Black Sabbath Made First Three Albums Sober

Geezer Butler has admitted that Black Sabbath weren't always fueled by drugs during the making of some of their legendary music in the '70s, despite the band's reputation.

“Funnily enough, when making the first three albums [the now legendary run of Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master of Reality (1971)] we were sober,” he stresses. “We couldn't afford any drugs. It was the '70s and we were all broke. We couldn't even afford the instruments we were playing back then. It took years for us to see any money. We never used to do drugs while we were recording, we'd do them while we were at home or something. It wasn't until Volume 4 [1972] that we started getting into drugs.”

Black Sabbath has recently reunited with their original frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and the last last time the Ozzy-era lineup was in the studio they were in their death throes, recording the drug-addled and poorly-received Never Say Die (1978). Butler points out that “1978 was when the band was splitting up and we were just going through the motions.”

This far down the road however, and getting back into the studio for this year's comeback 13 with Ozzy “just felt right. It was like putting your old shoes on or something - it just comes naturally. There's no ego or anything like that in the band.”

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