On January 28, 2015, we ran a story that Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler had been arrested for getting into a bar fight in California. Butler made some comments on what had happened and that was that… but what the hell made Butler just up and punch a guy?
Well, according to an interesting interview with Classic Rock, it had a lot to do with the strongest beer Butler ever had, a Nazi, and the fact that Butler's wife is Jewish. I know, that sounds a little far fetched, but stranger things have happened.
“My sister-in-law had just died, and I’d gone to Death Valley in California just to get away from it all. Not just that, everything – Christmas, New Year’s, everything like that. I went down to the gift shop in the hotel, and there was this nice Western bar there. I thought, ‘I may as well have one before I go to bed.’ It was the strongest beer I’ve ever had in my life.
“The next thing I know, this guy started mouthing off about something. He was, like, some drunken Nazi bloke. He recognised me, and because I was in the music business, he started going on about Jews and everything – Jews this, Jews that. My missus is Jewish and I’d just had enough, and me hand sort of met his chin. I whacked him one.”
Even if Mrs. Butler wasn't Jewish, it doesn't make it any better that the dude just starts trashing the jews to guy he doesn't even know in a public setting. Butler does say that he regrets punching the guy though, and as we could all have probably pieced together, that waking up in jail with a hangover sucks.
“I was absolutely legless at the time,” says Geezer. “I don’t know what happened, but one minute I was in this bar, and the next thing I was being arrested. I woke up jail. That was bad enough, but waking up with a hangover was horrible. I was totally ashamed. I should have just walked away. But when you get pissed out of your brains, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Being drunk didn't help, of course, but again – if you're going to be a super huge racist in public, someone at some point in time is going to knock your teeth down your throat (and you deserve it).
