During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler revealed the one time when Ozzy Osbourne lost his temper when working with Rick Rubin.
In 2011, Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, and Ozzy Osbourne announced that they would get back together to record a new Black Sabbath album. Following the reunion, the band gave several concerts and then entered the studio to record the album. Black Sabbath’s nineteenth and final studio album, ’13,’ arrived on June 10, 2013, which marked their first studio album in 18 years.
The band chose Rick Rubin as the producer to work with on their long-awaited release. The album’s standard version featured eight new tracks, while the deluxe edition featured three more songs. The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics but drew criticism due to its sound quality. The band embarked on an extensive North American tour in July 2013 to support the album. A Latin American and European tour followed it.
During his recent appearance, Geezer Butler opened up about the making process of ’13’ and how it was to work with the famous producer, Rick Rubin. The bassist stated that it was a weird experience for them, and he mostly didn’t understand what Rubin did. Later on, Butler recalled when Ozzy Osbourne went nuts due to Rubin’s repetitive requests. Although Ozzy performed ten different vocals, the producer wanted him to do another one regardless of being great. Thus, Ozzy lost it since he couldn’t understand why he needed to do another vocal.
The reason Ozzy Osbourne went nuts, in Geezer Butler’s words:
“I still don’t know what he did. It’s, like, ‘Yeah, that’s good.’ ‘No, don’t do that.’ And you go, ‘Why?’ He says, ‘Just don’t do it.’ I think Ozzy one day went nuts ’cause he’d done, like, ten different vocals, and Rick kept saying, ‘Yeah, that’s great, but do another one.’ And Ozzy was, like, ‘If it’s great, why am I doing another one?‘ He just lost it.
And that’s the way it was. Tony wasn’t happy with some of the stuff he was trying to make him play. He was making Tony get 1968 amps as if that would make it sound like back in 1968. It’s mad. But it’s good for publicity, and it’s good for the record company. If you’ve got Rick Rubin involved, then it must be a good kind of thing.”
You can listen to Black Sabbath’s final album, ’13,’ below.
