BraveWords caught up with Black Sabbath bass legend Geezer Butler this past week and spoke about the paperback edition of his autobiography, In Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath-And Beyond. You can listen to the entire conversation below on Streaming For Venfeance. But in an excerpt, he talks about potentially getting sued, the “horrible” experience recording the audio book and what is one question he’s tired of answering?
BraveWords: Was the possibility of getting sued a big concern for you?
Butler: “Yeah. I had to prove absolutely everything. And if I didn’t have photographs, letters or documents or anything like that, I couldn’t write about it. When I sent the US version over to the UK to be published, I was told that I couldn’t say this and I couldn’t say that. So I don’t wiggle it down even more for the UK version. It was just ridiculous.”
BraveWords: How much of a painstaking task was it to do the audio book version.
Butler: “It was a horrible, horrible experience because I hate speaking anyways. Even on the phone as you might recognize, I hate using the telephone. But I found out that there’s no way that I would ever be an actor. But when you hear all these audio books they are usually done by actors. The only reason I agreed to do it, because I listened to Rob Halford’s book and that was great. I really got into it, especially knowing Rob for so long. He really came over very well with his audio book. So I said ‘Yeah, OK I’ll do my own thing.’ But when I went in the studio it was just like stage fright. And then they kept saying ‘Can you say that line again and again.’ It was really weird.
BraveWords: It sounds like you weren’t drinking enough pints of beer!
Butler: “I haven’t been drinking beer since 2015. But maybe that was the problem!
BraveWords: What are the what are some of the questions that you are really tired of answering these days?
Butler: “It’s hard to say, but it’s the same kind of question is that we’ve been hearing our entire career, since Sabbath began. Black magic and all that kind of crap.”
BraveWords: What did you learn about yourself, by writing about yourself?
Butler: “I learned about how lucky I am. I don’t know what I did it in a past life to deserve this life. Because it’s the first 18 years of my life, I didn’t seem to have any future whatsoever. Now looking back, I feel like the luckiest person on earth. It’s like absolutely incredible. I definitely learned how lucky I’ve been in life.
Click below for the entire Streaming For Vengeance conversation with the Black Sabbath legend.
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “the Beatles of heavy metal” and ranked by MTV as the “Greatest Metal Band of All Time,” Black Sabbath not only dominated the genre - they helped create it. Founded in 1969, the band’s distinctive heavy riffs, tuned down guitars, and apocalyptic lyrics were a stark contrast to the era’s popular feel-good pop, upbeat Motown, and earnest folk music. Their ominous new sound struck a chord. To date, Black Sabbath has sold more than 70 million records worldwide.
In Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath-And Beyond, now in trade paperback, Geezer Butler tells his side of the story - and the story of his life before and after the band’s rise to fame and notoriety. With honesty, Butler writes of his childhood in Luftwaffe-battered Birmingham, England, as one of seven in a working-class Irish Catholic family, and his disillusionment with organized religion and class systems in his late teens, which would influence the lyrics and artistic themes that made Black Sabbath a sensation. From his awakening to the power of music—and his bold decision to change his career path from accountant to bassist - Butler takes readers behind the scenes of Black Sabbath’s roots, rise, and struggles. Even longtime fans of the band are bound to learn something fresh and surprising as Geezer himself recounts:
• How in 1968 he formed the Polka Tulk Blues Band with guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, and vocalist John “Ozzy” Osborne, and forged a revolutionary creative collaboration.
• The origin story of Black Sabbath. By 1969, Polka Tulk had become Earth, but kept getting mistaken for another group with the same name. Geezer suggested an original name, “Black Sabbath,” after one of their songs, which he co-wrote the lyrics for partly inspired by a nightmare of a black silhouetted figure standing at the foot of his bed.
• Notable appearances with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and The Who, and includes a groundbreaking dedication to creating the rock music equivalent of a horror film, with dark elements of the occult.
• The stories behind Black Sabbath’s biggest hits, including War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” and “Paranoid,” and important later years, culminating with their last studio album, reuniting three of the original members, and last live performance on February 4, 2017, in Birmingham.
Featuring 30 photos from Geezer’s personal collection - some never-before-published - "Into The Void" is both an effusive tribute to one of rock’s most exciting bands and an intimate memoir of a trailblazing musician.
Find order options here.
About the Author:
Terence Michael Joseph “Geezer” Butler, best known as the longtime bassist and main lyricist for Black Sabbath, is one of the most influential bassists in heavy metal and regarded as a “founding father” of the genre. In 2006, he reformed the “Dehumanizer”-era Black Sabbath with guitarist Tommy Iommi, vocalist Ronnie James Dio, and drummer Vinny Appice as Heaven & Hell. In 2017, he took a short hiatus from music to travel and write. In 2018, he joined the British- American rock band Deadline Ritual, composed of founder and drummer Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses), vocalist Franky Perez (Apocalyptica), and guitarist Steve Stevens (Billy Idol). A native of Aston Birmingham, England, he makes his home in Nevada and Utah with his wife Gloria Butler, who manages Geezer and co-managed Heaven & Hell. They live with their three cats and dogs.
