Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler's new autobiography, Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath - And Beyond was released on June 6 in North America via HarperCollins imprint, Dey Street Books. Butler recently spoke with Ultimate Classic Rock about writing the book and his Black Sabbath career. Following is an excerpt from the interview.
UCR: I loved reading near the end of the book, when you mentioned Tony Iommi in the acknowledgments, you added, "who actually still keeps in touch." It's great that you still have a friendship like that. That means a lot.
Butler: "Yeah, he’s always been there for me. You know, he’s a good friend. We can slag each other to death. It’s like marriage, really. You have terrible arguments, you fall out and you come back together. But he’s always there. He always is. I hope he is after this book as well. I still love Bill (Ward), but he’s not on the internet. If you want to talk to Bill, you have to email his wife and she has to tell him. It’s really awkward. (laughs. Ozzy I don’t speak to at all."
UCR: In the book, you say that you and Ozzy Osbourne are good, even though you don't talk. Do you think there's a chance those lines of communication will open back up at some point?
Butler: "I very much doubt it. We didn’t fall out, it was the wives."
UCR: So many bands disown their first album. Yet the first Black Sabbath album is rightfully regarded as a classic. What do you hear when you listen to it now?
Butler: "I didn’t realize how naive it was until we did the 13 album. Rick Rubin took us down to his house in Malibu, he put the first album on and he says, 'Listen to this, this isn’t metal. This is before the word 'heavy metal' or anything. This is Sabbath.' We listened, and I was blown away at how much we got accomplished in two days on that album. How raw it was and how it still stands up over all of the years. Because it was just a recording purely of us. There are hardly any overdubs, no technical tricks or anything like that. I think that’s why it stands the test of time."
Read the complete interview here.
Book description: A rollicking, effusive, and candid memoir by the heavy metal musician and founding member of Black Sabbath, covering his years as the band’s bassist and main lyricist through his later-career projects, and detailing how one of rock’s most influential bands formed and prevailed.
With over 70 million records sold, Black Sabbath, dubbed by Rolling Stone “the Beatles of heavy metal,” helped create the genre itself, with their distinctive heavy riffs, tuned down guitars, and apocalyptic lyrics. Bassist and primary lyricist Geezer Butler played a gigantic part in the band’s renown, from suggesting the band name to using his fascination with horror, religion, and the occult to compose the lyrics and build the foundation of heavy metal as we know it.
In Into the Void, Butler tells his side of the story, from the band’s beginnings as a scrappy blues quartet in Birmingham through the struggles leading to the many well-documented lineup changes while touring around London’s gritty clubs (Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and The Who makes notable appearances!), and the band’s important later years. He writes honestly of his childhood in a working-class family of seven in Luftwaffe-battered Birmingham, his almost-life as an accountant, and how his disillusionment with organized religion and class systems would spawn the lyrics and artistic themes that would resonate so powerfully with fans around the world.
Into the Void reveals the softer side of the heavy metal legend and the formation of one of rock’s most exciting bands, while holding nothing back. Like Geezer’s bass lines, it is both original, dramatic, and forever surprising.
