BLACK SABBATH Bassist Gets 'Paranoid'

Jon Wiederhorn of AOL's Noisecreep recently conducted an interview with legendary BLACK SABBATH bassist Geezer Butler about the recently released "Classic Albums" DVD of SABBATH's legendary second album, "Paranoid". A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Noisecreep: It's no secret that you guys drank a lot and experimented with all sorts of drugs. Did that contribute to the creative vibe on "Paranoid"?

Butler: No, because we really weren't doing anything back then besides sharing the occasional joint. We couldn't afford it. We couldn't even afford booze, so none of us were drinking yet. The music we were making was more a reflection of what we were thinking and experiencing at the time. We weren't into flower power and good vibes. That was crap to us, because from where we were, everything was bleak and dark.

Noisecreep: You touched on some political lyrics on "Paranoid", such as the Cold War and Vietnam.

Butler: Yeah, "Electric Funeral" was about the Cold War at the time. It was always touch and go whether Russia would drop the atomic bomb on us or we would drop the atomic bomb on them. So atomic war was always imminent, we thought. So we were as far removed from hippy flower power as you could get. We were four working class people in the most industrial part of England, and all we had to look forward to was dead-end jobs in factories. And we thought at any second we'd be called up to drop in to the Vietnam War, because it looked like Britain was going to get involved in it as well. So there wasn't much future in anything for us.

Noisecreep: The album is called "Paranoid". Why is there a picture of a soldier with a shield on the cover?

Butler: The whole story of how we created that song is funny. It became the most popular song from the album, but it wasn't something we though much of when we wrote it. In fact, we finished the record and then the producer told us we needed one more song to finish up the album, so we just came up with "Paranoid" on the spot. Tony [Iommi] just played this riff and we all went along with it. We didn't think anything of it. And then later the record company said, "Hey guys, this is the best song on the album. Let's call the record 'Paranoid'." But we had originally wanted the record to be called "War Pigs", and that's what the record company was planning as well when [they] came up with the record cover, which is really horrible to begin with. We didn't like it at all, but the label put it together, so we were stuck with it. The cover was bad enough when the album was going to be "War Pigs", but when it was "Paranoid" it didn't even make sense. [laughs]

Read the entire interview from Noisecreep.