In the midst of BLACK SABBATH‘s turbulent late 70s era, bassist Geezer Butler found himself unexpectedly out of the band for a short period. As he revealed in his memoir Into the Void, this brief hiatus provided a much-needed respite, becoming ‘the best two weeks [he’d] had in years.’
“I have no idea because everybody was totally out of their brains all the time. We’d sold millions and millions of albums, and sold out thousands of gigs around the world. We still hardly had any money to show for it, and we’d sort of realized that we were being ripped off by the management.”
During an interview about his memoir Into the Void, legendary bassist Geezer Butler recalled to Lifeminute host Joann Butler how he was fired in the summer of 1977, only to be swiftly rehired.
Geezer said (as transcribed by Ultimate Guitar): “I have no idea because everybody was totally out of their brains all the time. We’d sold millions and millions of albums, and sold out thousands of gigs around the world. We still hardly had any money to show for it, and we’d sort of realized that we were being ripped off by the management.”
“I think that just people just wanted a scapegoat for the whole thing. It just happened to be me at the time. Bill Ward came to the house and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re fired.’ ‘Oh, thanks very much. Why?’ ‘You don’t seem into it anymore.’ And I was actually relieved because we were under so much pressure at the time.”
“Probably the best two weeks that I’ve had for years [chuckles], because I could just relax and not think about the business, or getting albums together, or anything like that,” he continued. “And then, about two or three weeks later, Bill calls me up and says, ‘Where are you?'”
“I said, ‘What do you mean, where am I?’ He said, ‘We’re here, rehearsing!’ I said, ‘I thought I was fired.’ He said, ‘What do you mean, fired!?’ I said, ‘You told me I was fired from the band!’ [laughs] He said, ‘Oh, yeah, forgot about that.’ So, I went down to rehearsal, nobody said anything about it, just carried on as normal.”
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