BLACK SABBATH Drummer BILL WARD: 'It's Really Tough To Actually Make A Living In This Business'

Jarrod Dicker of Stay Thirsty recently conducted an interview with legendary BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Stay Thirsty: What are you currently involved in musically? Does the Bill Ward band still participate in the modern music scene?

Bill Ward: Oh, yeah! This year [2009] I've worked non-stop. I'm in the process of finishing up three albums, which are ALL my albums. When I write songs, I usually write everything (tracks),so I compose in guitar, bass, keyboards, melody arrangements, the vocals…just everything really. So I'm really active inside my own music…

Stay Thirsty: And I'm assuming drums as well?

Bill Ward: And drums of course [laughs], forgot all about the drums. But that's what I've been doing throughout the year and I'm hoping to bring out three fresh albums in 2010. The first one hopefully in the spring, then one in the summer and then trying to get one towards the end of October, right before Halloween. So that's what I'm doing right now. Well I go back into the studio on Tuesday, making sure the tracks are ready for 2010. I'm always busy.

Stay Thirsty: On these upcoming albums, are you the sole musician or do you have a group accompanying you on the tracks?

Bill Ward: When I say I write, I write the parts and so forth, but I have other players that play the music. On the newest work, that's coming out in the spring, Keith Lynch (Bill Ward band veteran) is playing guitar. Paul Ill is playing some bass and then I have a couple of other guys that will play bass as well. Paul's also from early years of the Bill Ward band. And then I have my own drummer, Ronnie Ciago, who's playing on several tracks. I'm playing drums on several tracks too, so it's pretty much a band album if you'd like. There are some guests coming onto the following two albums after the spring one, but it's all under wraps right now [laughs]. They're rock and rollers, man… so they agreed to do it but now let's get them all together in a room and nail it!

Stay Thirsty: Currently, how is your relationship with BLACK SABBATH alumni Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi?

Bill Ward: My relationship with Ozzy is brilliant. I am picking Ozzy first because I speak with him the most often. I talked to Oz a couple days ago. We speak once or twice a week, so we're always in contact with each other. My relationship with Tony is very good at the moment. I spoke with him last week as well. And Geezer never talks on the telephone so I e-mailed Geez, I don't know, just a few weeks ago. I'm in constant contact with all of them, pretty much.

Stay Thirsty: Do you still hold a relationship with Ronnie James Dio? Recent news revealed that he is battling cancer…

Bill Ward: Oh shit yea. For quite a while we did the whole "Heaven and Hell" album together, so I felt like I spent a lot of time with him. We wrote together and played together and did some of the business things together. I also spent a lot of social time with him and his family as well.

Stay Thirsty: In 1979, SABBATH made the decision to fire Ozzy claiming pressure from the record label and various other complications and frustrations. It was you who was chosen to break the news to Ozzy. Why so?

Bill Ward: I just thought that it would be easier if I just did it. I've been in that position before with other musicians; I just felt that I ought to do it. It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. It was a very difficult and depressing time for all of us. I felt it was the right thing to do, for me to talk to Oz. We were close. I volunteered myself.

Stay Thirsty: You left (fired) BLACK SABBATH one year after Ozzy's dismissal. How difficult of a time was this for you; 1) the separation from Ozzy and 2) your constant battle with addiction?

Bill Ward: Yes, it was a very difficult time. I was indeed feeling the loss of not having Ozzy in the band. I also had something happen to me, which had nothing to do with Ronnie or BLACK SABBATH or anything. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and my addiction was running rampant with me. I was losing all "control." I thought I had control of it and I did not. I was completely hit so hard with everything that I was unable to function properly. So I reached a point where I put the alcohol and the narcotics before the band and that had never happened before in my life (1980). This is something that I am not proud of, but it is something that happened to me. It actually became more important for me to drink and get high than to perform on stage. That's changed a lot since; my priorities are the right way round again. But back in 1980 it was very bad…very, very bad.

Stay Thirsty: As previously mentioned by other music critics and historians, the drumming style you use doubles the bass and guitar riffs played by accompanying band members. How did you step into this method? Who inspired you to play this particular way?

Bill Ward: As far as drummers are concerned, when I was a child growing up I was really attracted to artists like Gene Kupra and Louis Bellson and Buddy Rich; a lot of the drummers that played in the popular big bands of the '40s. I would listen to their records. My mother and father listened to them because the GIs in World War II had brought that music over with them. So my mother and father became real quick fans of American music. When I was growing up in the early '50s, four or five years old, I listened to these bands and thought it was great. It was pretty much all we had, except for the early rock and roll like THE PLATTERS and a few other bands that were still doing the "crooner"-type ballads.

Stay Thirsty: This is a question I like to ask older, more established musicians: Now that we are in the digital age of mp3's and music piracy, it seems that the concept and idea around a record has vanished. Fans prefer to buy singles rather than listen to the entire piece of work. What are your particular feelings on this matter?

Bill Ward: I have some feelings about it. If I say anything, I must preface it by saying that we [SABBATH] were all brought up in the age of the '60s at a time when how you made a record was that you would release it out and people actually bought it. [laughs] So it's very different today. It can be a little bit frustrating. I think it's a shame that we get bootlegged so much, we were always bootlegged anyway, but now people are just grabbing a copy downloading it and not thinking twice about it. It's just difficult for me to be supportive of that. I mean, it's always been music first and money somewhere down the line. But now, it's really tough to actually make a living in this business.

Stay Thirsty: As I said before, we are in a more digital age. Do you think that music piracy and "ripping off" musicians is a product of the times?

Bill Ward: Now it's this ruthless dog-bite-dog world, but it was definitely like that before the whole "age" you speak of. The '60s and the '70s had their assholes as well. What really pisses me off isn't what necessarily is happening with me, but what is happening with younger bands. They're some great musicians who need to be cut a break, man, and someone needs to invest some time in them. The only ones that invest time in them, what once was enormous record companies, are falling like broken giants now. I see a lot of the casualties coming out of it. It's a shame, there's a lot of people in the industry who I wish weren't in the industry because they don't know anything about the industry or music or anything. You asked me a question there, and a little long and drawn out answer but there it is…

Read the entire interview from Stay Thirsty.