Sick Drummer Magazine caught up with original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward to talk about his fine art project and new music. Read about Ward’s new music below.
SDM:…Will we maybe be able to hear you behind the drums again anytime soon, regardless of who it may be with?
BW: I think the soonest it’s going to be is probably on an album we are trying to finish right now. We’re in the final mix and some of the tracks are mastered. It’s an album called Accountable Beasts and I’ve been working on and off with it for about five years. I play seven or eight of the drum tracks on it, have put a lot of really hard work into it and I wrote most of the material. I am quite pleased with the amount of work I’ve put into the album to date and I’m hoping it will come out at some point in the near future. I can’t say definitely, but I can say that we are working on the final mix and I kind of have a goal behind that, which is let’s get this thing finished and mixed as soon as possible. We are working on that right now, in fact this very day, to go into the studio and so on and so forth. Setting up our dates, studying my mix sheets, and working out final over-dubs if any need to be done. We have some of the material which is already what I like to call “master-mixed”, it’s board mixed and we don’t need to touch it, it just goes to mastering. There’s nine songs on the record I believe, so that would be the first time you’d get to hear me drumming again, at least at this point. We have other projects that are going on as well, but it’s a bit too early to tell yet.
SDM: You said you wrote most of the material, would that be guitar as well?
BW: Yes. Well, I don’t play guitar but what allows me to be able to work with guitar is that I have an incredible guitar player. He’s so open-minded that when I take my keyboard notes to him, I’ll just play a little bit of the melodies and such. I love working with melodies and I can work out a lot of the different parts, so when I do that my lead guitar player is extremely amicable. We put our ego’s outside the door and it’s like… ok! let me see what we can achieve here. Let me see if I can produce these things you’re trying to get at. It’s a very good working arrangement and he sounds absolutely great on the record, he’s fuckin’ rock-n-rolling! I mean, it’s really good! I obviously like it and I hope everybody else will, but it’s definitely a good piece of work.
Read the entire interview at Sick Drummer Magazine.
source: sickdrummermagazine.com
43 Responses
Bonham & Moon had no chance of being drummers in their groups even 20 years ago if they survived.I met Keith a month before he died….he looked like a 50 year old. To be a drummer in Sabbath ’13 requires major stamina. Paul & Gene know Ace & Peter are f-ups. Freakin’ Dio told Tony and Geezer “he’s gotta go”….and that was in 1980!
I agree. Check out YouTube videos of Keith Moon with the Who in the late 60s and early 70s. By the mid-70s Moonie was a shadow of what he’d been. But on his behalf, it’d be hard to sustain that manic style of playing for long.
To a degree, completely different sort of music The Who were going for in the mid to late 70’s. Sister Disco is not exactly I Can See For Miles….his drumming on Quadrophoenia is fantastic. I can’t buy into the “he was a shadow of what he had been”. That is a strong statement.
I have a lot of respect for bill. After 1980 he decided the rock and roll life was not for him. He had to get clean and sober,unfortunately the last 30 years he has been very inactive as a musician. Can you believe if he does release accountable beasts it would be the first full studio album in 30 years he has played drums on . Bill needs to release this.hope the best!!
Sounds like a great lineup! We will most definitely buy this album!
Moon was incredible in ’71. 6 years later after sitting through ’77 in L.A. boozing it with Ringo & Alice he lost a step, or two or three. Bonham was gaining weight big time, too much boozing, not much drumming/touring/recording. Ward would have never survived the first leg.
Talk about naysayers. My God! Mc Brain is MAIDEN s oldest member(60+) and he s going strong. To lump an all time great in with WINGER, HOOKERS AND BLOW and JACK RUSSELL GREAT WHITE is damn extreme. This is like THE ELEPHANT MAN. STOP IT! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL, I AM A BLACK SABBATH S ORIGINAL DRUMMER. You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Ward s drumming is actually the best thing on NEVER SAY DIE. Last year, people were blogging: IT S NOT A REAL REUNION MINUS WARD and now this. HE S TOO OLD. HE S A FAT BASTARD. HIS MOTHER SHOULD HAVE GIVEN HIM UP. Just ’cause the YANKEES are staying home and the GIANT suck cock, you don t have the right to fuck with a guy who was not given a SIGNABLE CONTRACT. Just ’cause the new De Niro movie THE FAMILY eats ass, you shouldn’t treat 25% of metal s THE BEATLES like Chris Brown treated Rihanna.
Dear Mr. Ward, I hope with utmost sincerity that your new album is better than THE BLIZZARD OF OZZ, and then you ll be back in business. I hope that you live a long and healthy life. Congrats on your long time sobriety and much luck and health moving forward. Your biggest fan, THE $$$MAN. GOD BLESS.
You are too much.