150: Bill Ward (Black Sabbath, Day of Errors)

The Trap Set with Joe Wong

Joe Wong

Joewong, Drums, Comedy, Performing Arts, Arts, Drummers

4.8 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2017

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a child in working-class Birmingham, the only career options presented to Bill Ward were working in a factory or enlisting in the military. Against all odds, he escaped that bleak destiny and co-founded the paradigm-shifting Black Sabbath. Bill tells Joe about his journey from choir boy to unhinged rock legend; the inner workings of Black Sabbath; his road to sobriety; fatherhood; learning to love himself; and why he is at peace with the world. This is a can’t miss episode with one of the all time greats! Stay tuned next week for a bonus episode featuring Bill's answers to listener questions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	They seemed like they were a part of me. They seemed like they were, that I belonged with them and they belonged with me.
0:09.0	This is Joe Wong.
0:23.6	Welcome to the Trap Set, where each week we explore the lives of drummers.
0:28.6	I want to play something for you. The
0:40.3	The You're hearing symptom of the universe by Black Sabbath, featuring my guest Bill Ward on drums.
1:11.6	Born to a working class family in Birmingham, Ward began his career as a teenager.
1:17.6	In 1968, he co-founded Black Sabbath and brought to the band an iconoclastic style
1:23.6	combining a deeply swinging groove with lightning fast chops.
1:28.3	Bill's keen ear for arrangement allowed him to conduct the paradigm shifting group from the drummer's throne.
1:35.3	Ward's propeller's Yeah.
1:47.0	Ward's propensity for drugs and drink reached an unmanageable apex in the early 80s, leading to his departure from Sabbath.
1:55.0	Now clean and sober for over 30 years, he's participated in some of the legendary band's reunions over the decades.
2:03.2	Ward also continues to record and perform as a leader, currently with his band Day of Errors.
2:10.3	Just as Servantes and Shakespeare are fundamental to modern literature, Bill Ward's contributions
2:16.1	lie at the very foundation of modern drumming.
2:19.4	His style is so embedded in the DNA of popular music that sometimes his impact can go unnoticed.
2:27.0	But listen to any of the dozens of his classic recordings, and you'll be reminded that he's
2:31.4	not only influenced everyone in his wake,
2:36.5	but he's truly one of the all-time greats.
2:57.8	And now my conversation with Bill Ward most of the music that we listened to back then was big band jazz that was American big band jazz and as the as time went on as
3:05.2	we came into the early 50s then it would have been the ink spots and the platters.
3:10.6	And then, of course, Elvis Presley arrived in Jerry Lee and Little Richard.
	...

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