Geezer Butler recently talked about the Black Sabbath song Eddie Van Halen co-wrote and played on in the early 90s.
The Sabbath bassist made the comment during a recent interview with Eamon O’Neill of EonMusic.
Here are Butler’s comments:
You didn’t have much involvement with Sabbath outside of your initial stint up until 1983, but what can you tell me about working on the ‘Cross Purposes’ album in 1993 with the Tony Martin era; was your heart in it?
Yes, I enjoyed that album, as I wrote quite a bit of it, however, towards the end of the tour, I had lost interest in that particular line-up. I thought Tony Martin had a great voice and did a great job on the album. One of the highlights was when Eddie Van Halen came down to the rehearsal place and jammed with us and helped write one of the songs. I’ve no idea what happened to the tape, but that was great seeing and jamming with Eddie again [Van Halen toured with Black Sabbath in 1980]. I can’t believe he’s no longer with us.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone‘s Kory Grow Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi said he believed the song Eddie co-wrote and played a solo on was the track “Evil Eye”.
Here are Iommi’s comments:
He had a hand in writing one of the songs on Black Sabbath’s Cross Purposes album, “Evil Eye.” How did that come about?
Well, when we were doing ‘Cross Purposes’, they were playing in Birmingham. Obviously, I went to see him, and we were rehearsing. I said, “You ought to come down to rehearsal if you want.” “Oh, can I?” I said, “I’ll pick you up from the hotel.” I said, “Let’s go and get a guitar.” We went down to the music shop in Birmingham. I said, “Can you lend us a guitar for Eddie?” And of course, they went, “Oh, oh, wha’?” [Laughs] So Eddie came in with me, and we got one of his guitars, his own model. And he came to rehearsal. We played some of the Sabbath stuff for him. One of his favorites was “Into the Void,” strangely enough. We played that and we went back to writing. I think it was “Evil Eye,” and I said, “Go on, you play the solo on this.” He did and it was really great. When we recorded it, of course, I tried to duplicate that, but I couldn’t [laughs].
You must have a tape of that solo somewhere still.
You know what, there is. I don’t know where it is amongst my lot, but there is one. I know I’ve got one. It was a real gem.