Bill Ward Quotes

Everything I write tends to come from my own personal experiences, or from people close to me that I’m singing about.

I’ve often said that with Black Sabbath you ought to have put a lasso around the sound and pulled it in. That’s the best way to record Black Sabbath.

I love Black Sabbath’s music.

I don’t play beats. I hate playing beats. I’m an orchestration drummer. I’m a musical drummer.

If you want to strive toward something, just listen to John Bonham.

When I listen to our first album now, I can hear the purity of the oneness of leaving all earthly things aside to come together and create something. It’s quite marvelous.

When I write, there’s always an image, sometimes a color attached to what’s being created.

I don’t want to do death any more. I don’t want to do doom and gloom. I want to do life and love.

I… remember taking all kinds of risks and at the time being oblivious to danger and really thinking back then how I could really do anything that I wanted.

I can’t afford to have resentment. I can’t afford to be angry. I can’t afford these things spiritually or physically.

Regardless of injuries, we would get onstage, and as soon as we were up there it was like, bam! You were hit with an incredible force. The band came alive on stage like someone had switched us on.

I don’t think previously strong relationships can remain strong after dispute by just sweeping the offensive stuff under the carpet, or by saying a puny sorry, or ‘oh, that’s all over now.’ It doesn’t work like that for me.

Let’s get rid of the myth that I’m rich.

Even our early audiences were very polite. It felt like playing in our living room. I remember the audiences changing in front of me. I remember that distinctly. The way they wore their clothes became different. We got a lot of leather jackets with studs. People’s hair changed. The whole look was just a sublime move.

I’m hoping I can get in a position where I’m self-supporting from my own work.

I found very early on that I lacked the ability to be able to play as a timekeeper. I have a really tough time even thinking in those terms.

In September 2012, I got the blues pretty bad, so I stopped playing for a little while. I started to renew my playing by the time February of 2013 came around. I would go up and rehearse to different songs, play stuff like Count Basie records, jazz or rap.

Touring is completely different to me than being in the studio.

I’m playing jazz throughout the song ‘Black Sabbath.’ That’s what it is there. I mean, I’m moving some other things around, but that is forever in there.

We never made music to fit into anything or to reach a certain audience.

I don’t feel I’m taking the moral high ground, telling people to stop eating animals because I’ve done it. It just works for me.

Being able to tell the truth is a gift.

I’m so-so on the blastbeat. A couple of my mates play that style. I’m not a huge fan, no – and the only reason for that is because it distracts me from other elements of the dynamics. It’s a little overpowering!

I don’t know about all this ‘speed metal’ and everything… It’s all metal to me.

I would never, ever, ever commit to taking on any type of live commitment, or studio commitment, if I knew there was something going on inside of me which could stop me from doing it.

I write poems.

I think everything that I’ve ever played has somehow trickled down from Gene Krupa.

When I think about Oz, when he was a teenager, I’m just reminded of what an excellent blues voice he had. He had a large voice. When we did the Aynsley Dunbar song ‘Warning’ and ‘Black Sabbath,’ his voice is so right. It’s really round, and it has that pain from within in his voice.

I always like to write something that will paint a cynical picture, but provide hope at the same time; I like to do that with my writing, even in the worst of times.

I actually like a lot of Motorhead records.

I’m a visionary drummer and I have been for a long, long, long time.

Things haven’t always worked out how I want them to, but the eventuality of being honest is a daily gift.

Black Sabbath has always been noncompliant.

I love the ‘Black Album’ because I think it was the beginning of something, primarily. I’d met Metallica, and I’d heard Metallica before that, but when I heard the ‘Black Album,’ I actually had a response rather like I did with ‘Sgt. Pepper.’

I like jamming to rap.

When you love somebody, and they start saying things that are not true and really hurt, you have to remove the love.

Once I started to get some of the things I’d always craved, I still found myself incredibly unhappy. It was never enough. A lot of that stems from being real, real insecure, wanting more and hoping that will fix the insecurity.

I got so lonely in 2012 and I wasn’t playing drums. I thought I would just form my own band and play drums again. I think it was 2013 that we started looking for two other people and formed Day of Errors.

I admired punk because I came from a violent band as well. Especially in the first four or five years, we were very aggressive when we played live.

I get to play what I’m feeling on my solo records, and I get to bang the hell out of a drum kit in Black Sabbath.

I heard about twenty, twenty-four bars of one track – one track – on ’13,’ and I listened to it, and I just didn’t like it at all; I just didn’t like it. And I have that right not to like it.

Every year when I get my health checks they come out better and better.

The great thing about being a great band is that it takes risks.

I love ghosts – I’m a ghost person and have been most of my life.

Black Sabbath questioned a lot of things.

Try not to be alone with your own pain. Try to find someone you can trust your pain with.

For our many Sabbath fans, I love you all dearly. You are extremely special people.

It’s really important that we communally share what’s going on with each other… Otherwise, we’re going to be walking around in a very sorrowful place.

I play like Bill, I can’t play like anybody else!

It’s that mindset we have where we think we are indestructible. I know at least I went through that phase, where everything was excessive! Like if I drove a fast car I’d just have to take it to 130 miles per hour or more, you know!

I like jazz in all the ways that it is played.

I write all the time. Some of them are very personalized things. Some of them are sarcastic looks at life.

I think that drummers have come a long way, but they haven’t forgotten players like Gene Krupa, or the other jazz players.

I had a lot of teachers. When I think about my upbringing I feel like the most fortunate person. It was a marvellous era for drummers.

I made the decision back in 1984 to never play with Black Sabbath unless it was the original line-up. And I stuck to it for quite a long time. A lot of that was about honoring Ozzy.

Those chords on ‘You Won’t Change Me’ are huge.

When I write, there’s always an image, sometimes a color attached to what’s being created. I am delighted with the captured expressions – from my head and my heart. Their arrival onto canvas is beautiful.

When I think about the lyrics to ‘The Wizard,’ some people could probably feel that they’re laughable. But they actually meant something for us, and we were bold or brave enough to show ourselves from the inside out.

Without the jazz influence, the Black Sabbath drumming would be very different.

I based my tuning on Gene Krupa, Buddy and Joe Morello. I knew how I wanted the drums to sound and we did the best we could with a beat up Ludwig kit. I spent a lot of time around drummers learning how to get sound. I knew the sound I was after and what would work for what we were playing.

I don’t want to ride on Sabbath’s coattails in order to encourage my own opportunities.

You can’t play a backbeat in Black Sabbath. You can if you want to; it’s going to ruin the song.

One thing I can confirm is whenever I listen to ‘Laguna Sunrise,’ it sounds exactly like Laguna Beach. There’s something about it.

Since my early childhood, I’ve played drums in visuals as well as sound.

As far as drummers are concerned, when I was a child growing up I was really attracted to artists like Gene Kupra and Louis Bellson and Buddy Rich; a lot of the drummers that played in the popular big bands of the ’40s. I would listen to their records.

When I’m working on new ideas, musically much of what’s played is guided by a visual appearance or shape.

As far as I’m concerned, the book’s never closed with Sabbath!

The way I play the drums, it’s becoming tougher as I get older.

I don’t have a problem with letting go of an album once I know I’ve pretty much done the best that I can.

I am honest about who I am, where I am and what I think.