Geezer Butler on the time Kiss outshined Black Sabbath on their own tour: “It was like, ‘Oh, my God. What’s going on here?’”
Geezer Butler has recalled the time Black Sabbath were outshined by Kiss on their own tour and the shock he felt from watching the latter’s stage theatrics for the first time.
Speaking in a new interview with Rock Cellar magazine, Butler says Kiss were the “first band that ever used stage production” and that before them, bands like Sabbath used to “just go on [stage] and plug in and play.”
The group famously landed themselves an opening spot on a few stops of Black Sabbath’s 1975 US tour, wowing audiences with their elaborate stage sets, striking costumes, and pyrotechnic displays.
READ MORE: Gene Simmons: “It’s easier to be the Ramones or The Rolling Stones than Kiss”
“Kiss was the first one to use pyro,” Butler explains. “You’ve never seen that. I mean, the shock of that. And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining. I went out and watched them. There were all these flames coming out the stage and everything. It was like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going on here?’”
“It was a completely new direction for people,” the bassist adds. “People had to start thinking about stage production after Kiss. It was tough to follow them. We went on just as an ordinary band, no effects or anything, and everybody else still had their mouths wide open from seeing Kiss.”
“We were like, ‘What the hell just happened?’”
According to Butler, it was “impossible to follow” Kiss after their latest display, and that he, too, was captivated by the groundbreaking theatrics of it all: “When I watched them play, I didn’t even listen to the music. I was just astounded by the stage production.”
The result for Black Sabbath? “We made sure that we never had Kiss supporting us again,” says Butler.
Elsewhere in the chat, Butler also shares how Black Sabbath’s success and longevity had taken him by surprise.
“When you start out, you never think it’s going to last,” the musician says. “We thought we’d get a group together, do what we loved doing for three or four years. Then at the end of it, you didn’t think we were going to make any money out of it or anything like that. Neither did anybody else. People kept telling us, ‘Oh, you need to get a proper job. There’s no way you’re ever going to accomplish anything playing in a band.’ They’d think that you’re nuts.”
“Now it’s great that so many bands cite us as inventing a whole new form of music. So there’s that legacy, and after being slagged off for so long, it’s just great to know that we did something very positive.”
The post Geezer Butler on the time Kiss outshined Black Sabbath on their own tour: “It was like, ‘Oh, my God. What’s going on here?’” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
