Top 50 Bill Ward Quotes

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

Black Sabbath questioned a lot of things.

Sweet Leaf’ and ‘Iron Man’ were the rallying points for all the young men coming back from Vietnam.

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

Black Sabbath has always been noncompliant.

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 have a problem with letting go of an album once I know I’ve pretty much done the best that I can.

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’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.

If you believe in a higher power or if you believe in God, then I would suggest that you go to God and see if you can find some solutions. If you don’t believe in God, then try to be as honest with yourself as you possibly can… When I’ve chosen the light of God or self-honesty, my own misery has brought me to a solution.

I love Black Sabbath’s music.

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

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

I don’t tend to be current with anything. I just write the music and allow it to just be whatever it is.

I’m a big fan of DevilDriver and I have been since they first started.

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

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.

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.

Ultimately, I’d say a lot of my vocal influences are jazz-based, people like Ella Fitzgerald, or Fred Astaire.

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.

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

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.

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

I have an open mind, and I try to be critical of none of the bands, even if something’s not to my personal taste. After all, somebody worked really hard on that music.

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

I really enjoyed playing drums on ‘Born Again.’ It was a good feeling about being alive. There was a good energy there about being sober.

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

It’s hard to be a hungry young man when you’re not hungry anymore. We were very hungry young men when we wrote ‘Black Sabbath’ and when we wrote ‘War Pigs.’

One of the biggest struggles I’ve had is being me.

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.

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.

Being able to tell the truth is a gift.

Childhood, all me influences were, say, between the time that I can remember, which would have been about three years old to the time that I was about five or six years old, all the music that I ever heard was jazz and it was American jazz, and it was big-band jazz, to be more defined.

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

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.

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

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

Every day, I write. I have a writing period – it’s usually in the morning – or I’m writing songs.

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

I actually like a lot of Motorhead records.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.’

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