HEAVEN & HELL's BUTLER Says RONNIE JAMES DIO 'Verbalizes The Music And The Riffs'

Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal bassist Geezer Butler (HEAVEN & HELL, BLACK SABBATH). An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Classic Rock Revisited: BLACK SABBATH released "The Dio Years" with three new songs in 2007. At what point did you decide to go from that, to making an entirely new album?

Geezer: We did the retrospective and, originally, we were going to go out for a month to promote it. That month turned into nine months. We had a really good time together and everything went well. We didn't know if anybody would know who we were, going out as HEAVEN & HELL. It became very successful, and at the end of it, Ronnie [James Dio, vocals] said, "It's going to be a shame to just end it now. Why don't we just go in and see if we can come up with an album?" We took a couple of months off and then everyone got together at Ronnie's house, where he has a studio. We listened to what each other had been writing and we knew we had enough there for a good album.

Classic Rock Revisited: Everyone did a great job on the album. Ronnie really shines as a lyricist. You have written some of the most famous lyrics in the history of metal. Being that you're a great lyricist, what grade do you give Ronnie on his words?

Geezer: I think he has done a great job. I think he has gone away from a lot of the normal stuff that he does. He really sums up what the music is about. He verbalizes the music and the riffs. I think he has done an amazing job.

Classic Rock Revisited: Does he work like you? Music first...

Geezer: Yeah, it's the way we have always done it with SABBATH, or HEAVEN & HELL, or whatever. We come up with the music first, and then the vocal line comes after. I am happy to give him the chore of writing the lyrics. If he ever needed any help, or he got stuck on something, then I would help out, but he never has had any trouble.

Classic Rock Revisited: Your bass playing is different from many others in the metal genre. You don't just stay on the low E string.

Geezer: I think it comes from our blues roots. We started out as a bluesy and jazzy kind of band, where we had a lot of bass runs between the guitar riffs. We, also, just have one guitar, one bass, and one set of drums in the band, so we have to fill the sound out. I try to give the bass it's own kind of voice in each song because it fills out the sound and gives me more to offer, I suppose.

Classic Rock Revisited: Both Vinny Appice and you play your instruments very loudly. It has to be a sonic nightmare for the sound engineer to separate the instruments in the mixing process.

Geezer: [laughing] If we were really sloppy and all over the place then I think it would be a nightmare. It really makes you play tighter. Vinny really picks up on what is happening with the bass, and the guitar, and fits right in the middle of both of us. He is really good at that, the same as Bill [Ward] was.

Read the entire interview from Classic Rock Revisited.