Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Former Anthrax singer Neil Turbin conducted an interview with famous Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler for Canada’s The Metal Voice during last night’s “Bowl For Ronnie” celebrity bowling party in Studio City, California. This yearly event benefits the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund. As reported by blabbermouth.net, Geezer responded as follows when asked about his hopes for the future of music.
Well, I’m always writing, I’m always playing. So, whatever happens, happens.
He was also asked about his relationship with the two late Black Sabbath singers.
None of us had egos or anything like that. [It was] just like four or five friends getting together and doing what we loved best.
And, of course, about the Back to the Beginning event.
[Ozzy] was determined to do it. He really was. It’s just a shame that he went so quickly after it, ’cause we were all planning on getting together for Christmas and reflecting back and everything.
Black Sabbath is credited with creating heavy metal. The success of their first two albums – “Black Sabbath” and “Paranoid” – marked a paradigm shift in the world of rock. Not until Black Sabbath upended the music scene did the term “heavy metal” enter the popular vocabulary to describe the denser, more thunderous offshoot of rock over which they presided.
With their riff-based songs, extreme volume, and dark, demonic subject matter, Black Sabbath embodied key aspects of the heavy-metal aesthetic. Yet in their own words, Black Sabbath saw themselves as a “heavy underground” band. That term denoted both the intensity of their music and the network of fans who found them long before critics and the music industry took notice. In a sense, though they’ve sold more than 75 million albums worldwide, they still are a heavy underground band. Although they became eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, they weren’t inducted until 2006. The truth is, they remain one of the most misunderstood bands in rock history.
