Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward: ‘I Don’t Know If I’m a Member’
The other Black Sabbath members have said they’re working on a new album. Have they approached you at all about that or touring?
No, they haven’t approached me directly. They talk about it, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to be vocal about this now, because I feel like sometimes when I hear those stories, they’re talking about me, but they don’t actually directly contact me. The only person that’s directly contacted me was [bassist] Geezer [Butler], and that was a couple of years ago. He was asking me if he could do one more gig with me, and I basically said, “Well, you better ask Sharon [Osbourne].” That actually was my answer. On my part, it was rather not a very good answer, but at the time, I wasn’t in a very good mood about these things.
“I actually grieved the loss of [Ozzy’s] life in my life. It was fucking terrible. I cried.”
What inspired you to write your statement?
There are some specific statements that I thought were really unrealistic and just downright rude. I think if there’s ever going to be a future relationship, especially with Ozzy, then these things would need to be addressed and cleared up. I would like him to amend it. I saw the headline yesterday, “Bill Ward Demands an Apology,” and I’m not demanding anything at all; I have no expectation of ever receiving any kind of amends, but I’d need them for me to move forward.
Would you like to clear up any statements specifically?
One of the most painful things for me was Ozzy claimed in 2012 that I ought to have spoken up to the band and admit that I couldn’t cut it. But in my world, there was no such reason to do that. I was completely capable of playing in the studio and on tour.
I came out with the “signable contract” statement in February of 2012, and that’s because I needed to bring everything out into the open. Since then, nothing’s been spoken about the signable contract. Instead, they talk about my character and they blame me for pulling the plug, which is not true. I’m so loyal. Actually, it hurts when I talk about it. I’m so loyal to Black Sabbath, and I would never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, go into a situation with them under false pretenses. Tony and I have been playing together since we were 16 years old. How could you possibly derive that I wasn’t able to admit that I couldn’t cut it?
Ozzy also claimed that you were “incredibly overweight.” Is that true?
The truth is that I was overweight for playing onstage, but I wasn’t overweight for the studio. I could cut tracks with the weight that I arrived at. All of those guys know that I have a really rigorous exercise regimen. In August 2011, I started to drop weight because, at that point, I thought, “OK, we’re probably at five or six months away from actually doing a tour.” When we were in England, I was walking six miles before breakfast, I was doing bench presses, I was walking possibly two to three miles in the evening, and I was playing, like, three to four hours a day.
