Terence Michael Joseph "Geezer" Butler (born 17 July 1949) is an English musician, best known as the bassist and primary lyricist of the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He has also recorded and performed with Heaven & Hell, GZR, Ozzy Osbourne, and Deadland Ritual.
Butler adopted the nickname "Geezer" at an early age. "It came because when I was at school, my brother was in the army, and he was based with a lot of Cockneys. And people in London call everybody a 'geezer.' [It means] just a man — like, 'Hello, mate.' It's just like somebody calling you 'dude' over here (in the United States). In England, it'd be 'geezer.' So my brother used to come home from leave from the army, and he'd be going, 'Hello, geezer. How are you, geezer?' So because I had looked up to my brother when I was about seven years old, I'd go to school calling everybody a geezer. So that's how I got cursed with it."
Butler grew up in a working-class Irish Catholic family, the son of James and Mary Butler. He had six siblings. His father had served in the Royal Scots Regiment and later settled in Birmingham, where he worked for an engineering company. Mary had worked as a nanny in her younger years and became a housewife after marrying James in 1929. Both of his parents were born in Dublin.and were poor, typically having "no money whatsoever". He was born in the family house on Victoria Road in the Aston district of Birmingham, a house that had been damaged by Luftwaffe bombs during the Second World War. When he was just one day old, his sister Eileen tried to toss him out a bedroom window in a fit of jealousy.
Butler has said that he enjoyed an "incredibly loving, happy childhood". The family home had no telephone, hot water or bathroom, and considered itself lucky to have their own outside toilet. Two of Butler's older brothers had been called upon to serve in the army and Butler feared that he would be next. However, mandatory national service was ended in the United Kingdom a couple of years before he was due to be conscripted.
At the age of ten, Butler passed the eleven plus examination and was accepted by Birmingham's Holte Grammar Commercial School in 1960. Learning English literature such as Shakespeare furthered his love of reading, and he says "I never went a day without reading something." He credits this education, along with his vivid imagination, for the composition skills he would later use as Black Sabbath's lyricist. He was later heavily influenced by the writing of Aleister Crowley as a teenager.
By his late teens, he had stopped attending Mass. He cited a loss of belief, and feels that everyone should sooner or later decide for themselves what to believe in. Initially, Butler was "going to Mass every Sunday just to take a look at all the nice girls that were going there", he recalled years later. After growing his hair long as a teenager, he would encounter a nun every Sunday at Mass who found it humorous to refer to Butler as "miss", and he soon decided to never go back.
Butler became obsessed with The Beatles and The Kinks, and later Cream and Jimi Hendrix. When The Beatles appeared on a Birmingham television programme called Thank Your Lucky Stars in January 1963, Butler waited outside the studio to get a glimpse of them. It was here that he met another Beatles fan, John "Ozzy" Osbourne, for the first time.
Butler joined his first band, the Ruums, named after an Arthur Porges science fiction story, in 1965. His first professional gig was with the Ruums at the Parochial Hall in Erdington, where they performed covers of various Merseybeat bands. The Ruums would perform only a handful of local gigs before breaking up, but it was long enough for Butler to decide that he wanted to devote his life to music.
In late 1967, Butler formed the band The Rare Breed, with Osbourne soon joining as lead vocalist. At that time, Butler was dating a girl named Georgina who lived near Tony Iommi, and Iommi's earliest memories of Butler involved seeing him walking past his house every day to visit her. Georgina would later become Butler's first wife. Later, Iommi and Butler became acquainted when their bands played at a nearby nightclub. Separated after The Rare Breed disbanded, Butler and Osbourne reunited to form the blues foursome Polka Tulk, along with guitarist Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, both of whom had recently left a local blues band called Mythology. Polka Tulk was soon rebranded as Earth, but a band already existed in the small-time English circuit with the same name, so they were forced to change the name again to avoid confusion. Inspired by the popular Boris Karloff horror film of the same name, Butler suggested the name Black Sabbath in early 1969.
Black Sabbath (1969-1984, 1987, 1990-1994, 1997-2006, 2011-2017, 2025)
Inspired by John Lennon, Butler played rhythm guitar in his pre-Sabbath days, including with The Rare Breed. When Sabbath was formed, Iommi made it clear that he did not want to play with another guitarist, so Butler moved to bass. According to Butler, "I'd never played bass until I was on stage at the first gig that we played. Borrowed the bass guitar off one of my friends and it only had three strings on it." Butler lists Jack Bruce of Cream as his biggest influence as a bassist. Iommi described Butler as being "from another planet" in the band's early days; he took LSD, wore Indian hippie dresses, and was very peaceful. At the time Black Sabbath was formed, Butler had been hired by a Birmingham steel company to train in the accounting department, and this business experience resulted in him managing the band's finances in the early days.
In the summer of 1977, drummer Bill Ward visited Butler at his Worcestershire home to inform him he had been fired from Black Sabbath after a band meeting, telling him that Iommi and Osbourne questioned his commitment. Butler said he was "pissed off" yet relieved, and spent the following two or three weeks resting and getting healthy, not giving much thought to what he would do next. He then received a phone call from Ward inviting him to rehearsals which were starting the next day. Upon returning to the band, Butler says Iommi and Osbourne both denied any involvement in his firing, with Ward claiming he had merely been the messenger. He says he was never offered an explanation. The event changed Butler's attitude towards Black Sabbath and he was never able to completely trust his bandmates again, saying "a little bit of me died back then". He has said that he did not really want to return but did so only because he had nothing else going on musically.
After Black Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979, Butler also briefly left the band to deal with the divorce from his first wife. The 1980 album Heaven and Hell was recorded with bassist Craig Gruber but Butler returned to the band at the last minute and re-recorded the bass parts prior to release. He again left the band in 1984 after touring in support of their 1983 album, Born Again, although he returned months later as the band attempted a comeback with vocalist David Donato.
He rejoined Black Sabbath in 1991 for the reunion of the Mob Rules line-up, but again quit the group after the Cross Purposes tour in 1994.
He rejoined Iommi and Osbourne to record 13 and toured in support of the album from 2012 to 2014. He and Black Sabbath later embarked on their final tour which began in January 2016, and concluded in February 2017.
Despite previously ruling out any further reunions, Butler reunited with the original lineup of Black Sabbath at Back to the Beginning in July 2025 for a final show.
Ozzy Osbourne (1988-1989, 1994-1996)
In 1988, Butler joined the backing band of his former Black Sabbath bandmate Ozzy Osbourne to take part in the No Rest for the Wicked World Tour.