Geezer Butler talks best and worst Black Sabbath albums, being ‘insulted’ to be labeled heavy metal and more

Considering his status as a pioneer of heavy metal, if he never lifts another finger, Geezer Butler's legacy is still set in stone.

As a founding member of the proto-metal outfit Black Sabbath, Butler, along with Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward and Tony Iommi, changed the world with the release of 1970’s Black Sabbath. In short order, the band unleashed a string of now classic records in Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1971), and Vol. 4 (1972) before a mix of creative differences, money troubles, and drugs derailed the foursome.

From there, through the highs and lows of the Ronnie James Dio era(s), the cult nature of the Tony Martin era(s), and a reunion (or three) with Ozzy Osbourne, it's been quite the ride for Sabbath. And for the bulk of it, with a few respites in between, Geezer Butler ably guided the band through his drop-tuned and, at times, wah-laden bass chops.

Since Sabbath's final tour ended in 2017, Butler has laid low, settling into retirement. But recently, news of his autobiography, Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath and Beyond (which you can preorder here), came to light. Leaving many to wonder why Butler chose to finally dissect the past now.

To that end, Butler says, "I've been wanting to leave something for my grandkids to grow up with so they can understand the history. I started the book about two years ago with that in mind. I always wished that my parents had done something like that, and then they died, leaving me to regret not asking them a lot of questions. So, I wanted to write a lot of these things down for my grandkids."

"And when my wife, Gloria, read it, she said, 'You should make a book out of this,' Butler continues. "So, about two years ago, I sent it to my agent to pass around to different book publishers. And to my surprise, we got interest from Harper Collins. It ended up turning into quite a good account of my history, which is something I wasn't sure I'd ever have time to do. I'm happy that it's finished.” He laughs. “Now I can finally rest."

Easing into retirement after the completion of Into the Void, Geezer Butler dialed in to Metal Edge for a rare career-spanning interview digging into the history and influence of Black Sabbath, the "insulting" nature of being labeled "heavy metal," and more. What follows is part one of the discussion.

What first attracted you to the bass?

Geezer Butler: Well, originally, I was a lead guitarist. I used to do a lot of Beatles stuff in a band, but I wasn't really into the guitar stuff that was happening around me too much. And then, when Cream, [Jimi] Hendrix, and all those bands started coming around, everything changed for me. I went to see Cream once, and I was mesmerized by Jack Bruce's bass playing. Before that moment, I'd never once thought about bass playing. But once I had, and considering how entranced I was, I wanted to play bass then and there – the idea of what the bass and the player could do wholly opened up for me after that.

You were one of the first bass players to use drop tuning and a wah-wah pedal. What inspired you to do that?

Butler: The wah-wah pedal thing came about while I was doing the intro for Sabbath's "N.I.B." We'd been playing the song for around six months, and when it came to recording the album, I felt it still needed something more. I had become completely bored by the intro we'd been doing, and I thought I'd spice it up a bit and put it through the wah-wah. No other bass players were doing that at the time, so I thought, "Well, this is certainly different; let's try doing that." As for the drop tuning thing, I had to do it. Because of the injury Tony [Iommi] had sustained to his fingers, he had to wear a thimble on the tips to play. But he also was forced to play in these dropped tunings as they made the strings easier to manage for him. I had to follow suit for it to work. So, I did.

How did your disillusionment with organized religion impact you as a young boy?

Butler: What's interesting is that I was glad I got to have been brought up with religion as it initially guided me. It gave me something to fall back on as a child, but as I became older, I found that there was a lot of hypocrisy going around that you don't realize when you're a kid. And as I was getting older, I used to go to services, and most people would say, "We're just here waiting for the pubs to open." And then, one of the nuns started insulting me when I'd come down, so things put me off the whole thing. I guess you could say I grew out of it.

How did that affect you as a songwriter within Black Sabbath?

Butler: I was always interested in the occult and religion. But not just my own – all religions and the things that went along with them. Being brought up as a strong Catholic, it was interesting to find that there were so many different regions out there, and everybody else's could profoundly influence me in those ways. I suppose growing out of it allowed me to be more expressive about the whole thing, though.

What sort of blowback did Sabbath receive for writing those things?

Butler: It wasn't as bad as you might think. It was only when we went to America that we found there to be issues. We never heard anyone say a thing when we were in Europe. At the time, the people in Europe weren't very religious and didn't seem to believe – at least, not too strongly – in that sort of stuff. So, I was shocked that when we got to America, people still believed in the devil and all that crap. [laughs]

Did that make breaking into the American market more difficult overall?

Butler: The religious types hated us. That much was certain. But the kids in America really accepted us because of the rebellious nature of the music. When you think about it and take a deep look at the stuff we were singing about, nobody else would dare to sing about any of that in America. So, I think what we got was a lot of kids who wanted to rebel against their parents. I think our music was a perfect vehicle for that. Before we knew it, the music of Black Sabbath became like an underground thing to the point that we were speaking for a generation that wanted more than what they heard on the radio.

At what point did you realize that you had essentially created a new genre of music?

Butler: I don't think we really did. We always saw ourselves strictly as a rock band. To us, being called a "heavy metal band" was an insult at first. I remember the first time we heard it was during an interview in the '70s, where they told us that some American magazine had said, "The music of Black Sabbath sounds like a lot of heavy metal being smashed together." We were insulted to hear that. But somehow, the English press got a hold of it and spun it around as a compliment. [laughs] But we never thought of it that way, and we didn't really get the idea behind what it meant in the first place. We didn't feel our music sounded like that at all. We never set out to be different; we just pressed on as a "rock band."

It could be said that Sabbath's first four records are the band's finest. What instigated that creative fire?

Butler: I believe it was because the four of us were constantly in each other's company. It was a cycle of non-stop touring, getting off the road, writing more music, making albums, rehearsing, and getting back out on tour. There's an urgency to those records bred through our deep-seated need to keep the momentum going. That led to us coming out with all these crazy ideas and great songs. You have to remember, though, we were kids. We were living a dream and loving life at the time. It was all new to us, and so the only thing on our minds was to keep it going for as long as we could.

Which of those early albums stands out most to you?

Butler: Probably Paranoid. It was a totally complete album. It wasn't forced, and the chemistry between the four of us was so fluid. I remember getting together to do that record, and we wrote literally everything immediately. Each song came together so easily and had such fire. And each time we would go into rehearsal, we'd come out with a completed song. I think that's why that album is special, because of how naturally things came together. It was the most organic record that Sabbath – in any era – ever made. It was completely natural, as it should have been.

Generally, when people think of Sabbath's creative drivers, they think of Ozzy and Tony. But I'd wager that you played a much greater role than people realize. Can you expand on that?

Butler: That's a good observation because Sabbath was definitely a democratic band. We all had a say in what we were doing each step of the way. Obviously, with Ozzy being the singer and Tony being the guitarist, that meant that they'd have the biggest role in terms of expressing the music. But the fact remains that in those days, Ozzy didn't particularly want to write the lyrics, and Tony didn't either. So, I took over writing them. It turned into a well-oiled machine there for a while. It was like the news… it just ran itself.

The second half of the '70s was a different story, though.

Butler: Yes, that's true. But there were a lot of issues beyond drugs and drinking. Once we finally had time to stop touring, we were wondering where all the money was. And when we asked our managers why our accounts were averaging down, even though we were selling records, we never got a straight answer. You can't imagine the kind of challenge that presents because we were selling records and putting on all these shows, but our accounts didn't reflect as such. There was a lot of money that we just weren't seeing, and then paying taxes became a whole other issue stemming from those money issues. So, that was truly when things started to go wrong for Sabbath.

What about the creative difficulties with Ozzy?

Butler: Those were certainly a problem, too. The thing is, we were trying to progress too much musically. We completely lost the plot, I think. We stopped doing the things that made Sabbath what it was and began going from more melodic stuff, which was a mistake looking back. Ozzy always wanted to still sound like the old version of Sabbath, while Tony and I wanted to expand musically. Looking back, Ozzy was probably right because our expansion caused us to lose what Sabbath was supposed to be about.

Having said that, how do you view the late ‘70s records now?

Butler: Definitely not in the same way I view the earlier records. And I will say that Never Say Die! is easily the worst album we did. The reason for that is we tried to manage ourselves and produce the record ourselves. We wanted to do it on our own, but in truth, not one of us had a single clue about what to do. By that point, we were spending more time with lawyers and in court rather than being in the studio writing. It was just too much pressure on us, and the writing suffered.