A founding member of Black Sabbath, Geezer Butler has helped define entire genres of hard rock and heavy metal with his growling bass tones and heavy, swinging grooves. A huge range of luminaries from Steve Harris to Cliff Burton to Les Claypool have all cited him as a major influence.

Geezer happens to be the first bass player to ever record with a wah pedal. “The first time I played a wah was on the first album that we did when it came to doing the bass intro for the song ‘N.I.B.,’” he says. “The producer at the time said, ‘why don’t we try a wah pedal?’ It wasn’t in my mind that I was the first bass player to ever use a wah or anything like that—it just seemed a natural thing to do. It gives you another dimension to what you’re playing.”



When Geezer decided that he needed a wah that was not only tailor-made for his sound and setup but could also take a beating on the road, he chose to work with Dunlop. “I was trying different kinds of wahs, and they just didn’t have the sound that I was looking for,” he says. “And a lot of them, if they did have the sound, they were’t reliable. So, with Cry Baby, they’re really reliable. The guys from Dunlop came out and listened to what I needed and got the right sound from it, and it sounded really good, and that was it.”

Geezer currently lends his thunderous low end to hard rock supergroup Deadland Ritual.