(Blabbermouth) Heaven & Hell/Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has told Decibel magazine that working with singer Ronnie James Dio is a hell of a lot easier than working with Ozzy Osbourne. "Ronnie's a songwriter in his own right — he's got tons of ideas," the bassist said. "Whereas Ozzy... in the old days, he'd come up with a vocal line and I'd write the lyrics. Ronnie is 100 percent involved in both the musical side and the vocal side, and he writes his own lyrics as well."
Ozzy never took Butler's musical ideas seriously, either. "If we were with Ozzy and I came in with the killer riff of all time, Ozzy wouldn't even think of doing it because I'm not the guitarist and that's the way he thinks," Butler said. "When we tried to do a Sabbath album in 2001, we all gave each other CDs of our riffs or song ideas. Ozzy didn't even listen to mine. Because I'm not a guitarist, he felt I shouldn't be playing guitar. That's why it was so bloody hard to write anything."
Geezer Butler on Heaven & Hell's debut CD, "The Devil You Know": "If we'd written this album with Ozzy, we'd still be working on the first track." - more on this story
