Geezer Butler Reveals Main Reason Why Black Sabbath Disbanded: “It Was The Beginning Of The End For Us”

Geezer Butler Reveals Main Reason Why Black Sabbath Disbanded: "It Was The Beginning Of The End For Us"

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler discussed the main reason why his band Black Sabbath splintered over the years and admitted that getting sabotaged by court writs, tax demands on money that they had never seen was the beginning of the band’s end.

Black Sabbath is a heavy metal band that was formed in Birmingham in 1968 by the band’s main members Ozzy OsbourneTony IommiBill Ward, and Geezer Butler. At first, the band had activated from 1968 to 2006. In 2011, the band announced its reunion and rocked the stage until 2017.

The band’s discography was included by 19 studio albums, 8 live albums, 16 compilation albums, 7 video albums, 1 EPs, and 30 singles. As of 2013, Black Sabbath has sold more than 70 million albums worldwide.

On the other hand, Geezer Butler is known for being the bassist of the band. At press time, Butler contributed 19 efforts of Sabbath that includes 14 studio albums, live albums, and more.

However, in a recent appearance on Guitar World, Geezer Butler talked about playing with Tony Iommi in the past, his main inspiration for playing bass, and the band’s getting sabotaged during its Sabotage-era.

“It was always magical playing with Tony,” he said to praise his former bandmate Tony Iommi. “We never had to discuss anything; it just seemed to happen.

“He never once doubted me, and if I felt unsure of something, he would always encourage me and trust that I’d make the right choice myself.

“To me, he’s the greatest guitarist ever.”

Geezer Butler Reveals The Beginning Of The End For Black Sabbath

Elsewhere, Geezer Butler has touched on the band’s sixth studio album Sabotage. Mentioning the band’s getting sabotaged in different ways, Geezer Butler confirmed that it was the beginning of the end for the band.

“Sabotage was rightly named, because we were being sabotaged by court writs, court appearances, tax demands on money that we had never seen, all while trying to write and record the album,” he says. “We had left our manager, and all hell broke loose.

“We were visited by lawyers in the studio, the record company was panicking in case they were involved, our money – what there was of it that hadn’t been stolen – was frozen.

“It was the beginning of the end for us. The pressure took its toll, and the band splintered after that.”

Geezer Butler had also named his main inspiration for playing bass and said that Jack Bruce was the main reason why he’s been playing bass.

“My main inspiration for playing bass was Jack Bruce, who I saw with Cream on three occasions when they played in Birmingham,” Butler states.

“I hadn’t thought about playing bass until then, so fingerstyle was the only way to go for me.

“I do sometimes use a pick, and I’ve had to resort to playing with a pick on some gigs when the blisters on my fingers have just popped and it was too painful to play fingerstyle.

“On some solo songs that were hideously fast, like House of Clouds, I used a pick for better clarity.”

Back in this past April, Butler had recalled his former bandmate Ozzy Osbourne’s gloomy times. According to him, he was killing himself.

“Ozzy had already left the band before the ‘Never Say Die!’ album, and he was always going on about doing his own thing back then,” Geezer said.

“In fact, in one of the Sabbath photos, he’s got a ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ t-shirt on, so he just fell out of love with what we were doing in Sabbath.

“I wasn’t really paying much attention to what he was doing, to be honest, and then, he came out probably bigger than Sabbath ever was.

“We all loved Ozzy. We were so glad that he got himself – because he was killing himself. The state that he was in when he left Sabbath, he really was on the verge…”

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