Geezer Butler has confirmed to SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that DEADLAND RITUAL, the band he started a few years ago with guitarist Steve Stevens (BILLY IDOL, VINCE NEIL), drummer Matt Sorum (GUNS N’ ROSES, VELVET REVOLVER) and singer Franky Perez (APOCALYPTICA) likely won’t get resurrected once life resumes post-pandemic.
“DEADLAND RITUAL‘s dead,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET. “The virus put the final nail in the coffin. We had 12 or 13 songs written. We were about to go into the studio last March, and everything closed down. Matt left the band. And Steve has got, I think, a lung condition or something, so he couldn’t leave the house ’cause of the virus. And we just didn’t revive it. You never know — we might do it next year or something. I don’t know.”
As for whether he plans on pursuing any other music projects in the coming months, Geezer said: “I still play — write riffs and stuff. It’s part of my life. But nothing definite. I’ve got so many ideas and stuff written, I’ve just gotta find the time to sit down and go through them all.”
DEADLAND RITUAL released two songs, “Down In Flames” and “Broken And Bruised” in late 2018 and early 2019. Both tracks, which were produced by Greg Fidelman (METALLICA, SLIPKNOT), were made available via Sonik Riot Records/AWAL powered by Kobalt.
For its live performances, DEADLAND RITUAL‘s setlist consisted of several original tracks alongside classic songs from the members’ previous bands, including BLACK SABBATH‘s “Symptom Of The Universe”, “Neon Knights” and “Sweet Leaf”, VELVET REVOLVER‘s “Slither” and BILLY IDOL‘s “Rebel Yell”.
Geezer previously said that he initially had no plans to join another band after SABBATH completed its “The End” farewell tour.
“Well, I retired after the last SABBATH show,” he said. “I just traveled and did everything that I wanted to do when I was retired for a year. And then I got fed up watching the TV every day. And I started writing stuff again, ’cause that’s what you do. I’ve been doing it for 50 years, so it’s in your blood. You can’t just stop, especially when it’s your hobby as well. And I just got back into writing stuff. I was planning on doing another solo album, a GZR thing. And I got a few songs together for that. And then Matt got in touch with me about DEADLAND RITUAL.”
Asked what appealed to him about being in a band again, Geezer said: “It’s what I’ve known since I started when I was 16; I was in a band. When you’re doing solo stuff, it’s just you writing stuff. There’s nobody to bounce off, and I really missed that. It’s good to have people saying, ‘That’s good. That’ll work.’ Or, ‘That’s not so good.’ And I missed having that. The guitarist that I worked with in GZR, he’s just moved to the East Coast and he’s got other things on his plate at the moment. With DEADLAND RITUAL, everybody’s local, so it’s easy to get together. And you don’t have to plan months in advance to do an album or write songs. If I feel like writing a song today, I call up Steve, go around to Steve‘s house, and we try something.”
DEADLAND RITUAL made its live debut in May 2019 at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California.
