Black Sabbath founder and bassist Geezer Butler is one of the most important figures in rock history. The 73-year-old’s band, which also featured legendary singer Ozzy Osbourne, is said to have invented heavy metal. They have sold more than 70 million records worldwide
I REMEMBER…
BEING AMAZED WHEN I REALISED NOT EVERYONE SUPPORTED ASTON VILLA. I grew up very close to the ground and went to my first game with older brother, Jimmy, when I was about six. The away team scored and I couldn’t understand it when their fans cheered. How come they didn’t love Villa like I did? I found them very disrespectful.
WALKING TWO MILES TO HANDSWORTH PARK WITH MY DAD, JAMES. He loved walking, and we didn’t have a car. He’d take me to the cinema to watch cartoons, too. Tom and Jerry bashing each other was my favourite.
SPENDING MY POCKET MONEY ON ROSARY BEADS AND CROSSES. I was ultra-religious. It wasn’t surprising as my dad and mum, Mary, were strict Catholics and our house was covered in pictures of Jesus and Mary. At school, the nuns would tell us we were going to hell, if we didn’t behave. Terrifying. But when I was a teenager, I got into the occult. Magazines, horror films with Vincent Price and books like The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. There were lots of immigrants with different religions coming into Birmingham, too—Muslims and Hindus. It was fascinating to see new perspectives.
A TWO-STRING GUITAR CHANGED MY LIFE. When I was about 11, a lad brought an old acoustic guitar to school and asked if anyone wanted to buy it. My dad worked packing steel tubes and I thought affording an instrument was beyond me. But the lad only wanted ten shillings. When the Beatles came along, I learned how to play their hits using the guitar’s only two strings. Then I formed a band with a mate. I didn’t enjoy my grammar school much, so this was my escape. I got into alternative culture and, when I was older, I would go down to a club in Covent Garden in London called Middle Earth. It was full of hippies and loonies—people covered in silver paint dancing to Captain Beefheart. There was nothing like that in Aston!
ACCOUNTANCY TURNED ME TO DRINK. After I left school, I went to work for the accounts department at Spartan Steel in Aston. But music was what I really wanted to do, and the firm had me doing difficult work I wasn’t properly trained for. I would come in later and later, then, to make it through the day, get absolutely legless in the pub at lunchtime. One day, I came in at 4:30pm. They finally sacked me.
MEETING A YOUNG ECCENTRIC CALLED OZZY. I was in a band
