Bill Ward

On the 5th of July last year, Ozzy Osbourne sat on a throne in the middle of a stadium in Birmingham and said goodbye to about 40,000 people.

Then Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward came out and the four of them played together for the first time in over 20 years.

17 days later, he was gone.

And here's how that night came to exist.

It creates real emotional connections.

And Bill Ward felt at home during the performance.

That's such a profound feeling to capture in a concert film.

It really is.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, much like how Smoke on the Water is based on the true story of the Montreux Casino burning down, this is based on the true story of Ian Gillen getting drunk and going for a joyride in Bill Ward's car around the studio grounds and flipping it over.

Bill was not a big fan of that, by the way.

But yeah, we've talked before on the show, the deep history, no pun intended, of Black Sabbath and just how many members there were in the band and how many singers there were besides Ozzy and Dio.

The album cover with the demon baby isn't my favorite, mind you.

But I do like the songs, Mike.

yeah it i think getting back bill ward for this album helped i mean he was out of the band for a time period as well and it did kind of you you needed to have someone uh to the to provide like this ability along with the rest of the act and especially like when you sub in and out so much i mean look at uh it it's become like the the entire comedy joke that the bands that constantly have new drummers or new basses is completely kind of based off of this because of how much goes through.

But this is like in retrospect, I don't think it's the worst album that they would put out.

And their drummer wasn't on it.

Bill Ward walked away in 2012 over a contract he wouldn't sign.

They made a record with somebody else.

And Ozzy, years later, said it wasn't really a Black Sabbath album.

20 vintage amplifiers that Iommi hated.

10 vocal takes until Ozzy lost it.

Rubin's first suggestion to replace Bill Ward was Ginger Baker, out of Cream, when he was still alive, of course.

And Iommi's reaction to that was bloody hell.

And, you know, I was telling the guys, I was like, look, I just realized my approach to playing with y'all and share this when y'all get with Nick is – the drummer needs to embody the three Bs.

And they're like, what's that? And I'm like, John Bonham, Bill Ward, and Bill Stevenson.

And Bill Stevenson is the drummer for the Descendants, Black Flag, among other things.

And he's the drummer that Dave Roll was inspired for for the intro to Songs for the Deaf, right? Or is the name of the song Song for the Dead? But this Phil? That's Bill Stevenson.

And when, you know, when I said that to those guys, they're like, that's it.

That hits the nail on the head.

Like bottom Bill Ward and Bill Stevenson.

And so, you know.

But I think what I enjoyed the most about this re-listen is...

Bill Ward's drums.

He's a very underrated drummer.

He brings such a bluesy swing to it that I think really just makes the songs pop.

So I really am listening to him a lot more because I would always listen to Geezer's bass because I'm a bassist and of course Tony and Ozzy are kind of the front people.

But yeah, Bill Ward, very underrated for sure.

And I decided that I was going to try to broadened my horizons in terms of looking for new artists I decided that I would weekly try to go on Bandcamp and like browse the genres that I'm into and see if I could find some new artists that I haven't heard of and you know don't necessarily get any spotlight or anything off of like the streaming services as there kind of is a very small window of promotion out there.

And I came up with a band called Green Lung.