Black Sabbath Bassist Recalls Why He Couldn’t Stand for Ozzy Osbourne

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler recalls why he couldn’t stand for Ozzy Osbourne. He also added some stories from the band’s early-’80s, Ronnie James Dio era.

Geezer Butler is the most-known bassist around the world and he is also a member of the Black Sabbath. The legendary music band founded in Birmingham in 1968 by Geezer, guitarist Tony Iommi, frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and drummer Bill Ward. The band’s albums sell over 75 million albums worldwide. After the farewell tour ‘The End’ finished in 2017 and band members still working on their solo project.

Geezer Butler recently interviews with Bass Magazine and talked about the Black Sabbath’s early-’80s, Ronnie James Dio-fronted era, also their albums in that years:

“It totally freed me up to concentrate on bass. By the time we got to the ‘Never Say Die!’ album, I really hated writing lyrics. I couldn’t stand it, and he just refused to write any lyrics at that point. It was such a relief to have Ronnie come in, being a good lyricist and all, you know?

‘Heaven and Hell’ was quite straightforward. I remember ‘The Mob Rules’ album took a lot longer to do the bass. On ‘Heaven and Hell’ I used quite a small stack in the studio, and then ‘The Mob Rules,’ for some reason, I decided to use half my stage set up and kept blowing up all the mics.

“I really don’t know why I did that, but I tried everything, and it took me about ten days to get a sound, and in the end, I had to go smaller again, and direct. On ‘Heaven and Hell,’ all the tracks were recorded without my bass. I left the band because I was having personal problems back in England. And so, once I sorted those problems out, I came back, but all the other tracks had been done. The bass was completely separate, so it had to sound different – because there was no bass while the guitars, vocals, and drums were put down; whereas Mob Rules, it’s the whole band together.”

You can also listen to the “Heaven and Hell” song below! Also, order this album here.