INTO THE VOID

The Black Sabbath bassist chronicles his life and career.

Resolutely working-class, dirt-poor, and downright dirty, the four members of Black Sabbath were an unlikely success. It’s not often that a bassist is called on to offer an opinion, Paul McCartney notwithstanding, but Butler acquits himself well in this memoir—and he did, after all, write most of Sabbath’s lyrics. The trajectory is unsurprising: Seeing the Beatles, another working-class bunch, set the world on fire, they were royally ripped off by management. Drugs and alcohol did the rest of the damage, so that the millions they made turned into hundreds until finally an honest bloke came along and helped sort them out. Butler isn’t afraid to laugh at himself or his mates. “Tony [Iommi] was the year above Ozzy at school and allegedly bullied him—he always said that Ozzy had the kind of face you wanted to punch,” he writes. “Ozzy never stopped being the kid from the year below Tony, and Tony never stopped being the band leader. As is common with lots of groups of mates, once that hierarchy was established, it never disappeared.” The author also offers a few what-if moments, such as the fact that Sabbath almost didn’t happen because Ian Anderson was trying to lure Iommi to join Jethro Tull, a band that pointed the way to success: “We had to treat it like a nine-to-five job…and we had to start writing our own songs. Covers would no longer do.” Butler, apparently mild-mannered, is less tender toward other erstwhile band mates, especially Ronnie James Dio, and is downright scathing in his assessment of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The author’s opening is particularly apropos: “It’s a minor miracle all four of the original lineup survived beyond the 1970s, let alone that we’re all still here.”

Sabbath fans will enjoy Butler’s long stroll down Memory Lane, though not his never-again epitaph for the band.