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
Ward is like Ace & Criss: a F-Up. He ruined any type of reunion. I saw Ward 5 times with Sabbath in the 70’s, he can’t play like the new guy cause he’s out of shape due to decades of boozing. I guarantee Ward shows up at Chillah. He’d make more money than what Sharon woulda put on the table to do the tour just in signing stuff. Alex Van Halen just put him out to pasture when they opened for them….even Ozzy told me it was an ass kicking to my face.
BREAKING NEWS: FAT, ENGLISH DRUMMER BEST KNOWN FOR SONGS: PARANOID AND IRON MAN AS WELL AS LEAD VOCALS ON IT S ALRIGHT IS ATTACKED ON HOOLYWOOD BLVD BY A MAN WITH A HOOKERS AND BLOW HOODED SWEATSHIRT. THE WEAPON USED WAS A BOOK BY EDDIE TRUNK VOLUME 2 OF SOMETHING. THE SUSPECT WAS LAST SEEN BLOGGING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. A MAN NAMED D R IS BEING SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING. PETER CRISS HAS BEEN PLACED INTO PROTECTIVE CUSTODY.
Hear that Mr. Crisscola? You’re next….
They were all face down in the snow in ’79 at The Roxy and The Rainbow. Eagles had the better snow by a mile. Hey Bill do Chillah, Ace and Peter and Alice kick ass signing stuff.
I’ve got to hand it to our resident comedian, Richman on this one – he nailed it on this Ward issue! It never ceases to amaze me the level of disrespect Bill and people like Peter Criss get on here, while so much of the same can be said about other band members in their respective bands. Bill’s not on the current Sabbath reunion, so by default he’s this big loser that’s too old and can’t play – same said for Peter. Meanwhile you have Ozzy in his usual pudgy incoherent state, singing lyrics from a teleprompter, and hardly no one says a word about the ex-reality show puppet. Speaking of another ex-reality show mogul that diluted his legacy, Gene Simmons, who by the way just appeared at a horror/comic book convention over the summer. Just because these guys stay in the mainstream spotlight with their respective bands and other projects in the mass media, doesn’t necessitate that these guys are somehow “winners.” If one is looking at it only from the perspective of financial wealth then yeah, these guys can be seen as these success stories… but based on that sort of criteria so can the likes of a Justin Bieber. I’ll take Bill any day over these other overrated, sellouts that maintain their status of respect through materialism and smoke and mirrors. This can be said for Ozzy since he left Sabbath. Sure you put him with the likes of Randy, Jake, and Zakk; he’s going to appear great. Not to mention, the Ozz man having a manager like the old lady as the obvious driving force of that whole operation all these years. If Bill had a manager like that and had been aligned with nothing short of guitar wizardry throughout his career, I’m sure people would look at Bill in a different light too despite everything else being said. It’s safe to say Bill isn’t the businessman that Ozzy is, but is no more overweight, out-of-shape, and inapt than Ozzy. I’d also bet that Ozzy’s collective substance abuse over the years has far exceeded Bill’s. Simply put, Bill hasn’t had the disposable millions over the past 30+ years to shoot, snort, and piss away that level of abuse like Ozzy has. Also along the lines of obvious here with drummers having some sort of shelf life with stamina and ability, does anyone remember Lars from that little band Metallica on here? The guy if far from being a spring chicken and people forget how old he really is because he hasn’t missed a beat. What about Dave Lombardo? Oh wait a minute, that’s right, Dave presently isn’t doing the Slayer thing, so I guess by default that makes him some sort of loser that’s too old and can’t play. Seriously, every time a Bill Ward news post appears on here, it’s like a social commentary on much that’s wrong in the world based on numerous said comments. We can only hope in the future Eddie invites Bill to be the guest drummer on TMS and have Richman in the audience for that taping with mic in hand.
Hey Nic, You’re alright. $$$man.
Thanks for setting us straight Nic. I feel shame. Actually I don’t. Just because someone is around forever, doesn’t mean they deserve to be around forever. Bill Ward, nobody knows exactly what the deal is. However do you really think Ozzy, Tony, and Geezer would fuck him over if he was absolutely good to go? Give me a fucking break you Ward sympathizer. Sharon doesn’t manage Sabbath either and Ozzy doesn’t get final say. If he did, his drummer would’ve been on 13, and not Rick Rubin’s. Its soooooo fucking easy to blame Ozzy when you don’t know shit. If your going to blame him, then blame Tony and Geezer too, which nobody wants to do because they’re not bad guys. What a fucking joke. And Peter Criss? Take if form a KISS Army recruit from 1977, he’s the whiniest of the whiners out there. Did you like his drumming on Psycho Circus? Good cause it wasn’t his. He’s been a whiny fraud longer than he’s been a competent drummer. So spare me your ridicule Dad because your way is the easy way out.
DR you evidently missed the whole point I was making and seem to be remarking on a Bill Ward related news article about 2 or 3 stories ago, as to why he isn’t a part of the Black Sabbath reunion. I was simply talking about the level of disrespect Bill receives relative to the comments we typically see in general regarding all Ward related articles vs. the level of respect Ozzy gets from the sort of blind allegiance, as you’ve shown. I mean I can appreciate humor as much as the next guy. We’ve even shared in that humor in past articles (remember Eric Brittingham), but bro, you know how this goes… you write a personal check on this site and it’s getting cashed… and in this case it’s almost too easy with what the deal is here.
DR clearly suffers from what can be called the Brad Gillis effect. Let’s take a moment to go back to suburbia circa late ’82. There you’ll find a youthful DR, brandishing mullet and Ozzy shirt, kicking back in the ol’ Chevette on many a lonely Friday night, bummed, and pleasuring himself to the tune of Goodbye to Romance. However there is hope – Speak of the Devil has arrived – but much to his dismay he discovers the unthinkable – Brad Gillis is Ozzy’s new axeman – we’re talking the heir to Randy Rhoads is Brad f’ing Gillis! Then one night DR is so traumatized by Ozzy’s new, blond-afro sporting guitarist that he leaps to the side of his bed in prayer position, and as if making some pack with the devil, swears he would henceforth maintain blind allegiance to the prince of darkness, just as long as Brad Gillis isn’t the chosen one. “Say it isn’t so Ozzy, say it isn’t so.” Then around ’84 DR once again breathes a sigh of relief that he can once more walk from the record store a happy camper with Bark at the Moon in hand. Though this moment is momentarily interrupted as the post traumatic syndrome creeps back into his psyche, as he hears the tune of Sister Christian emanating from overhead in his local record store and shutters to think what might have been considering the Ozz man himself could have very well been singing that number had DR’s prayers not been answered. Now fast forward to present day and for the past 20+ years of second rate solo albums and reality shows, DR kept the torch burning and the promise of his sacred pact 30+ years ago, blindly supporting Mr.Osbourne, as witnessed in his posts… still baring the scars from Mr.Gillis all these years later, devout as ever, and ready to drink the cool-aid at the Osbourne camp’s request.
You’ve got to love this site. Thanks Eddie!
Ward was 86’d in ’80 for a reason: he sucked on the tour, he had no stamina. He has NONE to allow the big 3 to contract him (he’s NEVER gonna get the 25% out of the 100% even if he was healthy). This album and tour are tens of millions at stake. You can’t have a fuck up on the drums. Criss had triggers in his kit cause he was not ’77. Rick Rubin woulda LOVED having the big 4, however; he isn’t stupid. Imagine all the programs/shirts/hype then he pulls an ’80….geezus christ, if Irving Azoff were the manager he’d be furious, freaking nuked to the stone-age from all angles. Gene & Paul can’t record music without a great drummer. Eddie isn’t stupid, he knows why Ward is not on the tour: 1980 revisited.
Wrong. Look up Hartford 1980 Sweet Leaf. Then tell me Ward had no stamina during that tour. In fact, look up any bootleg recording of that tour before Appice came in…. Some of Ward’s most aggressive solos are from that tour! He left because he had problems but he didn’t let it affect his performances while playing with Sabbath at that time.