The Tapes Archive

Announcer: Marc Allan, please.

Marc Allan: This is Marc.

Announcer: Marc, can you hold for Geezer Butler?

Marc Allan: Sure.

Announcer: Thank you.

Geezer Butler: Hello?

Marc Allan: Yeah?

Geezer Butler: Is that you?

Marc Allan: Hi, this is Marc Allan. The last I had heard of you before the Dehumanizer album was that you were going off to do a solo career. What happened with that?

Geezer Butler: Well, I just wanted to spend the time with me family right away. And sort of took about a year off, completely doing absolutely nothing. Just time with my family. And then gradually started writing material. And I was looking for really good singer but could never find one and so I gradually lost interest in the solo side, which is fine, and just concentrated on writing songs. And then Ozzy asked me to do the “No Rest for the Wicked” Tour with him. And I did that.

Marc Allan: And then you left his band, right?

Geezer Butler: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Was it a difference of opinion or you just didn’t want to tour at that point or?

Geezer Butler: Well, I finished the tour and it was a long tour, about 13 months. And he asked me to do the new album, but I did it for about three or four months, but I didn’t really have any contribution as far as the writing goes so, I wasn’t really satisfying myself. So I just said to Ozzy, I’m off. So that’s when I talked to Tony. Tony really wanted me to come back and do an album with them, which led to the Dehumanizer album.

Marc Allan: So, you started working with Tony then ran into Dio. And is that how it works?

Geezer Butler: Yeah, it started with Tony and then I was in America on vacation and Ronnie’s wife and manager got in touch with me and just invited me down to a gig he was playing at. And I went down there and didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t seen him for eight years. It was good to see him, you know, and we just talked about all the times and he asked me what I was doing and I told him I was doing an album with Tony. And then we left on really good terms. And a couple of months later he phoned me up and I said, “Hey, things are going.” I says, “You know, writing some good stuff with Tony.” And he spoke to Tony and suddenly the lineup was back together again.

Marc Allan: You had said when you were trying to do some solo work, that you had a hard time finding a vocalist that you liked is that because of who you had worked with in the past where you constantly comparing them to Ozzy and Dio?

Geezer Butler: Yeah ,because it’s a, for me, it was really strange doing solo stuff. Cause with people like Ozzy and Ronnie and even guitarist like Tony, they only do what you’re trying to do. Whereas these other people coming in all that stuff to explain absolutely everything to them, but just didn’t have that spirit if you know what I mean.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Geezer Butler: And it was just, I was tying myself in knots in there and I just saw it, just knocked up on the head and decided to just write the music and lyrics for future projects. Some of which ended up on Dehumanizer.

Marc Allan: You’re still writing all the lyrics for Black Sabbath?

Geezer Butler: No. Ronnie writes most of them. He wrote them on Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. I wrote some on this album with him.

Marc Allan: As far as the song for the Wayne’s World soundtrack. Did you guys have an option to do that first or was it you were just working on Dehumanizer and somebody approached you?

Geezer Butler: We’ve been working about six or seven months writing for the Dehumanizer album. And that was one of the first songs that we had written. I approached us to do a track for Wayne’s World and the specifics for, so, you know, a new Sabbath song. And that was sort of looked at the script and what there was of it and that sort of fitted more than the other stuff that we had written at that time. We did a demo of it and sent it to them and they loved it and used the demo.

Marc Allan: So you didn’t even have to rerecord it? Where is it in the movie? Cause I was trying to recall it and I’m, I saw the movie quite a while ago and I can’t remember.

Geezer Butler: You have to have stereophonic ears.

Marc Allan: It did again.

Geezer Butler: It’s when you’re driving in his car and the Terminator guy stops him.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay.

Geezer Butler: If you remember that part, just about here in the background.

Marc Allan: At least I made it on the soundtrack.

Geezer Butler: Yeah. I mean, we just thought, you know, it’s not going to do anything. Soundtrack albums never usually do stuff, especially heavy metals sort of soundtracks. We didn’t think anything of it. And the next thing is like, it’s almost up to 2 million albums and then plus he got backtrack was like one of the most played off here on the radio over there. So it was great to get us known. They all line up it’s back together.

Marc Allan: Let’s talk about the, Dehumanizer the idea for, it seems pretty fitting at least. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like in England these days, but then over here it seems fairly fitting as far as the attitude toward government politics and just general life is pretty much that way over in England as well?

Geezer Butler: Yeah. I think the whole world is like that. It seems to be it’s more and more of the haves and the have not’s. And in fact, the de-humanize the thing came from a short story that I was writing. I’m continuing to expand the story now. And that was, it was just a lot of the wild thought the world has gone. This is a track for Computer God, I wrote like 5 page storyline for Ronnie. And he picked out a lot of the lines in the story and used it as the lyrics for Computer God. And the dehumanizing was part of the computer God story sorts of thing. But it’s just a reflection of how I see the world going.

Marc Allan: Not a pretty vision is it?

Geezer Butler: Nah.

Marc Allan: Since I knew it was going to talk to you, I went and dug out a one of two press kits that I’ve ever saved and it was from the never say die album. It was the, I don’t know if you recall seeing this thing dead. It was a cover it had Black Sabbath, the 10 year war. And it had a cartoon of you guys. Do you remember this thing?

Geezer Butler: Yeah, I think Tony’s still got one of those.

Marc Allan: Yeah. “More good press than most more bad press than any.” says on the cover. And I think it’s like one of the greatest, most inventive Prescott’s I ever saw. So I saved a copy of it for a long time. Do you still feel that way? Is there still a bad feelings or a battle between Black Sabbath and the critics?

Geezer Butler: Not so much now, I assume too. I think that the know that they’re on the losing battle, especially in either a lot of the new bands. Sort of saying that we were their major influence and stuff. And it seems like the whole Black Sabbath thing has been born again, even though most of it is not the original lineup Sabbath stuff, you know? And I think the critics, the people that used to slag us in the seventies, are now saying we’re the greatest heavy metal band of all time and we invented it and all of this sort of stuff.

Marc Allan: It’s gotta be a lot of satisfaction about that turning around the critics.

Geezer Butler: Yeah. But I mean, in the end it doesn’t mean anything to us. It really doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t put money in the bank that’s for sure. To be critically acclaimed, never even thought about critics… It’s what the kids like and what the people that follow us like. That’s our loyalty.

Marc Allan: Do you think of Sabbath as the first metal band?

Geezer Butler: Not really, because on all the influences that I had, when we, well, we had, when we were writing the first album, it was just like an extension of our influences around 1968, 69″.

Marc Allan: And what were those influences?

Geezer Butler: Cream and Jimi Hendrix, mainly. It was a few bands in England that we always used to liked it It didn’t get anywhere. There was a band called Art, and I, We were all really into that band they liked, I think some of them liked to become Spooky Tooth.

Marc Allan: Art, A, R, T?

Geezer Butler: Yeah.

Marc Allan: That was the band.

Geezer Butler: Well, I think they made one album, used to see them around all the time, around Birmingham. And we used to like the music that they did, and then they became Spooky Tooth and did completely different sorts of music.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay. So I see, I see the, I remember Spooky Tooth, but I didn’t realize they had a history before then.

Geezer Butler: Yeah. There’s about three of them that was in Art, but became Spooky Tooth.

Marc Allan: How does the band, how does Black Sabbath feel to you now? Does it feel right? Getting back together?

Geezer Butler: Well I don’t think it ever feels right. It’s always, always seemed to be living on an edge for some reason. That’s what spurs us song. It’s just, just when you think you can lie back and relax, something happens and it keeps you on your toes again.

Marc Allan: As, as something happened recently?

Geezer Butler: Well…

Marc Allan: Okay. Are you getting now your show here is I think October 23rd. So that’s in like three weeks from today. And so are you still gonna be together when you get here?

Geezer Butler: Oh yeah.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay. So it’s not that bad yet. Okay.

Geezer Butler: Well it’s just that we always have differences of opinions, just like constantly have different opinions.

Marc Allan: It’s interesting that you’re coming back to at a time that Ozzy says he’s retiring from touring. Did you find that somewhat ironic or does it matter?

Geezer Butler: Not really. I’ve never thought about it though.

Marc Allan: You’re 43. Is that right?

Geezer Butler: Yeah.

Marc Allan: How does this music feel to you? You know, you’ve been doing it since you were what, 19 or so?

Geezer Butler: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Is it, does it still feel right to play the, be playing this kind of music?

Geezer Butler: Oh yeah. It’s only sorts of music. I really enjoy playing. I mean, it just, just part of me life, Like having a third hand or something, you know, it’s just, it really is just part of me. And that was one thing I realized when I was touring with Ozzy, all sorts of just going the Ozzy solo stuff. When I used to play that on stage, it was just, you know, just another song. So maybe it was then when we do the old Sabbath stuff, just something had happened and it used to feel really magical inside us, but really started missing it then. And it used to be great to hear Ozzy, you know, to be able to do the old Sabbath stuff with Ozzy, singing it and everything. That’s what made me miss Tony as well. So I went to finish it off. I went back to Tony and I forgot how it great it was to work with him. And it’s just, it’s old feelings that I think it’s in me soul now, you know, it’s just part of me, just everything’s so always memories and feelings and just the whole release from life really is playing my songs.

Marc Allan: Just a couple of other things. And I’ll let you go. I imagine you’ve been asked about this before, but it has, does a satire like this is Spinal Tap make it harder for bands like Black Sabbath?

Geezer Butler: I don’t think so. I think Spinal Tap, it could have been, it could have been a lot worse if there the picked on a pop band or soul and something that I think it just, it was just like because the picked on a heavy metal band, you know, you can see every heavy metal band in that film, But then I’ve seen other bands not having the old bands like Spinal Tap look like a serious drama.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Geezer Butler: I thought it was a great laugh. I mean, it’s probably the most played video on any heavy metal band’s tour bus.

Marc Allan: Yeah, no question about it. And since you guys came obviously way before that, it’s, I mean, you guys set the stage for, for all that kind of theatrics and such, but wonder these days when, when bands look at that and especially with spinal tap doing its own tour, if they think, “Geez, now we got, these guys have taken it too far” but.,,,

Geezer Butler: Nah, I think you have to have a sense of humor about whole thing. I mean, you know, if you take it really seriously, I mean, sometimes I think of, of me being a 43-year-old block up on stage jumping about, I mean, that’s a laugh to make sometimes, but you can’t take it too seriously.

Marc Allan: Is there anything else that you want me to tell… The tour that you’re doing now it’s, it’s a, is it a wide-ranging you taking stuff from all the periods of Black Sabbath you plan?

Geezer Butler: Yeah, We’ll be doing about, four from the Ozzy era, back to six, from Heaven and Hell. And about 5 from the new stuff.

Marc Allan: Anything else you want me to tell people about the band or you, or that we haven’t touched on?

Geezer Butler: Not Really? No.

Marc Allan: Okay. Well, I appreciate your time and we’ll see you in three weeks.

Geezer Butler: Okay, cheers, Marc.

Marc Allan: Okay. Thanks. Take care.

Geezer Butler: Right.