Geezer Butler recalls how much Cream’s Jack Bruce influenced him

Before becoming the first Heavy Metal bassist in history and the main lyricist of Black Sabbath, the band widely credited with inventing the genre, Geezer Butler was influenced by many great bass players before developing his own style. His biggest inspiration was Cream’s Jack Bruce. He recalled in an interview with Lowdown on the Low End how important Bruce was to him.

Geezer Butler recalls how much Cream’s Jack Bruce influenced him

“The one player that totally showed me what you could do with a bass was Jack Bruce. When I went to see Cream, everybody was going, ‘You’ve gotta see this incredible guitarist. His name’s Eric Clapton.’ And back then, it was like they used to play little clubs around Birmingham. I stood right at the front of the stage. Jack came out with his Fender, and it, was like, ‘What the hell?’ I couldn’t believe that people could do that with a bass. And that was it. I went, ‘That’s what I wanna do. I wanna play bass.'”

“I was a rhythm guitarist at first. When I was 15, I had a group called The Rare Breed, and I used to think I was John Lennon and play rhythm guitar. Then the singer left, so we looked around and got this guy called Ozzy Osbourne in the band. And we did a few gigs with Ozzy, and he says, ‘This is terrible. I’m leaving the band.’ We wanted to form a different band, and we both lived around the corner from each other in Aston. And Ozzy says, ‘Well, I know this guitarist called Tony Iommi. I used to go to school with him. Let’s go and see what he’s doing.'”

He continued:

“Well, actually, we were looking for a drummer. We didn’t really think about bassists back then. And we asked Tony if he knew any drummers, and he says, ‘Well, it just happens Bill Ward’s here in the house.’ So Bill Ward came out, and me and Ozzy told him what we were doing, and he says, ‘Well, I’ll join you if Tony comes along.’ So Tony says, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a go.’ He says, ‘But I’m not playing with a rhythm guitarist.'”

“So I said, ‘Well, I’ll switch to bass then.’ And, of course, I didn’t have a bass. I only had a Fender Telecaster. I swapped me Fender Telecaster for a Precision bass. I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got a Fender, so the next thing I wanna get is another Fender.’ Nothing had the balance of a P-Bass. It had perfect balance. A lot of other basses, the neck was too heavy. So this was perfect ’cause I got fat fingers as well, so the wider neck is great for me… Plus there’s only two knobs, which is great for me,” Geezer Butler said (Transcribed by Blabbermouth).