BLABBERMOUTH.NET
Original
BLACK SABBATH drummer
Bill Ward has released a New Year's Day poem called
"Happy New Year". Check it out below.
Ward has released a number of poems in recent months, some inspired by the coronavirus pandemic and others celebrating the fall–winter holiday season, including Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Bill was on board for the
SABBATH reunion when it was first announced nine years ago, but backed out soon after. The drummer later claimed that he sat out the recording and touring sessions because of unfair contractual terms, although the members of
SABBATH have hinted in other interviews that he wasn't physically up to the task.
All four original members of
SABBATH were present when the band announced its reunion in late 2011. But
Ward split from the group in 2012, citing an "unsignable" contract, and singer
Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist
Tony Iommi and bassist
Geezer Butler carried on with their
Rick Rubin–produced
"13" LP and extensive international touring without him.
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.
In 2015,
Ward released his first solo album in 18 years. Titled
"Accountable Beasts", the record can be purchased on
iTunes.
In November 2017,
Ward's band
DAY OF ERRORS released its first two songs,
"Day Of Errors" and
"Blaspheming At Creation", via
iTunes,
Spotify,
Amazon MP3 and
Google Play. Two more tracks,
"Dark" and
"Ghost Train", followed in 2019.