GEEZER BUTLER - Ohm Is Where The Hard Is Page 2
by Martin Popoff

Vocalist on Ohmwork is the returning Clark Brown. "I think he's got a really good range," points out Geezer. "He can go from screaming death metal to really soulful to rap. He really has got a good range on him, and a really good person to get along with, which is the main thing for me." Lyrically, it's all Clark as well, although, sez Geezer, "'Pardon My Depression', I started the lyrics and Clark finished them off. Dogs Of Whore, same thing, and I think that was it."

Depression has in fact been a theme in Geezer's life, and in his lyrics. I asked if he still suffered from it. "No, not so much now, because they've come up with some really good things like Prozac and stuff. But when I was growing up as a kid, I used to get these weird, strange moods, and people thought I was being miserable and standoffish, and I didn't know what the hell was happening to me. And it wasn't until about ten years ago, when I was going through a really bad depression... I was living in St. Louis at the time and I went to the doctor there, and he says you've got really... you've got depression. And that's when he put me on to Prozac. And after all these years I realized how bad I'd been, once I'd gotten back to sort of almost normal again. I realized that I'd been suffering from it for 20, 30 years."

"It was all right in the '70s," continues Geezer. "It was all the drugs I was taking (laughs). That sort of made it go away. So it was mainly in the '60s, I had it worse. There's a time when Sabbath first started and I was in Germany, and it just hit me in Germany for some reason; I was in a really bad state and I just didn't know what was going on. You know, nobody talked about it and nobody explained it to you, and I managed to get through that. And in the '70s I wasn't too bad. I think I just had one bout of it. The '80s were okay. And it was mainly the '90s where it came back."

GEEZER BUTLER - Ohm Is Where The Hard Is Page 3