Tony Iommi has spoken about how he and his Black Sabbath bandmates used to believe that they were being “guided” by a spiritual “fifth member”.

The guitarist was speaking in a new interview about his former band, who parted ways in 2017 following the conclusion of their farewell ‘The End’ tour.

Speaking to Mojo, Iommi revealed that “we always felt within the band that there was a fifth member” who “guided” them during their time together.

“It sounds ridiculous now, but we always felt that there was somebody overlooking us and guiding us,” he said. “We felt this presence when we were all together. It was one of those things we’d refer to as being the over-self or the fifth member, looking out for us.

“We were so close as a band, we lived in each other’s pockets from the start, that we became as one. This fifth member seemed very real and there to us.”

Iommi continued by saying that “things always seemed to happen to us that were quite weird,” citing one particular example.

“We’d be in the van, for example, and one of us would look out of the window and go: ‘Oh look, there’s a fish and chip shop over there’. And just as we’d say that, the lights would go out in the shop.

“There were just always strange things happening to us back then.”

Last month, Geezer Butler shut down the notion that Black Sabbath might reunite again in the future.