Original Black Sabbath drummer, Bill Ward, has posted the following message on his Facebook page in response to a recent story posted about singer, Ozzy Osbourne, stating that he sad about the percussionist’s absence, on the band’s farewell tour.
Ward writes:
“Ozzy has never reached out since January 26/27 2012 when he called to see when I would be arriving in the UK to join rehearsals for the 13 CD. Since that last phone call, he has never reached out to me, and I have not reached out to him.
Ozzy [says] I’m sad that Bill never came through. Ozzy needs to look to those who stopped me from coming through. The contract was impossible to sign; the group rhetoric of 2012, 2013 and throughout, was fault-finding, condemning and full of dishonest evaluations of me as a person, including my so-called health issues. Had I signed the contract, I suspect I wouldn’t have been labeled as having poor health or having all the other judgmental character references.
As a reminder, in September 2015, we asked a Sabbath representative if there could be an opening to play with the band again. Their representative answered “no.” It’s hard to come through when you receive a “no.”
I love all our Sabbath fans throughout the world, and to toss around ideas that I might play the Birmingham shows, is both emotionally heartbreaking for me and spiteful. I think the Sabbath fans who have loved the original band have gone through enough in terms of disappointment and sadness. For me to play Birmingham only, would, I feel, be discriminating and elitist towards our other fans all over the world. I could never be discriminating or elitist to our fans. It’s been heartbreaking enough not to record and tour and it’ll be heartbreaking not to play to the Birmingham fans.
Please know the prevailing circumstances are not by my design. This is not what I would have wanted or what I have chosen. Had any of you had to choose to sign a contract which undermined and devalued you, I think most of you with some dignity and self-respect would have walked away too. My absence at the current shows and the future Birmingham shows reflects an undeniable and unseen misadventure that my accusers won’t bear. It’s called selfishness and self-centeredness; dishonesty and disloyalty. These are the culprits of Sabbath’s original line-up’s demise.
–Bill”
12 Responses
If its true what Bill said, that Ozzy hasn’t reached out since 2012 and Bill has been given a blunt “No” as to him rejoining at some point, then Ozzy saying stuff like that on the press is just gonna make Bill look bad. I hate this situation. The four of them make up the greatest, most influential band in heavy metal history and it’s gonna end without the four of them together. My brother and I are going to see Sabbath next week in Dallas. I’ve heard other people say they are boycotting this tour because of the situation with Bill. I understand that completely. But, unfortunately, after this tour, that’s it, no more Black Sabbath. So I’m not gonna miss the opportunity to see and hear for one final time Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne on stage performing Sabbath classics like War Pigs, Children Of The Grave, Spiral Architect and Sabbra Cadabara (God, I hope they play those last two songs!). It’s a shame Bill’s not there, but it’s not very likely he ever will be. This as good as we can hope for at this point. But I’ll still be in the presence of three out of the four guys that invented true heavy metal music, so I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. Plus, we have excellent seats!
For what I have heard, he was offered a 5% share in the profits while Ozzy and Iommi would most certainly have a share in the region of 30 or 40% – each! How could you not feel disrespected or even plainly abused? Your presence would make the tour again more desirable for fans to attend (thus make more money) and you are reduced to the status of a hired musician?? So it is quite logical that the Ozzy camp later tried to sort of “explain” Bill’s abscence to the fans by making him seem incapable of touring etc. – I am glad to hear there are still musicians with some self-respect out there because even 5% would have made him a a whole lot of money. From the footage I have seen and the stories of friends who went there I would not want to see Ozzy half demented stumbling across the stage and missing the notes … leave the legend to what it is, a fine memory and a catalogue of great songs.
5% of something is better than 25% of nothing, especially when you’re the drummer who bailed on the band more than anyone else did throughout history. The ship has sailed. I saw them a few months ago and it was a great show. Bill f’d ths up just as much as anyone else did.
Great drummer but nobody cares anymore. 13 is pretty good and I watched the DVD concert and that was good too. That FACEBOOK post sounds like the bantering of some kind of loon. Give it up Bill. You missed the bus. It’s over. These guys are 70 year old grand parents. Nothing great happened just a fun reunion and that’s it. I tell you that stuff Lita wrote about Iommi takes away from a lot of the positive things that he’s done. Enough with the Sharon Osborne greed nonsense. Without her there would be no first 2 OZZY records thus 80s metal wouldn’t have been so successful. Without those first 2 OZZY records we would all be blogging on a CROSBY, STILLS and NASH website writing trash about Neil Young. Thanks Sharon. SUITE JUDY BLUE EYES, good grief!
money,greed,ego,again the demon rears its ugly head…what a shame,i get it its all about the money,i get it.but for christ sake,if this really is the last tour ,you know for the fans.the ones that have givien you all you very ,very nice lifestyles,would it have killed tony and ozzy,and gezzer ,to just say ok lets really do this for the fans this one last time.lets do a complete 25 % split for this one last tour,and get it on the road for the fans.but no like they all dont have enough money,i did not take this tour in for that reason alone.these guys all forget where they came from……..
For the life of me, I can’t understand why any of this is “sad”. Bill was the one that couldn’t cut it, not once, not twice, but THREE times. Bill was the one that went public, thinking it was going to bully his so-called “friends” into seeing things his way.
I just saw the Mansfield, MA show, and while the setlist is exceedingly static, to say that “Bill is missed” is grossly overstating things. Ozzy sounded better than he has in years (though he isn’t looking healthy), Tony COMMANDS the stage, and as usual, Geezer supplied about 49% of the classic “Sabbath” sound without even (literally) breaking a sweat. My friend saw MSG earlier and Mohegan the night after Mansfield, and said the exact same thing (adding that Mohegan was better than MSG).
All those years that Tony kept the fire lit playing shitty 1,500 seat clubs while Bill was doing whatever it was that Bill was doing… that Tony feels it shouldn’t be ’25-25-25-25″ shouldn’t be a surprise, shouldn’t be a bad thing and shouldn’t be anyone’s bidnis except Tony’s.
And yeah, the “Sharon is evil” stuff is really tired. She’s put herself out there as a scapegoat (which is what good managers do!) but to suggest that Ozzy isn’t complicit in all this is naïve.