Bill Ward

William Thomas Ward (born 5 May 1948) is an English drummer. He is the original drummer of Black Sabbath, co-founding the pioneering heavy metal band in 1969 alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. He has released three solo albums, the most recent being Accountable Beasts in 2015.

Born in Aston, Birmingham on 5 May 1948, Bill Ward started to play drums as a child, listening to the big bands of the 1940s; his early influences were Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson. Later he was influenced by drummers such as Larrie Londin, Bernard Purdie, Joe Morello, Keef Hartley, Hughie Flint, John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Jim Capaldi, Clive Bunker, Mitch Mitchell, and John Densmore. In the mid-1960s Ward sang and played drums in a band called the Rest, before he and guitarist Tony Iommi played together in a band called Mythology, and upon that band's dissolution joined vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler, who had previously played together in a band called The Rare Breed. The new band called themselves Earth, but were soon renamed Black Sabbath. During this time Ward played occasionally with the band Bakerloo.

Bill Ward is credited as one of the four original and founding members of Black Sabbath, having played on the first eight albums with frontman Ozzy Osbourne, dubbed the "Osbourne-era". Ward would leave the band for good in 1983, occasionally making appearances until the final Black Sabbath show in 2025.

After recording a series of demos under the name Earth with then-manager Jim Simpson, the band was renamed Black Sabbath at the suggestion of Geezer Butler, and debuted their first album in February 1970. Butler has said that the song "N.I.B." was named after Bill Ward's beard "because it was pointy" and resembled a pen nib. Four months later, Black Sabbath recorded their follow-up Paranoid, on which Ward performed the instrumental drum solo "Rat Salad". According to Butler, the track resulted from the band having to play eight 3/4-hour spots a night in Europe early in their career. "Bill used to fill out a whole 45 minutes doing a drum solo just to get rid of that 45 minutes" he revealed to Classic Albums. "I have no idea where the title came from, though." In 1971, Butler was on record stating that the title came from a joke about Ward's hair having not been combed.

Recorded and released in 1971, Master of Reality saw a heavier sound in the band in terms of production. "Master of Reality is where we found ourselves I know people feel that Sabbath invented heavy metal with our debut album – and that is true to some extent. But I believe that it's with Master of Reality that we proved the potential and power of the music." Bill Ward has cited the band's intake of "uppers, downers, Quaaludes, whatever you want It was after Master of Reality that I remember Geezer broaching the issue for the first time of how out of control everything had become. He started saying he was getting tired…"

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.