Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Oct 30, 2020 3:11:11 GMT
William Thomas Ward (May 5, 1948 - )
Years active: 1963-present
Country of origin: England
Recorded Vocal Range: E♭2-B5 (D♯2-B5) - 3¾ octaves
Featured bands:
- 1968-1980 - Black Sabbath (drums, occasional vocals)
- 1983 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 1986-present - Bill Ward Band (lead vocals, drums, occasional keyboards)
- 1997-2006 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 2016-present - Day of Errors (drums, backing vocals)
{Full band history}
- 1963-1965 - Method 5 (drums)
- 1965-1968 - The Rest (lead vocals, drums)
- 1968 - Mythology (drums)
- 1968-1980 - Black Sabbath (drums, occasional vocals)
- 1981-1983 - Max Havoc (drums, backing vocals)
- 1983 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 1983-1985 - The Mezmerist (drums)
- 1984 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 1985-1988 - England's Glory (drums)
- 1986-present - Bill Ward Band (lead vocals, drums, occasional keyboards)
- 1988 - Blue Thunder (drums)
- 1994 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 1997-2006 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 2011-2012 - Black Sabbath (drums)
- 2016-present - Day of Errors (drums, backing vocals)
Recorded high notes:
B5: "Swinging the Chain"
E5: "It's Alright"
D♯5/E♭5: "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays) '20"
D5: "A Hard Road", "Swinging the Chain"
C5: "Powder on the Moon", "Swinging the Chain"
A♯4/B♭4: "Accountable Beasts", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Swinging the Chain"
A4: "Accountable Beasts", "As It Is in Heaven", "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" live acoustic 2003, "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997
G♯4/A♭4: "Ashes", "It's Alright" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Katastrophic World", "Leaf Killers", "Living Naked", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", "Straws", "The Wall of Death"
G4: "Accountable Beasts", "Animals", "Ashes", "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" live acoustic 2003, "D.O.T.H.", "Elephant Man" live Foundations Forum 1997, "First Day Back", "Growth", "It's Alright" live Fullerton 1997, "Leaf Killers", "Living Naked", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Powder on the Moon", "Straws", "Swinging the Chain", "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997, "The Wall of Death", "Try Life", "When the Bough Breaks", "Woodshop" live Foundations Forum 1997
F♯4/G♭4: "A Hard Road", "Along the Way", "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" live acoustic 2003, "Elephant Man" live Foundations Forum 1997, "First Day Back", "Hate", "It's Alright" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Katastrophic World", "Living Naked", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery", "Music for a Raw Nerve Ending", "Once This Was a Road", "Straws", "When I Was a Child", "When the Bough Breaks"
F4: "Animals", "Arrows", "Ashes", "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays) '20", "Elephant Man" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Growth", "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", "Powder on the Moon", "Shine", "Straws", "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997, "The Wall of Death", "Try Life", "Woodshop" live Foundations Forum 1997
E4: "Accountable Beasts", "Arrows", "Growth", "It's Alright", "Living Naked", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery", "Mon Dieu", "Nighthawks Stars & Pines", "Pink Clouds an Island", "Sweep", "The Dark Half Hour", "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997, "The Wall of Death"
Recorded low notes:
D3: "Along the Way", "Animals", "Children Killing Children", "D.O.T.H.", "First Day Back", "It's Alright" live Foundations Forum 1997, "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Try Life"
C♯3/D♭3: "Along the Way", "Ashes", "Katastrophic World", "Music for a Raw Nerve Ending", "Straws", "The Wall of Death", "Woodshop" live Foundations Forum 1997
C3: "Arrows", "Ashes", "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays) '20", "D.O.T.H.", "First Day Back", "Growth", "It's Alright", "Leaf Killers", "Living Naked", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery", "Mon Dieu", "Pink Clouds an Island", "Powder on the Moon", "Step Lightly (On the Grass)", "The Dark Half Hour", "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Try Life", "Woodshop" live Foundations Forum 1997B2: "Katastrophic World", "Leaf Killers", "(Mobile) Shooting Gallery", "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", "The Finest Hour" live Foundations Forum 1997
A♯2/B♭2: "Elephant Man" live Foundations Forum 1997, "Once This Was a Road", "Powder on the Moon", "Step Lightly (On the Grass)"
A2: "Growth", "Katastrophic World", "Mon Dieu", "Never Say Die"
G♯2/A♭2: "Hate", "Once This Was a Road", "The Wall of Death"
G2 "Animals", "Pink Clouds an Island"
F♯2/G♭2: "Music for a Raw Nerve Ending"
F2: "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", "The Wall of Death"
D♯2/E♭2: "Step Lightly (On the Grass)"
.......................................................
*Blue marks soft falsetto notes.
*Italics mark non-melodic notes.
*Underlines mark notes in backing vocals or otherwise muffled/obscured in the mix.
{Detailed bio}
Bill Ward is best known as the founding drummer of Black Sabbath, who recorded on many of the band's most famous and highly celebrated albums, including their self-titled debut, Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1973), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1975), and Heaven and Hell (1980). In addition to his career as a drummer however, he has also done a respectable amount of singing; first performing lead vocals on a couple of Black Sabbath songs in the 70s, then later going on to pursue a solo career in the 90s, which he has remained intermittently active with since then. Though he is very clearly a drummer foremost and more secondarily a singer, Ward has proven to have his vocal merits as well - between being able to do some rather pleasant softer singing in his mid-range, and also some decently impressive lower singing with nice boomy resonance. His high range is definitely not as much of his strong suit, however, as he can often sound rather nasal and awkward when singing in the mid fourth octave or higher, and sometimes can get somewhat shaky and pitchy as well. However, he also has demonstrated a nice soft falsetto on a few occasions, with which he has sung into the fifth octave on a few occasions, and could apparently even squeal as high as B5 with, as heard at one point in "Swingin' the Chain"!
Ward started playing in bands as far back as 1963, though no recordings exist of his first few bands, and little is known about them. In one of these early bands, The Rest, he allegedly served as lead vocalist in addition to drummer, but took a step back from the following role in his next band, Mythology. Though Ward's time in Mythology was short-lived, it served as his introduction to guitarist Tony Iommi, with whom he would form Black Sabbath (originally called the Polka Tulk Blues Band, and later Earth) later that year, alongside vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler. Following their album debut in 1970, Black Sabbath quickly skyrocketed to stardom, and were hailed as the inventors of the heavy metal style, which would go onto influence countless other musicians for generations to come. The band continued frequently writing and recording material throughout the 70s, and regularly released new albums every 1-2 years. On the band's 1976 album Technical Ecstasy, Ward made his singing debut on the song "It's Alright", which he also wrote. The song was featured as a single off the album, and would later be played as part of Ward's own solo sets in the '90s as well. On Black Sabbath's next album, 1978's Never Say Die!, Ward also performed lead vocals on the song "Swingin' the Chain", though in this instance it was not planned, and instead happened as a result of Ozzy refusing to sing it. The album also featured a few other small vocal appearances by Ward, such as the closing line of the title track and the backing vocals of "A Hard Road", which were also sung by Iommi and Geezer.
In 1979, Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath and replaced by Ronnie James Dio, which marked the end of Ward's time doing any sort of vocals in the band. With this lineup, they released the highly acclaimed album Heaven and Hell in 1980, but shortly after Ward left the band and was replaced by Vinny Appice. This began a turbulent period of his career, in which he was in and out of various bands for multiple years on end and was struggling with various substance addictions. The first of these bands was Max Havoc, a short-lived group that Ward was briefly in, but left before doing any recordings with. In 1983, he rejoined Black Sabbath, who were now fronted by former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, and recorded their eleventh studio album with them, Born Again. Prior to the tour for this album, however, Ward left the band a second time, and was now replaced by Bev Bevans. Following this, Ward joined a rather obscure metal band called The Mezmerist and recorded an EP called The Innocent, The Forsaken, the Guilty, which remained mostly unknown at the time, butlater gained some recognition as a collector's item for Black Sabbath fans upon its re-release in 2010. In 1984, he rejoined Black Sabbath for a third time, who were now fronted by David Donato, but once again left later that year, before any recordings could occur. This time he was replaced by Eric Singer, and moved on to form another obscure group called England's Glory. Once again, however, this band did not record at all, and remain a somewhat unknown relic that are only acknowledged by die-hard fans of Ward's work. His final '80s band was called Blue Thunder, whom he played with in 1988, and at least performed live with enough for there to be bootleg recordings of, but otherwise are also lacking in any studio discography.
Around 1986, Ward also began working on his own solo band, which would eventually see fruition in 1990 with the release of his first solo album - entitled Ward One: Along the Way (which marked his first full album release since 1983's Born Again). This album featured a wide variety of guests, including Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy's respective guitarist and bassist Zakk Wylde and Bob Daisley, former Cream bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, and Ward's own replacement in Black Sabbath Eric Singer (who had since left the band as well). Though Ward let the guest singers handle vocals on several respective tracks, he also sang a number of the songs himself, marking his first return to singing since 1978. Much of his singing on this album was fairly soft and restrained, and was usually centered around his mid to low range, which I would say are the best parts of his voice. In 1997, Ward followed this album up with a second solo release, entitled When the Bough Breaks, which served as the only release on which he performed as strictly a vocalist, while he instead hired Ronnie Ciago to handle all the drums. When the Bough Breaks also featured a surprising amount of musical variety, with a number of softer songs like "Children Killing Children", "Try Life", and the title track, some unexpected country influence on "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", and a few heavier tracks like "Step Lightly (On the Grass)" (which also features Ward's lowest notes to date). Though some of these numbers emphasize Ward's strengths as a vocalist, others take a somewhat ambitious direction that also demonstrate departments in which his vocal range and expressiveness is lacking, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, the '90s also saw two more instances of Ward rejoining Black Sabbath. The first of these was in 1994, when he rejoined Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler now with singer Tony Martin fronting the band (who had been their vocalist on-and-off since the late '80s), and toured with them in a limited capacity. However, this incarnation once again only lasted a few months, and Geezer and Ward were both replaced by bassist Neil Murray and drummer Cozy Powell, who had both been members of the band earlier in the '90s. Following this, Ward resumed work with his solo band and recorded When the Bough Breaks, but later in 1997, Black Sabbath saw its most lasting and successful reformation of former members to date - with all four of its original founding members (Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer, and Ward) reuniting to tour together for the first time since 1979. The 1998 live album Reunion was recorded during this tour, which also featured two new studio tracks that the band had recorded together under this reformed lineup. The band continued touring in limited capacities with the reformed original lineup until 2006, at which point Iommi and Geezer split off to reform with Ronnie James Dio under the moniker Heaven & Hell - which served as a reformation of the Dio-era lineup of the Black Sabbath, but did not feature any music from the Ozzy era. Ward was originally invited to be a part of Heaven & Hell, but ended up declining due to personal issues with some of the members, and thus the band once again hired Vinny Appice to serve as their drummer during this time. Though Black Sabbath remained inactive during the years that Heaven & Hell were touring, they reformed once again with the founding lineup in 2011, with intentions to record one more album together. However, during the early stages of this reunion, Ward encountered a number of health issues and contract disputes, which resulted in him refusing to continue playing with the band unless his contract was renegotiated. As a result, the band moved ahead without him, and recorded their final album 13 (released in 2013) with Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer, and drummer Tommy Clufetos serving in Ward's place. This also served as the band's touring lineup until their disbandment in 2017, though both Ozzy and Iommi have since expressed regrets about not including Ward in the farewell tour after all.
Since his final departure from Black Sabbath, Ward has been playing drums and singing backing vocals in the band Day of Errors since 2016, with whom he has released a few songs on YouTube so far, but no full album yet. In addition to this, he has continued working on his solo material, and has recorded material for two more albums, though only one has been released to date. He began writing for what would have been his third solo album, titled Beyond Aston, as far back as the 1990s, but encountered various setbacks over the years that continually postponed its completion or release. Eventually Ward had worked on the album for so long that he began to work on a fourth solo album in 2008 as "a means of taking a break" from Beyond Aston. This next album was completed and released in 2015, and was entitled Accountable Beasts. This now serves as Ward's most recent album, as Beyond Aston still remains unreleased with no prospective release dates yet. However, a few of the older songs off of it (entitled "Woodshop", "Elephant Man", and "The Finest Hour") can be heard in this recording of a 1997 solo concert at the Foundations Forum in California, and more recently Ward released the studio versions of the songs "The Dark Half Hour" and "Powder on the Moon", which are promised to be songs featured on the album. Additionally, he has recently started posting a few other new solo songs on his YouTube channel, such as "Arrows", "Once This Was a Road", and a remake of the song "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" (originally featured on Ward One: Along the Way with Ozzy on vocals), this time with himself on vocals! It remains unclear what album these songs will be a part of, or when Beyond Aston will ever see a release date, but many of Ward's fans continue to await his next release with great anticipation until then.
Bill Ward is best known as the founding drummer of Black Sabbath, who recorded on many of the band's most famous and highly celebrated albums, including their self-titled debut, Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1973), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1975), and Heaven and Hell (1980). In addition to his career as a drummer however, he has also done a respectable amount of singing; first performing lead vocals on a couple of Black Sabbath songs in the 70s, then later going on to pursue a solo career in the 90s, which he has remained intermittently active with since then. Though he is very clearly a drummer foremost and more secondarily a singer, Ward has proven to have his vocal merits as well - between being able to do some rather pleasant softer singing in his mid-range, and also some decently impressive lower singing with nice boomy resonance. His high range is definitely not as much of his strong suit, however, as he can often sound rather nasal and awkward when singing in the mid fourth octave or higher, and sometimes can get somewhat shaky and pitchy as well. However, he also has demonstrated a nice soft falsetto on a few occasions, with which he has sung into the fifth octave on a few occasions, and could apparently even squeal as high as B5 with, as heard at one point in "Swingin' the Chain"!
Ward started playing in bands as far back as 1963, though no recordings exist of his first few bands, and little is known about them. In one of these early bands, The Rest, he allegedly served as lead vocalist in addition to drummer, but took a step back from the following role in his next band, Mythology. Though Ward's time in Mythology was short-lived, it served as his introduction to guitarist Tony Iommi, with whom he would form Black Sabbath (originally called the Polka Tulk Blues Band, and later Earth) later that year, alongside vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler. Following their album debut in 1970, Black Sabbath quickly skyrocketed to stardom, and were hailed as the inventors of the heavy metal style, which would go onto influence countless other musicians for generations to come. The band continued frequently writing and recording material throughout the 70s, and regularly released new albums every 1-2 years. On the band's 1976 album Technical Ecstasy, Ward made his singing debut on the song "It's Alright", which he also wrote. The song was featured as a single off the album, and would later be played as part of Ward's own solo sets in the '90s as well. On Black Sabbath's next album, 1978's Never Say Die!, Ward also performed lead vocals on the song "Swingin' the Chain", though in this instance it was not planned, and instead happened as a result of Ozzy refusing to sing it. The album also featured a few other small vocal appearances by Ward, such as the closing line of the title track and the backing vocals of "A Hard Road", which were also sung by Iommi and Geezer.
In 1979, Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath and replaced by Ronnie James Dio, which marked the end of Ward's time doing any sort of vocals in the band. With this lineup, they released the highly acclaimed album Heaven and Hell in 1980, but shortly after Ward left the band and was replaced by Vinny Appice. This began a turbulent period of his career, in which he was in and out of various bands for multiple years on end and was struggling with various substance addictions. The first of these bands was Max Havoc, a short-lived group that Ward was briefly in, but left before doing any recordings with. In 1983, he rejoined Black Sabbath, who were now fronted by former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, and recorded their eleventh studio album with them, Born Again. Prior to the tour for this album, however, Ward left the band a second time, and was now replaced by Bev Bevans. Following this, Ward joined a rather obscure metal band called The Mezmerist and recorded an EP called The Innocent, The Forsaken, the Guilty, which remained mostly unknown at the time, butlater gained some recognition as a collector's item for Black Sabbath fans upon its re-release in 2010. In 1984, he rejoined Black Sabbath for a third time, who were now fronted by David Donato, but once again left later that year, before any recordings could occur. This time he was replaced by Eric Singer, and moved on to form another obscure group called England's Glory. Once again, however, this band did not record at all, and remain a somewhat unknown relic that are only acknowledged by die-hard fans of Ward's work. His final '80s band was called Blue Thunder, whom he played with in 1988, and at least performed live with enough for there to be bootleg recordings of, but otherwise are also lacking in any studio discography.
Around 1986, Ward also began working on his own solo band, which would eventually see fruition in 1990 with the release of his first solo album - entitled Ward One: Along the Way (which marked his first full album release since 1983's Born Again). This album featured a wide variety of guests, including Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy's respective guitarist and bassist Zakk Wylde and Bob Daisley, former Cream bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, and Ward's own replacement in Black Sabbath Eric Singer (who had since left the band as well). Though Ward let the guest singers handle vocals on several respective tracks, he also sang a number of the songs himself, marking his first return to singing since 1978. Much of his singing on this album was fairly soft and restrained, and was usually centered around his mid to low range, which I would say are the best parts of his voice. In 1997, Ward followed this album up with a second solo release, entitled When the Bough Breaks, which served as the only release on which he performed as strictly a vocalist, while he instead hired Ronnie Ciago to handle all the drums. When the Bough Breaks also featured a surprising amount of musical variety, with a number of softer songs like "Children Killing Children", "Try Life", and the title track, some unexpected country influence on "Please Help Mommy (She's a Junkie)", and a few heavier tracks like "Step Lightly (On the Grass)" (which also features Ward's lowest notes to date). Though some of these numbers emphasize Ward's strengths as a vocalist, others take a somewhat ambitious direction that also demonstrate departments in which his vocal range and expressiveness is lacking, in my opinion.
Meanwhile, the '90s also saw two more instances of Ward rejoining Black Sabbath. The first of these was in 1994, when he rejoined Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler now with singer Tony Martin fronting the band (who had been their vocalist on-and-off since the late '80s), and toured with them in a limited capacity. However, this incarnation once again only lasted a few months, and Geezer and Ward were both replaced by bassist Neil Murray and drummer Cozy Powell, who had both been members of the band earlier in the '90s. Following this, Ward resumed work with his solo band and recorded When the Bough Breaks, but later in 1997, Black Sabbath saw its most lasting and successful reformation of former members to date - with all four of its original founding members (Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer, and Ward) reuniting to tour together for the first time since 1979. The 1998 live album Reunion was recorded during this tour, which also featured two new studio tracks that the band had recorded together under this reformed lineup. The band continued touring in limited capacities with the reformed original lineup until 2006, at which point Iommi and Geezer split off to reform with Ronnie James Dio under the moniker Heaven & Hell - which served as a reformation of the Dio-era lineup of the Black Sabbath, but did not feature any music from the Ozzy era. Ward was originally invited to be a part of Heaven & Hell, but ended up declining due to personal issues with some of the members, and thus the band once again hired Vinny Appice to serve as their drummer during this time. Though Black Sabbath remained inactive during the years that Heaven & Hell were touring, they reformed once again with the founding lineup in 2011, with intentions to record one more album together. However, during the early stages of this reunion, Ward encountered a number of health issues and contract disputes, which resulted in him refusing to continue playing with the band unless his contract was renegotiated. As a result, the band moved ahead without him, and recorded their final album 13 (released in 2013) with Ozzy, Iommi, Geezer, and drummer Tommy Clufetos serving in Ward's place. This also served as the band's touring lineup until their disbandment in 2017, though both Ozzy and Iommi have since expressed regrets about not including Ward in the farewell tour after all.
Since his final departure from Black Sabbath, Ward has been playing drums and singing backing vocals in the band Day of Errors since 2016, with whom he has released a few songs on YouTube so far, but no full album yet. In addition to this, he has continued working on his solo material, and has recorded material for two more albums, though only one has been released to date. He began writing for what would have been his third solo album, titled Beyond Aston, as far back as the 1990s, but encountered various setbacks over the years that continually postponed its completion or release. Eventually Ward had worked on the album for so long that he began to work on a fourth solo album in 2008 as "a means of taking a break" from Beyond Aston. This next album was completed and released in 2015, and was entitled Accountable Beasts. This now serves as Ward's most recent album, as Beyond Aston still remains unreleased with no prospective release dates yet. However, a few of the older songs off of it (entitled "Woodshop", "Elephant Man", and "The Finest Hour") can be heard in this recording of a 1997 solo concert at the Foundations Forum in California, and more recently Ward released the studio versions of the songs "The Dark Half Hour" and "Powder on the Moon", which are promised to be songs featured on the album. Additionally, he has recently started posting a few other new solo songs on his YouTube channel, such as "Arrows", "Once This Was a Road", and a remake of the song "Bombers (Can Open Bomb Bays)" (originally featured on Ward One: Along the Way with Ozzy on vocals), this time with himself on vocals! It remains unclear what album these songs will be a part of, or when Beyond Aston will ever see a release date, but many of Ward's fans continue to await his next release with great anticipation until then.
{Album ranges}
Black Sabbath:
Bill Ward:
Black Sabbath:
- Technical Ecstasy (1976) - C3-E4-E5
- Never Say Die! (1978) - A2-B♭4-B5
Bill Ward:
- Ward One: Along the Way (1990) - F♯2-G2-G♯4
- When the Bough Breaks (1997) - E♭2-F2-A♭4
- Accountable Beasts (2015) - F2-A2-B♭4
Previous version of this thread by Sandblasted on TRP3.
Same case with some of the live versions of unreleased songs off Beyond Aston, unfortunately.