You can usually tell a lot from a name. That’s the case with Black Sabbath legend, Geezer Butler. With a name as such – you would expect somebody getting drunk and partying almost all of that time. You would be right as well. Even though Geezer (real name Terry) has had a great life in music with Black Sabbath, there have been times when things were not so easy for the bassist.
Terry Butler started out rough. At just 15 years old he was told his services were no longer required as a result of drinking on the job. This path would then lead to Terry Butler forming a band called Rare Breed. This band would feature a prominent young artist by the name of John. John was a bit odd but would eventually come into his own after he would start to wear the nickname ‘Ozzy’.
Speaking on his early years, Geezer Butler spoke with the Eddie Trunk Podcast.
Gezzer Butler would reflect by saying: “I left school when I was 15 and I apprenticed to be an accountant for three years. And I was absolutely awful at it. I hated it. I hated going to work from 9 until 5 every day. I just couldn’t do it.”
Lost and depressed at the time, Geezer Butler turned to something that would take away his pain as he searched for himself.
Butler continued: “I used to get drunk and smashed out of me brains just to go to work, I hated it that much, so I used to go to the pub until three in the afternoon, then turn up at the office at four in the afternoon, smashed out of me brains, and take black bombers to get me through.”
Not much worried about what would happen next, Butler would speak about the day that his life changed. Butler said: “Eventually, the guy who ran the factory, the office, called me into his office and said, ‘Butler, you’re fired.’”
Around a year later his music career kicked off, with Sabbath forming by the time he was 19.