Tag Archives: Geezer Butler

1 - Hard Rock Recap

Heavy Metal 1

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Heavy Metal

Summertime Blues

Heavy metal is a loud and aggressive kind of music that grew out of the genre “hard rock” around 1968. Heavy Metal has a very distinctive sound that was in its embryonic state when the band called Blue Cheer did a version of “Summertime Blues” that exemplified the heavy metal sound.

Many agree that psychedelic rock band Blue Cheer’s version of “Summertime Blues” is considered to be one of the first “heavy metal” songs along with the first “metal” album “Vincibus Eruptum”. The “heavy metal” sound seems to have come out of the “power trio” experimentations, that is to say a band consisting of a bass guitarist, a drummer and guitarist doubling as a rhythm and a lead guitarist, who collectively rely on amplification, electronics and sheer volume.

In “Summertime Blues”, Blue Cheer puts its own spin of extra riffs complete with tempo changes, solos sections for all three instruments (bass, drums and guitar) and a more street level, “do it yourself” ethos recording that added to the mystique. The distortion feedback on the song was amazing for the day in 1968 but was a culmination in a “heavy” sound that had been pursued in rock & roll since the days of Link Wray.

Dick Dale in 1962-63 spearheaded the riff & power chord techniques and surfed a wave of popular “surf rock & pop” music along with the Beach Boys which had a great influence on British “hard rock” bands like The Who, the Stones and the Beatles. The speed of a song like “Miserlou” by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones were a particular favorite because of the finger picking dexterity and electronics usage that were vital in “Heavy Metal’s” development. Metal would be formed by a constant tug of war across “the big lake” (Atlantic Ocean) with the UK on one side and the US on the other, just like with many other rock genres (ie: Punk).

 

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Another great example of the heavy metal riff and structures in early “heavy metal” is the sprawling epic song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly and its album by the same name “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. The song takes up the whole b-side of the LP at more than 17 minutes long beating out Zappa on his twelve minute “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet” from his 1966 LP “Freak”.

A big feature in Heavy Metal is in song length and structure with songs layered by several elaborate riffs and alternate versions and songs frequently breaking the 3 minute length. Heavy Metal shares this feature of breaking the song length barrier, with genres like “Progress Rock” or “Prog Rock” and/or Jazz Fusion.

 

Heavy Metal Thunder

Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” and the memorable second verse line of “heavy metal thunder” only name checks the genre but is not truly “Metal”. “Born to be Wild” is a hard rock song that was number one in 1968 but as the music style is concerned, it is classic hard rock unlike Blue Cheer or Iron Butterfly.

British psychedelic rock group Vanilla Fudge’s Supremes cover “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” on tour along with new Yardbirds group Led Zeppelin were bands that were occasionally referred to as “heavy metal” in 1968, along with other “hard rock” bands Deep Purple, Cream, Hendrix, Jeff Beck. Hard Rock was starting to win over the air waves with rock band Free and the iconic “All Right Now”.

Then there were other bands from both sides of the pond being referred to as “heavy metal” like Humble Pie, Spooky Tooth, Budgie, UFO, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Hawkwind, Alice Cooper, James Gang and Mountain. In retrospect, only some of the above named bands became true “Heavy Metal” but most would be considered to be great bands of the genre “Hard Rock”. At this point rock was fragmenting into all these different genres like country rock, funk rock, southern rock, etc.

 

Black Sabbath

The best example of “heavy metal” is by far Black Sabbath who released their first album “Black Sabbath” on February, Friday the 13th, 1970 which contained the song “Black Sabbath“. The song broke many boundaries and started the dark genre in its purest form. Basically all the components of what makes up “heavy metal” are contained in this song.

One of the main features of “heavy metal” is the sound of the electric guitars. Feedback distortion and the overloading of the circuitry of amplifiers and electronic gadgets led to another rock “revolution” in sound. In the passing of the baton with this sound’s experimentation, it went from Link Wray to Dick Dale, from Dave Davies of the Kinks to John Lennon, then to Pete Townshend, to Keith Richards, to Clapton, Beck and Page and to Jimi Hendrix and then finally landing in the hands of Tony Iommi.

 

The Guitar

The “heavy metal” sound is in the way a song is played rhythmically and its structure harmonically. Rhythm guitar in “metal’ chugs or crunches along with the beat rather than a 12 bar blues style of swing that rock & roll often incorporates in its vamp or jamming patterns. Metal tends to crunch along with staccato impatience, marking time for the bouts of jumping in the pit with extended athletic bursts of energy.

“Metal” revolves around the “flatted fifth”, also known as the “tri-tone”, also known as “the devils chord” or “diabolus in musica”. Remember, “Metal” is all things taboo. The music also thrives on minor chords, complex chords, a technique known as down-tuning or drop tuning and does not shy away from dis-chordancy or dissonance in general.

After careful tweaking, a guitar can take on the quality of a large, billowing and towering sound that puts up a walls of canons or stacked Marshall Amps capable of high level long range ballistics of decibel destruction. Power, rhythm, and the devil’s chords are what make up the metal guitaring technique. Everything comes in threes or pentagrams and three sixes. Many other factors go into a metal guitarists sound such as type of amp, electronics, guitar make, style, wood choice, pick-ups, strings, miking techniques etc.

So, my argument is that Tony Iommi’s guitar sound and style of playing is the sound of ‘heavy metal”. Of all the aspects that differentiate “metal” from “hard rock”, its the guitar with its distortion sound, staccatto crunch playing, use of flatted 5ths and general dissonance that defines the genre separate from the genre of “Rock”. The other guitarists I named above all were hard rock guitarists who helped germinate “heavy metal” and had elements of “metal” in their sound, but, as far as song structure and feel, they are all Hard Rock. Sabbath is different.

 

The Lyrics

The subject matter that Geezer Butler’s universe had to offer was one of no limitations. Nothing was taboo. One could write about whatever the imagination could think of. Geezer Butler would go on to test the boundaries by starting off with the extreme subject matter. Satan, the occult, and evil in general along with the horror show audio effects put forth a multi-dimensional sensory explosion for those who dared to enter Black Sabbaths “house of horrors”. Geezer’s imaginative lyrics complimented the “diabolus in musica”; the devils chord shunned since the days of ancient Greece in music.

It seems as though nothing was taboo in subject matter and there were many songs on the occult, drug addiction, nuclear war, religion, insanity in the beginning and, as time went on, more lyrical barriers were to be broken. The freedom to sing about any topic no matter how disturbing is a major feature of heavy metal and why it has such a mystique. Black Sabbath helped tear down a lot of walls early on in its career and tested how far it could go with the sensors, the critics and the general public.

 

The Vocals

Ozzy Osbourne and his blood curdling wail of hopelessness on the song “Black Sabbath” raised the hairs on many necks and ears, completely eclipsing Arthur Browns hit single “Fire”, as the most outrageous song. Ozzy Osbourne would go on to show the world just what Heavy Metal was all about, being the leading solo figure in the face of the genre to orchestrate the successful Ozfest tours which currently keep “metal” alive. Along with Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey and Ian Gillian contributed to the quintessential rock front man image, but it was Ozzy’s outrageousness that helped give the heavy metal front man a unique mystique.

Bass & Drums

The rhythm section of Black Sabbath is bombastic and explosive to say the least. It was like that metal rhythm section was born as a fully formed adult. The way Bill Ward uses a primordial battle attack along with Tony Iommi’s tri-chord slowly growing louder but with using dynamic tact in the build-up to the climax of the song, which breaks into full gallop utilizing the fight or flight response.

Ward, who was a great blues and jazz drummer, used a very symphonic or operatic crescendo in his rolls and fills while sometimes laying down a funky groove. Geezer’s bass playing shows his influence on metal bass guitar, not only as a rhythm instrument but a melodic instrument occasionally taking up the lead. His mastery of timing blending in with the rhythms and counter-rhythms of the guitar and the drums is impeccable.

The song, Black Sabbath, is but one song in a vast canon of music that would explore many heights and depths of the human condition. The first eight albums show a pioneering of unexplored topography in sound and concept, an alternate land where nothing is taboo and anything goes.

Just the Beginning

In the beginning the phrase “heavy metal” referred to several bands who played an aggressive form of hard rock in the late sixties (Vanilla Fudge, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, Mountain, James Gang, Grand Funk Railroad even Neil Young), but as the seventies progressed the term “heavy metal” would apply to a specific form of music that Black Sabbath spearheaded and that would eventually explode in a new scene in the late seventies and early eighties, as if in response to the punk movement. Early on there were several bands who would carry the “heavy metal” torch throughout the early seventies. However two bands would come forth as being true heavy metal bands within the parameters set by Black Sabbath, those bands were Judas Priest and Motorhead.

 

2 - Pioneer Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath

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To me, true “heavy metal” begins with Black Sabbath; it is with Tony Iommi’s distinct dark and distorted style of guitar playing and amplified sound, along with Geezer’s depth in bass and haunting lyrical content, the indomitable Ward’s violent aggressive blues approach to the drums and then there was Ozzy, as was Elvis to Rock & Roll so was Ozzy to heavy metal.

Tony Iommi was influenced by “Blues” but in many of the songs that he created for Sabbath have a “Classic Music” feel to them like Baroque or classical guitar (Segovia or Paganini). In fact many of the Brits contributed a distinct classical music influence to rock music (Beatles, Stones, Procul Harum, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and on to Led Zeppelin, Yes and Sabbath) quite different than America’s Americana (folk, blues, gospel, country, etc.) influence to Rock music. With the exception of Frank Zappa and a couple of others, the music of “Classic Rock” was created by the mix of British Bands with the United States Americana bands.

Tony Iommi simultaneously started a sound. A distinct sound of heavily distorted, dropped tuned, guitar using repeating riffs, motifs or themes (or Ostinato, in classical music), with strong emphasis on syncopated rhythms. The musical phrases or riffs of the guitars, when strummed give a big wall of sound (especially with a wall of stacked Marshalls), and then when played muted, the sound gives a distorted kind of chug chugging or crunch sound. This crunch sound of an extended musical repeating riff is what really differentiates “Heavy Metal” from “Hard Rock’s” 12-bar blues phrasing.

Another important differentiator between hard rock and heavy metal is the absence of the 12 bar blues, or the happy chord structures derived from I, IV, V chords that is so well used in rock. Now in place are original riffs being played over the vocalists extended melodies or rhythmic chants.

Also, the chord structures were in unexplored regions of minor, diminished, augmented, altered and complex chords, dissonance now ruled the songs along with the forbidden tri tone (Augmented fourth/Diminished 5th chords, “Devil’s Chord” or Diabolis en Musica, if you will), “heavy metal” crunches along in sometimes one key only or an ascending or descending or elaborate scalar riff off a low drone note (Jimmy Page is famous for this) or an elaborate riff that jumps, twists or winds through strange arpeggios (like the arpeggios accompanying that dark riff at the end of The Beatles song “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on the Abbey Road album or the arpeggios on Sabbath’s “Snowblind” off of the Vol. 4 album.

The drums had been getting more aggressive with a line of drummers starting from early instrumental and “surf rock” songs through to Ringo’s innovative close miked or ringing sounds. Next, Keith Moon of the Who popularized the (in his case) excessive or extensive usage of drum fills as did Cream’s Ginger Baker. Mr. Baker also roused us with his jazz influenced attack, as did the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s, Mitch Miller who was an eclectic and innovative compliment to Jimi’s genius. Then Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham perfected “Hard Rock” drumming while Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward invented “Heavy Metal” drumming. Both Bonham and Ward were jazz and blues influenced yet they were both in what would be seen as two different genres Rock & Metal respectively.

As far as “heavy metal’ drumming is concerned, jazz and blues were a big influence on the genre. In particular, how Sabbaths musicians (Bass, drums, and multiple guitars) used a slower tempo interspersed with wild, fast paced, freak outs only to come down again and use a great technique in metal song building of “recurring themes”, built out of a growing vast library of metal riffs.

The bass guitar is heavily influenced by the mix of blues but also of classical music. With much of the British Invasion the bass guitar was taking an active role in being a lead instrument as well as doubling as a rhythm instrument. Many heavy metal bands use Geezer’s pioneering style of bass playing by being proficient as a lead but with an ear to the classics and the whole picture. The UK in my opinion invented “Heavy Metal” by mixing classical music element with blues based psychedelic hard rock.

The lyrical content and imagery are quite extreme, far from the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” standard rock & roll pop tunes. “Metal’s” songs are basically from horror films, Halloween, the Occult, magic, anti-social philosophy, insanity and any taboo. Yes, the lyrical content is macabre, and downright disturbing, obscure and in many cases too harsh for modern society, especially in the early seventies despite the changes. Black Sabbath lived in obscurity for a long time in the early 70s, reveling in anti-social lifestyles and was re-discovered by a younger generation (the Baby Boomer’s children) in the 80s. With “heavy metal” lyrical topics, there is an “anything goes” attitude. The more shocking, horrifying, grotesque the better; anything goes even if society isn’t ready for it!

So, to recap “Hard rock” uses blues or R&B derived rock & roll phrasing. Listen to the 70s bands like in songs by Kiss in its original lineup and much of Queen in its early work, Boston, Aerosmith, Styx, Kansas, Thin Lizzy, Bachman Turner Overdrive, UFO, Rainbow , Bad Company, Foreigner and on they have heavy elements and some have outright true heavy metal songs, but for the most part these bands were hard rock bands, not metal (with the exceptions of Deep Purple which eventually would become strictly metal and Rush which would start out metal and go the other way to rock and even pop later) .

Whereas bands like, Budgie, Deep Purple’s (Mach II), Judas Priest, some of Lemy era Hawkwind progressing on to when Lemy founded Motorhead, Iron Maiden, early Rush, Dio era Rainbow, all adhere to ethos the original lineup of Black Sabbath established with specific parameters to the newer unexplored dimensions of music sound and composition.

Black Sabbath, is where, in my opinion, heavy metal started to be distinct and different in sound, culture and tradition from the more rock & roll oriented genre “hard rock”. There are many genre defining bands that played hard rock and dabbled in what was until then described as “that heavy sound” as Lennon had referred to it. That heavy sound, utilized through volume and distortion effects in the late 60’s, was what gave birth to two distinct genres, Hard Rock & Heavy Metal.

 


War Pigs / Luke’s Wall – Black Sabbath