A previously unreleased Black Sabbath (with Ronnie James Dio) song titled “Slapback” was uploaded to YouTube several days ago. The song was unearthed by Gary Rees, the stepson and executor of the estate of Black Sabbath’s longtime keyboardist Geoff Nicholls. Rees wrote on YouTube that he had found it on a cassette tape that contained other material recorded during Sabbath’s 1979 songwriting sessions for the “Heaven And Hell” album. As you can understand, there was a debate, whether this song was actually Black Sabbath song or not.
Finally, this debate is over, since Geezer Butler confirmed “Slapback” was a Black Sabbath with Dio song that didn’t make the grade. Butler said at SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” on Monday (March 8, 2021), when questioned if he knew anything about this allegedly unreleased tune: “Yeah, that was one of the songs that we did before I left,” referring to the fact that he exited Black Sabbath for a short time during the “Heaven And Hell” sessions due to some personal issues. “It’s probably the reason I did leave! It was just one of those songs that didn’t make the grade … It was just a one-off thing. We just jammed it and didn’t think anything more of it. It didn’t really work”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG758iBHa_Y
