Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Geezer Butler and Paul Rodgers honored onstage at Palm Springs’ Sound and Visions Awards by an all-star band
Geezer Butler, bassist for Black Sabbath and former member of Bad Company, Free, Queen, Paul Rodgers, were honored on stage at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs, California, on Monday, March 02, as per theprp. Through “The Sound And Visions Awards,” an all-star band was put together, and the money raised went to Adopt The Arts. A few videos from that evening have surfaced in the gallery below, with Corey Taylor of Slipknot leading a rendition of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” with Butler, Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, and more.
- Matt Sorum (formerly of Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver)
- Lzzy Hale (Halestorm)
- Corey Taylor (Slipknot)
- Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme)
- Glenn Hughes (formerly of Deep Purple)
- Steve Stevens (Billy Idol)
- Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots)
- Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke)
- Mike Mangan (The Cult)
- Phil X (Bon Jovi)
- Tanya O’Callaghan (Whitesnake, Bruce Dickinson)
- Steve Salas (Mick Jagger)
When Butler was a teenager, he used an old acoustic with just two strings to learn to play the guitar. He learned to play melody lines on the two strings as he couldn’t afford the new strings required to play chords. He claims that as a result of this restriction, he created a “very strange style” that would come in handy when he joined Black Sabbath and switched to bass guitar. Butler claims that his life was forever transformed when his older brother Jimmy gave him a brand-new Rosetti acoustic guitar, which cost him two weeks’ wages. Butler learnt chords from Bert Weedon’s book Play in a Day using a suitable instrument.
After that, he collected enough cash to purchase a Bird Golden Eagle amplifier and a brand-new Brunner Colorama electric guitar. He joined his first band shortly after. As demonstrated on Black Sabbath‘s “Master of Reality” album, Butler is renowned for his melodic playing and for being among the first bassists to use a wah pedal and down-tune his instrument (from the standard E-A-D-G to the lower C#-F#-B-E) to match Iommi, who had begun tuning his guitar to C# (a minor third down).