Legendary BLACK SABBATH Drummer BILL WARD: 'I Can't Stop Writing' Music And Lyrics

In a new interview with Matt Zaniboni of Metal Express Radio, legendary BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward spoke about his plans to release solo music in the coming months. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We are mastering a new record next month. And we are shopping this year, and so hopefully we can get this record out to the public.

"I can't stop writing," Bill explained. "I've always written when I was in BLACK SABBATH. I would interact with [the other members of the band] as a co-writer. But also when I came home from writing with them, I would just continue to write. I've been like that since I've been a kid. I've been writing or playing or dithering or whatever. And so when I'm at home, I can't stop writing. I write lyrics. I've got a keyboard. I play keyboards and I write out the parts, record them at home. And I just can't stop. It's just something that's inherent, that's in me. 'Cause I'm powerless over it. It just happens to me. So writing for myself was fine. When it was time to bring it to the band, I got used to being able to direct and work with other musicians."

Describing the songwriting process for his upcoming solo LP, Bill said: "On this new album that we're trying to bring out, I think we've got at least 15 to 20 other musicians that are guests or they are interacting with the music. And it's fine for me to do that because I'm used to interacting with musicians. It was the same way, coming back to the final [BLACK SABBATH] show [in July 2025 at Villa Park in Birmingham, U.K.]. I interacted with so many musicians [there]. It's just something that's really normal for me. And so I have the same thing when I'm writing. If I've got a part, then I'll bring it to whoever I'm working with, guitar players or bass players, show them the ideas, and we put it together, and it seems to work out. So, it feels very normal for me. I don't have any special skills that I'm aware of. I'm able to bring it to people and work out the ideas to where they sound like music. But I usually write down the background. I usually lay keyboards and drums on a track, and then I put a rough vocal on. I also usually put a bass on, but I'll put the bass on myself. I play like a mouth bass. And so I'll put a mouth bass on about kind of roughly where I wanna go. So it's already kind of there, the shape of the song is already there before we bring the other guys in and they go, 'Okay. Well, we need that, we need that.' And if I need orchestra pieces, I'll write the orchestra piece, and then I work with orchestra players who are just absolutely incredible, who interpret my version of an orchestra piece, and they make it into an actual orchestra. They are actual orchestra players. And so that's how I do it. If I want a bass player, then there's a number of guys that I'll call. I don't necessarily use one bass player because I like to pick a bass player that will work for the song. So I listen very carefully to the song, and then it's, like, 'Okay, well, who would probably suit this best?' And I have a choice of at least 10 different bass players that we know, that we've known for years, that just come in and lay it down if they're not on tour. And that's how I do it. Same way with lead guitar players or guitar players. I probably work with at least 10 different guitar players on a regular basis. And those guys come in and they go, 'Okay. Well, can you do something here for that?' And I give them a couple of ideas that I've got, and then we just write from that point on. So it's my favorite thing to do. I love being in the studio and writing with other musicians and writing — period. I just love it. It's just fantastic. I feel very grateful to be able to do that, to be honest."

Ward also talked about the status of the previously unreleased music from his three-piece band called DAY OF ERRORS which he formed over a decade ago with Joe Amodea on guitar/vocals and Nick Diltz on bass/lead vocals. After Diltz left DAY OF ERRORS in 2017, he was replaced by KILL DEVIL HILL singer Jason "Dewey" Bragg. In November 2017, DAY OF ERRORS released its first two songs, "Day Of Errors" and "Blaspheming At Creation", via iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3 and Google Play.

Ward said: "[DAY OF ERRORS] came after there was a problem with some negotiations that I had with BLACK SABBATH. So I just wrote a bunch of songs in a reaction to feeling the emptiness of having to go through a dispute. And I just wrote what I thought were really hardcore songs.

"At some point, I'd like to release DAY OF ERRORS, where there's a lot of music that hasn't come out from that album, and I'd like to get it out," Bill continued.

"It's not easy for me to just get an album out. There's a lot that we have to do to do that and to get it out," Ward revealed. "And most times we kind of run at a loss in terms of how the music business is. So, unless we're unbelievably popular, we run into all kinds of financial problems. And I'm not trying to cry poor me or anything. I'm just talking about the realism of making records these days and still wanting to play music and being in a band.

"DAY OF ERRORS stuff is really good," he added. "We released a couple of things. We released 'Blaspheming At Creation', and Dewey's singing on that, and that's a DAY OF ERRORS song. And I think we released 'Ghost Train' and a couple of other things. But, yeah, I'd like to make sure that if I'm somewhere else, then other people can take over and release DAY OF ERRORS at some point."

Two months ago, Ward told Dan Shinder of Drum Talk TV that he was in the process of "mastering a new album. And I'm not gonna reveal the name or the title of the album yet. But I've been recording two or three other albums in the last five years," he revealed. "But we have one album that's literally at mastering stages. And then we have, like I said, two or three other albums that are ready to go once they're mastered. So we have a plethora of recordings that we haven't yet released."

Asked if he is planning to release all the albums "at once or sequentially", Bill said: "No. I don't think that'll be the case. I'm thinking about, actually packaging four or five albums in one package, or three or four albums in one package. But the newest album that we're finishing, like I say, that we're mastering now, will hopefully come out. We have to negotiate a recording company, and then hopefully that will come out to the public through all the various ways that we listen to music now, either in vinyl format or in digital format for telephones, and also possibly for CD formats as well."

Regarding what fans can expect from his upcoming LP, Ward said: "The album's got — I think it's got 18 tracks on it. So it's quite a nice album and quite lengthy… It's founded in what I know best, which is a really solid rhythm. But when I write, I go outside the box in terms of I don't need to necessarily have the same imagery that was so popular with BLACK SABBATH. So, for me, I've gone into orchestrations, choirs, rhythm groups, different vocal groups. And there's a lot of jazz on the album, as well as just straightforward rock or — I wouldn't say the word 'metal', but I don't know if I metallized it. But you can hear where I come from. You can hear where I spent a lot of my time, which was originally with BLACK SABBATH and before that [Bill's pre-BLACK SABBATH band] MYTHOLOGY and so on and so forth. So, those are my heroes back there. So those influences have carried forward. And we have tracks where we spent a lot of time with huge drum sounds, for effects and things like that. It's a very colorful album."

On the topic of the biggest changes in the music industry over the last 20 to 40 years, Bill said: "It's more difficult to get a recording contract. I don't wanna speak foul of the industry, because as things have developed from a listener point of view, then so goes the industry where it has to change. It has to be almost chameleon-like in terms of being able to ebb and flow with the requirements of the listener. So in these new industrial ideas, we have to find a place. We've been — my band and the fellows that I work with — we have to find a way that we can fit into all the requirements that have now developed, especially in the last maybe 10 years. There's been a real turnaround on even how to buy a record. It's a different world now. And for me, I'm fortunate because I have a really good crew. My crew understands what the heck's going on, but quite frankly, I don't. I'm 78 years old, so I try to just focus on writing, playing, and I do stuff like that. And I'm just truly blessed that I have a crew of much younger people that know what the heck's going on as far as the industry's concerned 'cause, to me, it's just a different world. I lived in a different world completely."

Back in June 2025, Ward spoke in more detail about his approach to the songwriting on his upcoming albums. He explained during his show on LA Radio Sessions with Mike Stark: "I've just let everything go. I basically don't give an 'F', and I think it shows up in the record. I don't have anything to swagger about. I wanted to play something that plays in my heart and then comes out of my soul. I wanted to play some things that keep me awake at night. And I've tried to grow more as a pianist and grow more as a drummer and grow more as a bass player. So I've basically written a lot of the bass work and all the piano work on the new songs. And that's been great for me. I'm trying to grow as a musician. But, like I said, I really don't give an 'F' anymore in terms of being accurate about my lineage or things like that. And I'm playing probably a little more jazz than maybe I would've done on previous albums. I'm swearing a lot. I'm using a lot of profanity on this new record, on these new records. But the profanity seems to work really well. It's just, like, yeah, this is what I'm saying about whatever's in my life."

He continued: "It's very heartfelt. I've done something where I feel like I've abandoned my critical self. I feel like I've abandoned the person that needs to be possibly afraid not to step out a little bit. So I said to that guy, 'Listen, sit down and take a chair, 'cause we're stepping out and we're gonna take more risks.' And so I've taken a lot more risks on these new records, going further into places. Some examples — I'll give you one tiny bit of an example. One of the tracks on not the first album coming out, but the next album that'll come out after that, I'm talking about when I spent time playing in the graveyards at Aston Church. When I was a child, I was a choir boy at Aston Church. Aston Church, by the way, is about 200 yards from Villa Park, which is where [the original lineup of BLACK SABBATH played its final show] in July of 2025]. And I didn't know we were gonna be playing in July [of 2025] when I wrote that song. I wanted to write it because I've been spending some time thinking about my childhood years in Aston, and I've been going back there. And so one of the songs is about being a child and playing in and around the graveyards. And I've tried to capsulize that, and I think it's a pretty good song. And it's still like a metal thing. My good friend Dave Lombardo [SLAYER] is playing on that particular track. There was some drumming that I knew Dave could play a lot better than I could, so I don't mind backing away sometimes. I play drums on pretty much — I don't know — 80 percent of all these records I'm making, but I love working with guest players, guest people, guest drummers, guest players, bass players, guitar players. I love that. I love being interactive with different musicians. So it's been a blessing for me."

Asked if his new music will be released under the BILL WARD BAND banner, the drummer clarified:  "No, [it will] just [be] Bill Ward. However, just to be accurate, we still have BILL WARD BAND stuff that is still unreleased. And one day we'll get it released."

Four months ago, Ward revealed that he is now mostly confined to a wheelchair, more than one year after the death of his longtime BLACK SABBATH bandmate Ozzy Osbourne.

The 78-year-old BLACK SABBATH drummer shared the health update with fans on July 8, explaining that he was "making myself public and transparent" while insisting that he was "not in retirement".

Ward shared a photo of himself in a wheelchair, smiling as he posed in an all-black outfit while seated in the mobility device.

After Osbourne's death, Ward shared an emotional tribute in which he said the legendary heavy metal singer is "forever in my heart."

"Where will I find you now? In the memories, our unspoken embraces, our missed phone calls, no, you're forever in my heart," Ward wrote.

"Deepest condolences to Sharon and all family members. RIP. Sincere regrets to all the fans. Never goodbye. Thank you forever."

"Accountable Beasts", Ward's first solo album in 18 years, was released in 2015 via iTunes. The CD featured Ward's drumming on seven of the album's nine tracks, as well as contributions from Bill's longtime collaborators Keith Lynch (guitar, keyboards),Paul Ill (bass) and Ronnie Ciago (drums),alongside drummer Walter Earl and an array of session singers, including Ward's daughter Emily.

Ward in May 2012 announced that he was declining to join his former SABBATH bandmates for its scheduled dates, as well as the recording of the new album, due to a contractual dispute. After SABBATH shot down producer Rick Rubin's suggestion to replace Ward with Ginger Baker (CREAM) ("I thought, 'Bloody hell?'" Iommi told Rolling Stone magazine. "I just couldn't see that.") for the LP recording sessions, Rick suggested RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE drummer Brad Wilk.

Ozzy told The Pulse Of Radio during SABBATH's last tour that Ward was not in shape to participate. "Bill Ward has got the most physically demanding job of the lot of us, 'cause he's the timekeeper," he said. "I don't think personally he had the chops to pull it off, you know. The saddest thing is that he needed to own up to that, and we could have worked around it, whether we had a drummer on the side with him or something."

It was rumored that SABBATH wanted to bring a second drummer on the road to share duties with Ward, something that Iommi confirmed in 2017 during a question-and-answer session about SABBATH's "Ten Year War" box set.