Geezer Butler Used to Get Drunk Before Going to Accounting Job

Today, you know Geezer Butler as the legendary bassist for Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Black Sabbath, but there was a period in his life where another career path could have been taken. Can you imagine Geezer Butler, the accountant?

During a chat with Eddie Trunk on the Eddie Trunk Podcast (heard below), Butler revealed that early in his life, there was a period where he was planning to be an accountant, but lucky for all of us that he absolutely hated the job.

“I left school when I was 15 and I apprenticed to be an accountant for three years and I was absolutely awful at it,” recalled the bassist. “I hated it. I hated going to work from 9 until 5 every day. I just couldn’t do it.”

It was so bad for Butler that he had to work himself up to go to work and started missing parts of the day. “Eventually, I used to get drunk and smashed out of me brains just to go to work. I hated it that much,” says Butler. “So I used to go to the pub until 3 in the afternoon, then turn up at the office at 4 in the afternoon, smashed out of me brains, take black bombers (upper) to get me through [the shift].”

“Eventually, the guy who ran the factory, the office, called me into his office and said, ‘Butler, you’re fired,'” revealed the bassist.

That said, the accounting background did come in handy in the early days of the group. Geezer revealed he was often left in charge of their finances when they were starting out.

“Yeah, it was the only time that we never got ripped off,” he laughs. “It’s true. I used to get the 20 quid a night that we used to get and spend it on petrol and then if we had any money left we’d go down to the chip shop.”

Butler, of course, went on to find his life’s work in music as a member of Black Sabbath. The group, who are considered the forefathers of heavy metal, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Geezer Butler on The Eddie Trunk Podcast

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