It's already well known that back then, Black Sabbath's manager Don Arden didn't want Ronnie James Dio fronting Black Sabbath. Geezer shares his memories of the time recording Vol. 4, The Mob Rules and Heaven and Hell.
1980's Heaven and Hell and 1981's The Mob Rules were the first two albums with new vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Ozzy Osbourne had, more or less, quit the band to pursue a solo career. It worked for him because he did have some success as a solo artist. It also worked out for Black Sabbath because with Dio up front, and his amazing vocals, the band could go in new directions. Butler talks about the sessions for Vol. 4, where the whole band was in a house in Los Angeles. In an interview with Billboard, Butler says "It was mental. Completely mental! We used to have bucketloads of cocaine there, and we had this big bowl in the middle of the table, full of cocaine. One day Ozzy noticed this button below one of the windows; He kept pressing it, wondering 'I wonder what this does?' The next thing, the police turned up - it was a panic button. And there was us with this great bowl of cocaine in the middle. So we dumped all the cocaine down the toilet and ran upstairs to get rid of our own stashes. The coppers went 'What's the problem?' 'Oh, nothing...' 'OK, see ya...' And we'd dumped about five grams of cocaine down the bog!"
While Butler has good memories of all three albums, he describes Heaven and Hell as being a particularly challenging time for the band, especially with Ozzy leaving and Ronnie entering. During the subsequent tour for Heaven and Hell, Vinny Appice replaced drummer Bill Ward. "The manager at the time didn't want Ronnie in the band - he said he was too little! He used to call him "the dwarf" and all this stuff. And we said 'That's ridiculous. He's got a great voice, his songwriting's brilliant, he's doing great with the band and that's it. We're keeping him."
Geezer also mentions that both Ronnie and Vinny brought "massive enthusiasm back to the band. We were on our last legs kind of thing, after Ozzy went. We were almost thinking about breaking up. But Ronnie brought incredible enthusiasm with him; He could play guitar, bass and put over his ideas instrumentally as well as vocally. He was brilliant to write with, too... Vinnie was the same way. Ronnie knew him and asked him to come down and rehearse with us, and he fitted in straight away, so we carried on."
As everyone knows, Black Sabbath is no longer touring. Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi carried the band through their The End tour in 2016-2017. The final show was in their hometown of Birmingham, England. These days, Butler is more at home with his wife of 40+ years Gloria and their multitude of dogs and cats and he writes music at his leisure. He's also written a memoir called Into the Void. He describes Black Sabbath as a thing of the past. "We went out on top - why ruin it? We're all old - really old. I don't think we could last a tour these days [laughs]. Tony had his cancer; He's in remission but he doesn't want to chance going out on the road. God knows what Ozzy's doing; He was waiting to do his final tour for the past three years. I don't know if he'll ever go out on the road again. So no, Sabbath, it's definitely the end for us."
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