BLACK SABBATH Bassist GEEZER BUTLER On Recording Audiobook Version Of New Autobiography - "I Didn't Like The Experience Whatsoever"
June 23, 2023, a year ago
Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler's new autobiography, Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath - And Beyond was released on June 6 in North America via HarperCollins imprint, Dey Street Books.
During an interview on the 92 KQRS Morning Show, Butler revealed he didn't enjoy recording the audiobook version of Into The Void.
Butler: "I'm terrible at speeches and things like that. It was nerve-racking because you have to keep repeating yourself, or you didn't put enough emphasis on certain parts, so you have to go back and re-record it. Yeah, it was nerve-racking. I didn't like the experience whatsoever."
Check out the interview below. An audibook sample can be heard via HarperCollins.com here.
Book description: A rollicking, effusive, and candid memoir by the heavy metal musician and founding member of Black Sabbath, covering his years as the band’s bassist and main lyricist through his later-career projects, and detailing how one of rock’s most influential bands formed and prevailed.
With over 70 million records sold, Black Sabbath, dubbed by Rolling Stone “the Beatles of heavy metal,” helped create the genre itself, with their distinctive heavy riffs, tuned down guitars, and apocalyptic lyrics. Bassist and primary lyricist Geezer Butler played a gigantic part in the band’s renown, from suggesting the band name to using his fascination with horror, religion, and the occult to compose the lyrics and build the foundation of heavy metal as we know it.
In Into the Void, Butler tells his side of the story, from the band’s beginnings as a scrappy blues quartet in Birmingham through the struggles leading to the many well-documented lineup changes while touring around London’s gritty clubs (Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and The Who makes notable appearances!), and the band’s important later years. He writes honestly of his childhood in a working-class family of seven in Luftwaffe-battered Birmingham, his almost-life as an accountant, and how his disillusionment with organized religion and class systems would spawn the lyrics and artistic themes that would resonate so powerfully with fans around the world.
Into the Void reveals the softer side of the heavy metal legend and the formation of one of rock’s most exciting bands, while holding nothing back. Like Geezer’s bass lines, it is both original, dramatic, and forever surprising.
(Photo - Ross Halfin)
