BLACK SABBATH Drummer BILL WARD Looks Back At The Band's Rise To Heavy Metal Glory

June 3, 2010

New York's Daily News reports: Four decades after BLACK SABBATH invaded American shores in 1970 and staked a name for itself on this side of the Atlantic on the stage of a famed New York club, original drummer Bill Ward reminisces with the Daily News about the earliest days of heavy metal.

Forty years later, I remember very well when [guitarist] Tony Iommi, [singer] Ozzy Osbourne, [bassist] Geezer Butler and I first arrived in the United States. We were on a TWA jet and we flew to New York at night. I will always remember seeing the Manhattan skyline and I was absolutely in awe.

Coming over the river from Kennedy Airport into Manhattan itself was absolutely amazing and incredible.

But the response to us at first was terrible.

The first two or three places that we played in New York were pretty rough joints — they were small clubs and we absolutely had no idea what equipment we were using. We didn’t even know they used different power in the United States.

Our inexperience really showed. But BLACK SABBATH was a band that learned very quickly. By the time we got to the East Town Theater, which they used to call the Filmore East, in the Village that was the real opening of our career in the United States.

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