Bill Ward Threatens to Leave Black Sabbath Reunion

[Powerage]

I know what we said about Sharon, but Bill Ward must be some kind of nut to screw around with people like this, he's giving up potentially millions of $$$ here if there's a new album (guaranteed #1 album on every chart on earth) and a world wide stadium/arena tour. If he's not playing then it's not a reunion, in fact it's less of a reunion than it was when they got back together in the last '90's. They never stop having reunions, if you count those one-off reunions they've had, then this must be about the 4th Sabbath reunion.

So, good riddance I guess, and good luck with next 'The Bill Ward Band' tour dude (kicks off first week in April in the pool-table room at the King's Head pub, Tottenham Court Road, London)

That's just it though isn't it? You say he's flushing millions down the toilet but how do we know he stands to gain millions from it? If he gets paid X to appear on the album and Y for each show on the tour, it might not add up to as much as you think. David Bowie pulled this stunt with Stevie Ray Vaughan. Wanting to pay him a session players fee for gigs.

After the treatment of the bass player and drummer from the Blizzard band [forgot their names - Bob Daisley and Kerslake or something?], the version I have of that album doesn't even have them on it!

Sharon takes great pride in making money and ****ing people over. The treatment Iron Maiden, yes IRON MAIDEN got in 2005 shows she doesn't give a **** about anything but herself.

Bill never completed the tour for the album Heaven and Hell and maybe thought it wasn't his place seeing as Vinnie Appice did it back in 1980.

Sabbath will be printing money on this coming tour, and then the album. If Bills demands are so unreasonable, either show him up to be a mercenary or give him what he wants.

 

[Khor1255]

Thank you. But if the thing is that he simply can't play up to the standard that is another thing. has anyone heard him play recently? I'm not saying this is the case, but though non drummers might think that stuff is incredibly easy it really isn't if you want it to sound at all right.

Again, I think it's most likely them trying to rip him off and him calling them on it but since we don't really know.....

So many other classic rok players are shadows of their former talent. If this were the reason and Bill didn't show otherwise I wouldn't be so quick to call foul on the other members. If it's just a 'he's only the drummer' thing though. To hell with them.

 

[Syd]

I read the other day of a Supremes (?) reunion that was supposed to happen about 25 years ago or something. And Diana Ross (I believe it was her, not a fan of these kind of bands at all) was offered 15 million for the tour, another member was offered like 5, and the last one was offered only 1 million dollars. Maybe that is happening again in this case. In the end, that tour didn't happen because of that, it was actually pretty offensive.

 

[METALPRIEST]

Yeah that kind of stuff is just sad. There may be some that don't think Bill contributed anything to the writing.

That is not the case either. He did write in the band. Probably more than Ozzy did.

 

[DaKillerWolf]

Some people may not understand this, but Bill Ward was very important to
shaping the original Black Sabbath sound. It was not only Tonys' new style of riffing in a down tuned, evil sounding manner, but also the almost modern Jazz rhythm section that Geezer and Bill were playing that make Sabbath so different in their era. Ward was playing almost big band swing but in his own heavy rock interpretation. He and Geezer were HUGELY important to the HEAVY sound Sabbath innovated. Just as important as Ozzy's tortured demon like vocal delivery ( strange sounding stuff in it's day w/o a doubt ) and Tonys riffs...

They are all BLACK SABBATH MK I ...Bill deserves to get more then just a helping hands wages. TBH, even if they get another drummer I'll be all over whatever they do, and I'll be going out to see them, BUT Ward deserves his due, and the rest of them should feel crappy if he isn't getting it.

 

[METALPRIEST]

...and to add to that, if Sharon has anything to do with this (and to be fair I'm speculating given her track record) she should feel bad...I mean real bad.

Anyone that has ever seen Ozzy's Don't Blame Me or owns it, Bill said nothing but GOOD THINGS in Ozzy's defense as a human being and an artist. It did not appear to be scripted at all. Very sincere. He even went as far as to say "I Love The Guy"..

Very crappy indeed that this is all going down. :mad

 

[Powerage]

Thank you. But if the thing is that he simply can't play up to the standard that is another thing. has anyone heard him play recently? I'm not saying this is the case, but though non drummers might think that stuff is incredibly easy it really isn't if you want it to sound at all right.

Again, I think it's most likely them trying to rip him off and him calling them on it but since we don't really know.....

So many other classic rok players are shadows of their former talent. If this were the reason and Bill didn't show otherwise I wouldn't be so quick to call foul on the other members. If it's just a 'he's only the drummer' thing though. To hell with them.

I know it was 7 years ago, but I saw Sabbath at Download Festival 2005 and they ripped the ****ing field apart. Bill played excellently.

 

[Lynch]

I am hardly 'in the know' on this subject, but I've had a feeling that there was or has been friction between Bill and the other guys since the early 80's. I'm not so sure it's an "Ozzy" thing as I just have had a gut feeling it's more of a Geezer+Tony vs Bill issue. (again, just speculating).


As for the Sharon angle on this story, I'm not quite ready to throw her under the bus on this one yet. That's not to say I'm a fan of hers. I can't stand the woman and this situation does kinda stink of something she could be involved in, but until I hear more, I'm going to guess this is an internal BS issue and less of an Ozzy/Sharon issue.



*(mark it down on your calendars, Lynch stuck up for that witch on Feb 6th, 2012).

 

[Powerage]

Bill only gets involved when Ozzy is on the scene so you could be right actually.

 

[DaKillerWolf]

Thats because Bill and Ozzy were closer to each other then they were with Tony and Geezer. Though Geezer always seemed to get on with Ozzy just fine, looking at their post Sabbath associations. I'm sure it's not a Bill ,Ozzy thing, though it could very will be a Sharon, Bill thing, over money. Like everyone here has already pointed out, that is her historic way of doing things...