Geezer Butler: Black Sabbath return not likely to happen

Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath

Former Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler says any sort of reunion with his old bandmates isn’t likely to happen.

In November 2016, guitarist Tony Iommi reported it was “possible” that they could record another album and make festival appearances after their farewell tour. The End trek wrapped up in February last year – but Butler doesn’t think anything will happen in the future.

When asked by Full Metal Jackie if it was likely they could reunite for one-off shows or studio work, Butler replies: “Not very likely at all. I think Ozzy is going out on his farewell tour, so that will be him touring for the next two or three years.

“So I don’t think there will be any chance of doing any one-offs or anything like that – which I’m fine with. We went out on a high, and it’s best not to drag it out.”

Butler says he’s been travelling around North America and Europe as a tourist since Sabbath brought the curtain down on their career, but hints that a solo album could be released in the future.

He says: “I’ve got 10-15 years’ worth of ideas and riffs and stuff like that that I’ve written over the years. But they’re all on different computers, so I’ve been archiving all the ideas that I’ve had.

“Maybe next year I’ll put them together and hopefully put out another album.”

Black Sabbath released The End concert movie in November last year, which documented their final show at Birmingham’s Genting Arena in February 2017.

Watch Black Sabbath play Iron Man for the last time

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.