Geezer Butler explains why he was Black Sabbath’s main lyricist

Geezer Butler helped to form Black Sabbath back in 1968 and besides being the band’s bassist was also for many years their main lyricist. In an interview with Mike Brunn (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar) he explained he ended up with the task to write almost all the lyrics for the group during their first decade together.

Butler is currently promoting his autobiography called “Into The Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath”.

Geezer Butler explains why he was Black Sabbath’s main lyricist

“Because I was the only one in the band that was always reading books and stuff like that. I always liked English literature and English language when I was at school. I was good at those subjects. So it came naturally to me, I suppose. I was always writing poems and little stories and stuff. So when it comes to writing lyrics, it came quite easy to me.”

He also said in the conversation that the band’s vocalist Ozzy Osbourne would also come up with really good melodies that were different from the guitar riffs made by Tony Iommi that would fit right into the music.

After Ozzy Osbourne was fired from the band in the late 70s, Geezer had help to write the lyrics, since the singer Ronnie James Dio was a talented lyricist. During that first tenure with the group Dio recorded two praised albums: “Heaven & Hell” (1980) and “Mob Rules” (1981). He left the group in 1982 with the drummer Vinny Appice and formed his own group called Dio.

That classic formation with Dio, Appice, Iommi and Butler still reunited on the album “Dehumanizer” released in 1992. They would only play together again from 2006 to 2010 but under the moniker of Heaven & Hell, until Dio’s death in 2010 at the age of 67, victim of cancer.

Black Sabbath is considered to be the band that created Heavy Metal music and is one of the most influential of all time. They have sold an estimated amount of more than 70 million records worldwide.