This month—June 2026—marks the 13th anniversary of Black Sabbath’s final album, 13. To celebrate the album’s momentous birthday, I had a chance to ask bassist Geezer Butler a couple of questions about it, and he certainly did not hold back.
After discussing his instrument of choice, Fender’s iconic Precision Bass, I mentioned 13. I wondered if, at the time, they expected it to be the band’s final album. “When we started it, we didn’t really look at it as a final album,” Butler confessed. “But by the time it was finished, I wanted it to be the final album.” He then went on to share why he felt that way. Spoiler: it was in part due to producer Rick Rubin.
“It was a tough one to make, particularly with the producer we had,” Butler shared. “And the excessive number of songs we had to write and record.” He was also not particularly excited about making an album without one original member of the band. “Bill Ward was supposed to be the drummer on the album,” Butler explained, “but when that didn’t work out, the whole thing wasn’t the same for me.”
Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward infamously sat out the album due to contract disputes with the band’s management
With Ward out, Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk was brought on board. The band then knocked out the recording at Rubin’s Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu, California. The album dropped on June 7, 2013. It was preceded by two singles: “God Is Dead?” and “End of the Beginning”. Both songs were big hits and carried the album to the top of the charts.
“To my surprise, it was incredibly successful,” Butler told me, “our first number one album in the USA and second number one in the UK and Germany.”
Next, I asked Butler if there was anything he would have done differently, had he known 13 was going to go down in history asd Black Sabbath’s final album. “For me, 15 songs was too much,” he admitted. “I would rather have had 10 or 11 great songs.”
Butler then quipped, “Mainly because writing the lyrics, usually the night before we actually recorded a particular song, was a bit of a pain in the anus.”
Finally, he added, “It was a very important album for Sabbath, after being away from recording an album for so long, and it was a real strain to write 13 sets of lyrics in such a short amount of time. Ozzy wrote two sets of lyrics because I had run out of ideas.”
The post 13 Years of ‘13’: Geezer Butler Reflects on Black Sabbath’s Final Album and Why One Particular Aspect ‘Was a Bit of a Pain in the Anus’ appeared first on VICE.
