GEEZER BUTLER Explains Why BLACK SABBATH Never Released Studio Recording Of 2001 Song 'Scary Dreams'

During an appearance on the latest episode of Gabbing With Girlfriends, the podcast hosted by Geezer Butler's wife and manager Gloria Butler, the legendary BLACK SABBATH bassist was asked if he and his bandmates ever made a proper studio recording of "Scary Dreams", the slow and bluesy number they performed during the Ozzfest tour in 2001. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, I think we had about eight [new] songs written [during those sessions]. We did them in Monmouth, down in Wales. And we had at least six [tracks] completed and I think a couple of more in the works. That's when [producer] Rick Rubin first got in touch with us. He wanted to do that album back in — I think it was 2002. And we went to his house to play him what we had, and as we were playing them, I was thinking, 'What a load of crap.' [Laughs] I just didn't like them at all. I just completely went off them. I don't know if it was 'cause I was playing them to somebody else. And I just went, 'Nah, after all these years to come out with this, I don't think it's right.' So we knocked it on the head."

Butler previously touched upon "Scary Dreams" during a 2023 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock. Asked how much material there was in the vaults from SABBATH's later years that fans haven't heard, Geezer said: "Well, if you haven't heard [the songs], then they're not good enough to go on the record. I mean, 'Scary Dreams', you know, it wasn't great. That was when we were trying to throw an album together; I think it was in 2001. It just wasn't working. It just felt really forced. 'Scary Dreams' is probably the best we came out with. I was so disinterested in it that I didn't want to write the lyrics or anything. Geoff Nichols, the keyboard player, came out with the vocal line and the lyrics. [Laughs] That's how disinterested everybody was. It was just too forced. We had about five or six songs and I didn't really like them, but I just went along with it for Tony [Iommi, SABBATH guitarist] and Ozzy's [Osbourne, SABBATH singer] sake. We went to play them to Rick Rubin and I just thought, 'God, these are really crap.' I think Tony and Ozzy might have liked them, but they just weren't up to scratch. I didn't think so. The four of us have to like something for it to be good. It can't just be two of us, so that's as far as it went."

A founding member of BLACK SABBATH, Butler is also the lyricist of such SABBATH classics as "War Pigs", "Iron Man", "Paranoid" and others.

Geezer's autobiography, "Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath - And Beyond", arrived in June 2023 in North America via HarperCollins imprint Dey Street Books.

1995 saw the release of Geezer's first solo album, "Plastic Planet", followed in 1997 by "Black Science", with "Ohmwork" completing the trilogy in 2005. In October 2020, all three albums were made available for the first time ever on vinyl via BMG, with both CD and LP using newly updated cover artwork.

At last year's "Back To The Beginning" concert, Geezer and the other original SABBATH members performed four songs for more than 40,000 people at Villa Park in the band's original hometown of Birmingham, United Kingdom and 5.8 million more on a livestream. Ozzy also played a five-song solo set while seated in a bat-adorned throne.