BLACK SABBATH Drummer Talks About Hanging Out With LED ZEPPELIN

Sabbathlive.com recently conducted an in-depth interview with BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward. A couple of excerpts from the interview follow:

Sabbathlive.com: Can you tell us more about your relationship with LED ZEPPELIN?

Bill Ward: "Well, we honestly respected the band. We'd known Robert Plant, of course, about the same we knew John Bonham before ZEPPELIN. He was in a band called THE BAND OF JOY for a long time. So, you know, it wasn't unusual for us to see Robert around town. But when they first came out and that first track came on the air, it was just absolutely phenomenal.

"We were going along in SABBATH, thinking that we were doing pretty good and coming along pretty good. We [had] played a concert in Carlisle (in Northern England) and somebody who was a fan of ours used to let us sleep over night at his house. So we were resting there after the concert at his house when he put on the ZEPPELIN album. We all sat down and listened to it thinking, 'Oh my God! What are these guys doing?' [laugh] It was just like coming out of nowhere. Because to that point, even though (THE WHO, you know...) there were some heavy bands around, CREAM had established a lot of new ways of playing hard rock music and there were just a couple of bands there... But when ZEPPELIN arrived, it was a whole new bargain. And when the first BLACK SABBATH album came out about eight months later, it was like there had been a change in popular music.

"As far as the relationship goes, we've often crossed paths during our career and we spent time with each other socially. We may have a drink, go out, get high, go watch them play, check out their music... Each of us as individual members of BLACK SABBATH would mingle with the guys. I though the things were pretty OK with everybody."

Sabbathlive.com: How come you were drumming with SABBATH during the 1994 South American shows? What circumstances led you there?

Bill Ward: "[laugh] Errr... The circumstance that lead me there was an angry reaction. What happened was SABBATH — when I say 'SABBATH,' I mean the original members of BLACK SABBATH — had been looking to put some things together in respect of a tour. And at that time we were all about to sign off basically, sign contracts, which is what we do. But then Ozzy didn't sign off. I was really really upset and disappointed. I was really hoping that we were all going to get together and just kick a**. So there was this offer on the table: The 'Tonys' (Tony Martin and Tony Iommi — those who had been called SABBATH),had an opportunity to go to South America to tour. I hadn't played for a long long time. I knew some of the SABBATH songs but I didn't know all the other songs on which Tony Martin and Tony Iommi had been working on. So there were some songs on which I had absolutely no clue. I worked real hard to study them and get them into shape for that tour.

"I think I failed pretty miserably in getting the songs the way that Cozy [Powell] had played them... I play like Bill, I can't play like anybody else! And that was an unexpected opportunity. I wasn't able to put all my things together at time for those first gigs, so I really had to feel my way through those songs. I tried to learn them with the amount of time that we had. I tried to learn them to the best of my ability. And guess what? When I was doing those gigs, as much as I like Tony Martin who's a real nice guy, the same thing happened again. I was onstage with a singer that wasn't Ozzy. And just as it had happened before in 1984 with David Donato, it just didn't feel the same.

"That was just a one-off thing. I don't regret that I did it because I learned some things about myself and it was a good learning experience. I got to see the horror in South America, the extreme poverty...

"You know, if I look back in my insight, I could have reacted differently. I could have stayed within my boundaries. What I had granted at that time was that I would never rejoined Tony or Geezer without Ozzy. Those were my boundaries, and they had been in place for a long long time. That's probably why a lot of people might not have heard of me or seen me. I made the decision back in 1984 to never play with BLACK SABBATH unless it was the original line-up. And I stuck to it for quite a long time. A lot of that was about honoring Ozzy. I had to amend much with Ozzy and the only way that I knew to make a decent amend was to never try to do SABBATH without Ozz. That's how I feel about that.

"When the opportunity finally came for us to tour and Ozz didn't want to do it, for a few months I thought that if Ozzy didn't want to do it, then it was OK for me to go out and be with another singer. Now I can see that feeling in some ways was wrong. I did cross the boundaries that I had in place. Through those ten years (from 1984 up to that point),there were lots of times where I really missed playing with Tony and Geez. AND with Ozz of course. Lots of times where I would have dearly loved to pick up the phone and say: 'I would love to come back and play.' I missed them, absolutely horribly and terribly. But I tried to do the right thing. I had done the wrong thing when I was drinking and all, so I tried to do the right thing for a change."

Read Bill Ward's entire interview with Sabbathlive.com at this location.