Geezer Butler Says That Rick Rubin Wouldn’t Work with Black Sabbath Again

Rick Rubin is an absolutely legendary music producer whose work spans several genres from hip-hop to heavy metal to punk to funk to pop. Having started out as a hip-hop producer primarily, he gained a positive reputation amongst rock artists after producing Slayer’s 1986 masterpiece Reign in Blood. Many consider him one of the greatest producers in the history of popular music, but apparently Black Sabbath didn’t enjoy the experience of working with him on their 2013 album 13 and wouldn’t work with him again. Of course, according to Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, that feeling is mutual.

In a recent interview with Brave Words that was transcribed by Ultimate Guitar, Butler talked about the early days of Black Sabbath when the band churned out five high-quality albums in approximately three years, as opposed to the band’s later albums which took much longer, and Butler said:

“Yeah, that’s the way it’s evolved, I suppose. I always think you just lose the spontaneity and the feel of stuff. But when we did the ’13’ album, that took forever. And some of it was great doing it, and some of it not so good.

“But… It just didn’t have the same feeling like the old ’70s album or even ‘Heaven and Hell’ album. I loved doing ‘Heaven and Hell.’ But yeah, I think the longer you take over something, it becomes forced in the end, and you sort of lose the initial rawness and the feeling of the music.”

And, when asked if he would ever work with Rubin again, Butler was pretty definitive in his refusal, saying:

“Nope. He certainly wouldn’t work with me ever again. Or Tony. Tony was incredibly disappointed with him. In fact, Tony took some of the master tapes and redid them.”

It’s hard to understand why two legends who are beloved by so many, such as Rick Rubin and Black Sabbath, would not find much to like about each other. But I suppose some people just rub each other the wrong way.