Geezer Butler has revisited one of the great pivot points in metal history: the moment BLACK SABBATH replaced Ozzy Osbourne with Ronnie James Dio and, against all expectations, made one of the most beloved albums of their career.
Appearing on the latest episode of the "100 Songs That Define Heavy Metal" podcast hosted by Metal Blade Records CEO Brian Slagel, the bassist — SABBATH's primary lyricist from the very beginning — said he felt nothing but relief when Dio took over the words in 1979.
"I was just so relieved, because the final album with Ozzy in the '70s, the 'Never Say Die!' album, it was like pulling teeth trying to get Ozzy to sing the lyrics," Butler said. "And I used to write lyrics for him, and he wouldn't even read them. He just totally dismissed them before he'd even read them. On that final album, Bill Ward had to sing one of the songs 'cause Ozzy, he just left. He wasn't interested in singing on them. One of the songs had to become instrumental because Ozzy refused to sing on it. It was around that time we either broke up or had to do something drastic and get a different singer in, and that's what happened."
Working with Dio, he said, changed the mechanics of the band entirely. "It was great, because even down to the… Ozzy couldn't play any instruments, but Ronnie, to be able to express some of the choruses and things, he'd come up with a guitar and play it to Tony. Sort of, 'This is how I see the chorus.' And he'd play the chords, so we all knew what to do."
What none of them saw coming was the reception. Asked whether the band was surprised that a nearly seven-minute title track found traction on American radio, Butler was blunt about how low the expectations were.
"The whole thing surprised us, 'cause we believed in it, but getting everybody else to believe in it is another thing," he said. "You can think you've written the greatest song on earth, and then nobody else will think that way. But it was lucky, 'cause the people liked it as much as we did. And, yeah, it was accepted. People were just, like, going, 'Well, SABBATH are finished. Let's hear what this terrible album's gonna be like,' and then getting completely surprised."
Released in April 1980, "Heaven And Hell" went on to become SABBATH's biggest-selling album in years and the template for the band's entire second act.
Butler — the pen behind "War Pigs", "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" — last performed with the original lineup at the "Back To The Beginning" concert at Villa Park in Birmingham in July 2025, playing four songs to more than 40,000 people and 5.8 million livestream viewers, just weeks before Osbourne's death on July 22, 2025.