Ozzy was Right, Black Sabbath was Wrong
In a recent interview Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler explained how Ozzy was right and Black Sabbath was wrong when the band hit some rough patches back in the mid-70’s. When you’ve been doing something over a long period of time, at some point you might want to change or think you should progress. At times that is not the correct path to go down. Black Sabbath learned that the hard way.
In an interview with Metal Edge, Geezer Butler talked about how after the band’s first 4 albums he and Tony Iommi wanted the band to progress and change their sound a bit. Ozzy wanted the band to keep the sound that had worked on the first albums. Butler went on to say that Ozzy was right and he and Toni, “completely lost the plot”. With hindsight being 20/20 Butler knows that going for a more melodic sound was the wrong move. The tension with Ozzy over the sound of the band led to them splitting. According to Geezer, some other things led to high tensions like drugs and money issues problems
If it ain’t broke don’t fix is seems to work just fine for some bands. A great example of a band sticking with a sound that works for them is AC/DC. Other than the change in lead singer after Bon Scott’s death, the music always sounds like what you would expect from AC/DC. You can take of their songs from their 1st album High Voltage to their most recent album Power Up and it could fit on any one of their albums. It’s actually impressive.
Lesson to be learned here: If you’ve made a career out of a certain sound, stick with what works and don’t reinvent the wheel.
