Geezer Butler

Terence Michael Joseph "Geezer" Butler (born 17 July 1949)

Early life Butler adopted the nickname "Geezer" at an early age. "It came because when I was at school, my brother was in the army, and he was based with a lot of Cockneys. And people in London call everybody a 'geezer.' [It means] just a man — like, 'Hello, mate.' It's just like somebody calling you 'dude' over here (in the United States). In England, it'd be 'geezer.' So my brother used to come home from leave from the army, and he'd be going, 'Hello, geezer. How are you, geezer?' So because I had looked up to my brother when I was about seven years old, I'd go to school calling everybody a geezer. So that's how I got cursed with it."

Butler grew up in a working-class Irish Catholic family, the son of James and Mary Butler. He had six siblings. and were poor, typically having "no money whatsoever". named after an Arthur Porges science fiction story, in 1965. His first professional gig was with the Ruums at the Parochial Hall in Erdington, where they performed covers of various Merseybeat bands. The Ruums would perform only a handful of local gigs before breaking up, but it was long enough for Butler to decide that he wanted to devote his life to music.

Black Sabbath (1969-1984, 1987, 1990-1994, 1997-2006, 2011-2017, 2025)

Inspired by John Lennon, Butler played rhythm guitar in his pre-Sabbath days, including with The Rare Breed. When Sabbath was formed, Iommi made it clear that he did not want to play with another guitarist, so Butler moved to bass. According to Butler, "I'd never played bass until I was on stage at the first gig that we played. Borrowed the bass guitar off one of my friends and it only had three strings on it." Butler lists Jack Bruce of Cream as his biggest influence as a bassist. Iommi described Butler as being "from another planet" in the band's early days; he took LSD, wore Indian hippie dresses, and was very peaceful. He again left the band in 1984 after touring in support of their 1983 album, Born Again, although he returned months later as the band attempted a comeback with vocalist David Donato.

He rejoined Black Sabbath in 1991 for the reunion of the Mob Rules line-up, but again quit the group after the Cross Purposes tour in 1994. Butler reunited with the original lineup of Black Sabbath at Back to the Beginning in July 2025 for a final show.

Ozzy Osbourne (1988-1989, 1994-1996) In 1988, Butler joined the backing band of his former Black Sabbath bandmate Ozzy Osbourne to take part in the No Rest for the Wicked World Tour.

In 1994, Butler again joined Osbourne's band to perform on the Ozzmosis album, released in 1995. He toured with Osbourne on the Retirement Sucks tour from 1995 through 1996.

GZR (1995–2006)

After recording Ozzmosis, he formed GZR, issuing Plastic Planet in 1995. His next solo album, Black Science, followed in 1997. Butler returned to Sabbath once more for the 1997 edition of Ozzfest, and remained with the band for the remainder of their career. In 2005 he released Ohmwork, his third solo album.

Heaven & Hell (2006–2010)

In October 2006 it was announced that Butler, along with Tony Iommi, would be reforming the Dehumanizer-era Black Sabbath line-up with Vinny Appice and Ronnie James Dio under the name Heaven & Hell to differentiate between the Osbourne fronted line-up of Black Sabbath that had been performing at Ozzfest in the previous years. Heaven & Hell released two live albums Live from Radio City Music Hall (2007), Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell (2010), and one studio album titled The Devil You Know (2009). The line-up broke up after the death of Dio in 2010.

Other projects

Geezer Butler left Black Sabbath as the band disintegrated following the 1983–1984 Born Again tour. He would rejoin and leave the band several times over the years, with The Geezer Butler Band being his first attempt at a recording project outside of Sabbath. Along with Butler, the band consisted of guitarist Pedro Howse, who would later also play in GZR with Butler. Welsh vocalist Carl Sentance (ex-Persian Risk) fronted the band. The band released no recordings, but performed some shows in the mid-1980's of which some bootleg recordings still exist.

Geezer Butler, along with Rob Halford and Bill Ward, recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's The Wizard as the supergroup Bullring Brummies for Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath released in 1994.

Butler briefly joined the supergroup band Deadland Ritual formed by former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum. The band released its debut single and music video Down in Flames in December 2018. After playing a handful of live shows in 2019, Geezer Butler said that he considered Deadland Ritual to be dead.

In 2023, Butler published his autobiography Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath—And Beyond. He also provided the narrating voice for the audio-book version. Later, he made a brief appearance during Foo Fighters' performance in Birmingham in June 2024.

In January 2026, Butler confirmed that he was working on a new solo album. He revealed that he recorded several demos with AI guide vocals, but intended to bring in live vocalists for the final product.

Style and legacy

Butler learned guitar as a teenager on an old acoustic that had only two strings. He could not afford the new strings needed to play chords, so he taught himself to play melody lines on the two strings. He says that due to this limitation he developed a "very strange style" which would later serve him well when he switched to bass guitar after forming Black Sabbath.

Butler is regarded as one of the most influential bassists in heavy metal. Billy Sheehan of Mr. Big said: "He's a founding father of a whole genre of music and a man who really set the bar early on to be such an integral part of the sound and song structure of Sabbath". In Mick Wall's biography of Iron Maiden entitled Run to the Hills, founder Steve Harris recalls: "I distinctly remember trying to play along to Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" – at first I just could not get it. I threw the guitar on my bed and walked out in a huff, but the next day I came back, picked it up and played it all the way through note-for-note! Once I got going, I started getting into bass-lines with a bit more subtlety to them."

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, who defined Butler as his "number 1 influence," stated: "All true metal bassists look up to Geezer as a pioneer and Godfather of our chosen instrument. The best, ever." Rex Brown of Pantera and Kill Devil Hill asserted: "He's a legend. He's everything. Geezer is so much of an influence on me. Minutemen's Mike Watt, Nightwish's Marko Hietala, and Metallica's Cliff Burton have also listed Butler as an influence.

In 2020, he was ranked 21st in Rolling Stones list 50 Greatest Bassists of All Time.

One week before their farewell Back to the Beginning concert, Butler and the other original members of Black Sabbath were each made Freemen of the City of Birmingham.

Personal life

Butler met his first wife Georgina at a school dance at Holte Grammar School in Birmingham as a teenager. The Butlers also share their Los Angeles home with several cats, of whom he has posted pictures on his website.

His oldest son, Biff Butler, was the vocalist for nu metal band Apartment 26. Butler's other son James earned a degree in social sciences from Oxford University and resides in London. Butler describes him as "very politically minded". "My youngest is extremely left-wing, and I think it's because he was brought up knowing wealth and money, whereas I was brought up having no money whatsoever. That's where the church came in and made up for the lack of money because everybody knew each other in the street and everybody used to help each other out", Butler said. and later urged fans to boycott Fortnum & Mason until they remove foie gras from their shelves. Butler said, "I've seen some outrageous things in my time, but watching those poor birds suffer simply so that their diseased livers can be sold on your shop floor is horrific!"

Butler is a supporter of Aston Villa Football Club, and during Black Sabbath's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Butler is heard shouting "Up the Villa" as the members of the band left the stage. He has referred to AVFC as his "second religion" (after Catholicism) in his younger days and in 2023 he said that the team had become his "only religion", having become disillusioned with the Catholic Church. A bin-man (refuse collector) had called him an "Irish cunt" when he was a small child, and he repeated the word at the family dinner table that evening, asking what it meant. His father told him that only ignorant people swear, and Butler was subsequently beaten with a belt. He says that to this day he seldom swears "despite spending thousands of days in the company of Ozzy Osbourne". In 2016 he opened up about the event: "This guy started mouthing off about something. He was, like, some drunken Nazi bloke. He [...] started going on about Jews and everything – Jews this, Jews that. My missus is Jewish and I'd just had enough, and me hand sort of met his chin. I whacked him one." Contrary accounts were given by other witnesses.

In June 2023, he announced his retirement from performing, though he has since come out of retirement.

Equipment Butler endorses Lakland basses and has his own signature model, as well as DR Strings, EMG pick-ups, and Hartke amplifiers.

Discography

Studio albums 1995: Plastic Planet (as "g//z/r") 1997: Black Science (as "geezer") 2005: Ohmwork (as "GZR")

Ozzy Osbourne Studio albums 1995: Ozzmosis

EPs and live albums 1990: Just Say Ozzy 1993: Live & Loud ("Black Sabbath")

Heaven & Hell Studio albums 2009: The Devil You Know

Live albums 2007: Live from Radio City Music Hall 2010: Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell

Black Sabbath Studio albums 1970: Black Sabbath 1970: Paranoid 1971: Master of Reality 1972: Vol. 4 1973: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 1975: Sabotage 1976: Technical Ecstasy 1978: Never Say Die! 1980: Heaven and Hell 1981: Mob Rules 1983: Born Again 1992: Dehumanizer 1994: Cross Purposes 2013: 13 EPs and live albums 1982: Live Evil 1995: Cross Purposes Live 1998: Reunion 2013: Live... Gathered in Their Masses 2016: The End 2017: The End: Live in Birmingham