Along with Roger Glover and John-Paul Jones, Terence ‘Geezer’ Butler represents the unholy trinity of 1970s British rock bass: unlike those esteemed players (of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin respectively, like you didn't know that already), his band – the one and only Black Sabbath – can truly claim to have invented heavy metal, albeit inadvertently. The HM tag – itself the obvious tag for a sound comprising Ozzy Osbourne's demented vocals, Tony lommi’s crushing, downtuned riffs and the rhythm section of Butler and drummer Bill Ward – later became ubiquitous, but Sabbath are acknowledged by pretty much everyone as the group who started it all off. A bassist with much to answer for, then.
.. but Butler is still a fan with his own bass guitar idols.
“I didn’t really know anything about bass until I went to see Cream,” he told Bass Player . “Jack Bruce’s bass playing was a complete surprise.” “I knew about Eric Clapton’s guitar playing because I’d followed him since he was in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers .
I was a guitarist at the time, so I’d never thought about bass – and Jack completely floored me.” “I’d never seen anyone use bass as a sort of semi-lead instrument, while at the same time being perfectly linked to the drums and the guitar. The way he bent the notes and came down the fretboard was amazing, too.
“At the time he was playing a Fender [Bass] VI, which I’d never seen before – they were terrible! I couldn’t even play o.