Founding Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler is set to release his autobiography, Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath — and Beyond, on June 6th via the HarperCollins imprint Dey Street Books.
The book will follow both Butler’s personal life as well as tell his side of the Black Sabbath story. This includes his working-class upbringing in Birmingham, the band’s “beginnings as a scrappy blues quartet,” and the internal struggles that led to Black Sabbath’s many lineup changes over the years.
“A rollicking, effusive, and candid memoir by the heavy metal musician and founding member of Black Sabbath,” reads the publisher’s thumbnail description, “covering his years as the band’s bassist and main lyricist through his later-career projects, and detailing how one of rock’s most influential bands formed and prevailed.”
Butler announced that the memoir was complete in a tweet back in April 2022. He later told Eddie Trunk that the manuscript had been submitted and was in the editing process.
Regarding the decision to pen an autobiography, Butler said he was inspired by memories of his parents and wanting to know more about their lives after they had passed on.
“When my parents died, I always wished I’d asked them a lot more things than I knew about,” he told Cleveland.com in 2021. “I don’t really know much about my mum and dad, ’cause they were always just there. So, I started writing a memoir for my grandkids to read, and that’s been fun going through stuff — old times and growing up in Birmingham and all that.”
Butler will be the third founding member of the original Sabbath lineup to release a memoir, following singer Ozzy Osbourne (I Am Ozzy) and guitarist Tony Iommi (Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath). Drummer Bill Ward also mentioned a couple years ago that he was working on an autobiography. Plus there’s Ronnie James Dio’s posthumous memoir Rainbow in the Dark: The Autobiography, which was released in 2021.
Pre-order Geezer Butler’s memoir Into the Void: From Birth to Black Sabbath — and Beyond via Amazon.
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