onto the record for attention. It will feel earned.

The Return of a True Guitar Original

From the Dark arrives October 23 via BMG and follows the release of the album's first single, "World Alone." The early material makes one thing clear: Iommi has no interest in softening his edges or chasing whatever metal is supposed to sound like in 2026.

That would never have suited him anyway.

Tony Iommi's influence is so enormous that it can be easy to forget how unusual he remains. Countless players have copied the doom, the low tuning, the thick distortion and the sinister tritone. Very few have captured his sense of space. Iommi knows when to let a riff breathe. He knows that a note can sound heavier when it is not buried under ten others.

That is why his return matters.

A new Iommi record is not simply another legacy release. It is a reminder of where the language of heavy guitar began—and of how much power still exists in a great riff played with conviction.

Adding Brian May to that equation does not dilute the album's identity. It sharpens it.

May is there because he is a friend, because he understands Iommi's world and because he knows exactly when not to take up too much space in it. In an era where every collaboration is expected to arrive with a dozen teaser videos and a guest-list rollout, that kind of restraint feels almost radical.

"Death Wake" will give guitar fans the thing they did not know they needed: the sound of Queen's master of melody stepping into the dark with Black Sabbath's master of the riff.

And if May's appearance is brief, that may be exactly the point.

Tony Iommi is back. The album is his. Brian May is simply helping remind the world why that matters.

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Related Reading on The Guitar Plugged

• Tony Iommi Announces From the Dark — His First Solo Album in 21 Years

• Tony Iommi: The Riff Architect Who Invented Heavy Metal

• Happy Birthday, Brian May: Queen's Guitarist and a Career Like No Other

• The 25 Greatest Guitarists of All Time