Bill Ward
Email: bward@billward.com
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Click here to see a picture of the layout of Bill Ward's drum kit (from 1998)
Birthdate: May 5th, 1948, in Aston, Birmingham, England.
Height: 5ft 10 in
Weight: 190 lbs.
Resident Of: USA
Kids: 3, one girl, 2 boys / men
Married: 3 Times
Talents: Hard rock drummer, percussionist, Songwriter, Vocalist, Producer, Arranger, Owner of his albums and record company.
Most Successful Band: Black Sabbath 1968 to 1980, 1983 to 1984, Winter of 1997-?Other Bands:
1963 to 68, The Rest, Method 5, various, Mythology, Polka Tulk Blues Band, Earth.
1981 Max Havoc / various
1985 England's Glory / various
1986 to current Bill Ward Band Started Playing:
Age 3 on boxes
Age 7 on drums
Age 11 Got more serious playing drums
Age 15 Started to play gigs Special Dates:
1964 - Met Tony Iommi before 16th birthday. Was awestruck by Tony's playing. Bill rates Tony as, "the best hard rock guitar player in the world."
1967 - Met Geezer on an all nighter gig. "Geezer was brilliant on stage." Became intrigued by him when I watched him try to climb a dressing room wall.
1968 - Bill met Ozzy. Took to Ozzy pretty much instantly. "I've never met any other person / singer who can digest an idea and spit it out with such passion, honesty, and pure balls as Oz." First Hits: 1970 "Black Sabbath" the album, & 1970 "Paranoid".Bill's Discography:
1970 Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
1970 Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
1971 Master Of Reality (Black Sabbath)
1972 Volume 4 (Black Sabbath)
1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Black Sabbath)
1975 Sabotage (Black Sabbath)
1976 Technical Ecstasy (Black Sabbath)
1978 Never Say Die (Black Sabbath)
1980 Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath w/Ronnie James Dio)
1983 Born Again (Black Sabbath w/Ian Gillan)
1989 Ward One: Along The Way (Bill Ward Band)
1997 When The Bough Breaks (Preview Release) (Bill Ward Band)
1998 Reunion (Black Sabbath)
1999 When The Bough Breaks (National Release) (Bill Ward Band) Musical Influences: Big band jazz, all early rock 'n' roll, rythym and blues, blues, British blues.
Favourite Artists: There are thousands of them!
Most Influential Drummers:
(Childhood) Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson
(Childhood to early years) Larrie London, Bernard Purdie, Joe Morello, Keif Hartley, Hughie Flint, John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Jim Capaldi, Clive Bunker
(From teens, onward) Many, many drummers, some rock, but mainly older jazz players, swing players. Goals/Desires:
To remain sober, 24 hrs a day
To continue to make records and write and produce them.
To continue to tour, but on a worldwide basis, with Bill Ward Band
To be a good dad
To continue educational / clinic seminars on a worldwide basis
To try to get up to date with the e-mail
To be a good mate to my mate, mates
To play in Sao Paulo, charity, to find money for the kids
To continue to play and be useful and supporting towards a less destructive world
To keep my relationships honest, peaceful, with my fellow humans, animals, and all things, including God
To see the day when Black Sabbath gets into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame
To participate in any ventures Tony, Geezer, and Oz might do as Black Sabbath
To plant flowers, and to listen to kick ass rock, and music, period. Greatest Love: Music
BILLWARD.COM Bill Ward's Official Website
MORE ABOUT BILL WARD...
BLOW ON THE JUG
The song appears at the end of "The Writ" on the album 'SABOTAGE'. The Song
is about 20 seconds long and a little Sgt.Pepper like.
Blow on the Jug
Everybody come on blow on a jug
Be like me and blow on a jug
I want you to blow on a jug
Everybody dig it blow on the jug tonight
If you are blowin' on the jug you are the jug love man
oh yeah heh heh oh yeah heh heh
Sadly enough the song doesn't appear on every 'SABOTAGE' version. You can hear
him only on the US and UK vinyl version! Mark Jones (the secretary of Bill Ward)
wrote the following: "Blowing On A Jug" was a little bit that was added to the
end of one of the albums ['SABOTAGE']. It was Bill singing and playing the piano
and was just something that the engineer caught during a session and it was
put into the album. I'm not sure if it was the first time Bill had been caught
singing on an album. He has sung "Swinging The Chain" and "It's Alright".
Ozzy also sings on Blow On A Jug. Originally, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did the song.
This from BSAS vol 4 p. 18: [The story behind it relates to the Hollywood festival
SABBATH played at in 1970 where an amusing incident occurred while Mungo Jerry was playing. Apparently all of the other name acts like Free, Family and Traffic were,
along with SABBATH, desperately trying to blow each other away by borrowing amps to
outstrip one another. But who went down the best that day? Fucking Mungo Jerry!
Ozzy said "He was playing fucking jugs and he stole the day! So it just shows you
it doesn't matter what anybody thinks...after Mungo Jerry we didn't have a hope.
Blowing on fucking jugs!"]
SWINGING THE CHAIN
The vocals on "SWINGING THE CHAIN" ('NEVER SAY DIE', 1978) are definitely
done by Bill Ward. That is mentioned by Mark Jones (the secretary of Bill
Ward) in a french BLACK SABBATH Fanzine "Thanks God It's SABBATH Volume 6"
and by Tony Iommi in "Guitar World", Volume 13 No.8, August 1992 (look at
'Prime Cuts With Tony Iommi'). This was the second time Bill was featured
on a full track as the vocalist. Reference BSAS Vol. 2 p.21
, BSAS vol. 4 p.18
It's now clear that Ozzy did sing during the faded part (not alone, but still). Bill sang most of the vocals for Swinging The Chain, and at the end of it, it was Ozzy and Bill doing harmony.
(Bill Ward manager after questioning him who was singing at the end
of the song Swinging The Chains).
IT'S ALRIGHT
It's Alright was Bill Ward's first full track on a SABBATH album as vocalist not counting the
inner groove outtake "Blow On A Jug". One source for this information is BSAS vol 2.
Click here to read a nice interview with Bill Ward
CLICK HERE FOR BLACK SABBATH INTERVIEWS (Audio/mp3)
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