There’s another cool audio interview with Bill online now. This one comes from 106.1 Rock Radio in Manchester. You’ll want to check it out and give it a listen to hear what Bill has to say.

Bill Ward made an appearance on the Kerrang! Video Podcast where he mostly talks about the re-releases of the first three Black Sabbath albums as enhanced versions. But more importantly he talks about those red tights on the Sabotage album cover! 🙂

Check it out…

This coming Saturday night the 4th of April, Bill will be on the XFM Radio show with Ian Camfield from 10PM till 2AM in the UK.

If you are in the UK, you can listen to Ian’s show on 104.9 FM, on digital radio, and anyone in the world can listen online at http://www.xfm.co.uk! Make sure to tune in and check out Bill’s latest appearance!

The latest edition of Bill’s monthly Rock 50 radio show happened this past Saturday. We hope you had a chance to listen in. If you did not (or if you did anyway), the track listing from the show is now available. You can check it out here.

In addition to that, as part of the new feature set here on Bill’s website, we have an mp3 widget available where you can listen to sound samples from all the songs Bill played this month. That is available at the bottom of this news story.

In addition to that, Amazon.com is currently running a promotion where you can download one of the tracks that was played in this month’s episode for free. In their MP3 store, you can download the track “More than Meets the Eye” from Testament legally for free by clicking here. Check out all the tracks available for purchase here.

If you have any comments on the tracks Bill played this month, please let us know by commenting on this story. You can do that by clicking the “Leave a Reply” link at the bottom of this story.

This mp3 widget requires Flash to work, and if you have ad blocking software, please disable it for this site. We run no ads here, and ad blocking software can block features from working here.

Hello gang. A hearty welcome to the freshly overhauled Official Bill Ward Website!

As long time visitors of this site know, the previous “look and feel” had grown stagnant to the point of looking really old fashioned and behind the times. It needed to be thrown out and overhauled. That’s exactly what has happened. You’re looking at the all new site, with some new additions, some subtractions, and a fresh coat of paint thrown in for good measure. This message is to detail the changes.

• First off, we’ve lost the frames structure. That was great a decade ago, but over time, that concept of website design became cumbersome. Especially when people linked to direct pages, it made the site look bad.
• A few options from the old site menu are now gone. Sounds & Pictures have been combined into a new “Media” option. Links has been moved to the bottom of the page.
• The forums are gone. When originally instituted, it was thought that Bill would interact with the fans directly through the forums. However, as time went along, we realized that wouldn’t be happening, so it was decided to remove the forums from the new website. However, individual stories will have comments open, so you can now leave feedback to individual stories going forward.
• The Rock 50 page has been expanded somewhat to include some streaming versions of selected old shows.
• The Rock 50 archive pages starting in January 2009 are going to be more enhanced. If you look at one, you will see what I mean. You will now be able to click through to Amazon.com and buy individual mp3’s of the songs Bill plays. On top of that, there will be a widget which allows for sound samples of all the songs (when available). We think this will greatly increase the usefulness of the Rock 50 archives. We’ve included a widget in this news story to show you an example of what it will look like.
• There is also a streaming media player permanently on the website now. It will include selected songs of Bill’s. Right now it has some live tracks from Rock 50 performances, a track from the Beyond Aston sessions, as well as a single track from both Ward One & When the Bough Breaks. These streaming tracks will be rotated out over time so you can hear more of the music from Bill’s first two albums.

Oh, a quick note. If you run ad blocking software in your web browser, disable it for Bill’s site. There are no advertisements here anyway, and the ad blockers can prevent some of the new features from working right.

If you have any questions about the new website, it’s layout, or where content might have gone, drop Joe Siegler an email at siegler@billward.com. We’ll be glad to answer your questions.

Welcome back!

With a new website comes new stuff, right? While Bill is still not ready to present any new music, we had a quick look around into the archives and found a couple of small nuggets we wanted to throw out there. First is a picture (shown here) of Bill from 2005. This was taken inside his trailer while on Ozzfest 2005. He’s also wearing a T-Shirt from one of his favorite bands, “In Flames“.

The second is an mp3 of an interview Bill did several years ago with Craig Nunenmacher of Black Label Society. This was going to be the launching point of a series of interviews that never got off the ground, but we thought now was a good time to get the interview out there. If you listen to it, the interview refers to itself as “Part 1”, and said there was going to be a “Part 2”. Part 2 never happened. 🙂

Anyway, you can download the mp3 here, or you can listen to it via the embedded player here in this post. Enjoy!

H! Everyone.
Happy New Year.

The radio show is on Saturday, January 24th ­ the first show of ¹09. I want to make it heavy from top to bottom. As you know, we play mostly Hardcore Metal from Celtic Frost to Gwar, and Metallica to Opeth. I¹m going to change the format slightly for the January and February shows. I¹m adding in some Classic Metal and Hard Rock. Check us out. If you have comments about the new format, please contact me at bward@billward.com. I would appreciate your feedback.

January¹s show will include Metallica, Slipknot, Dimmu Borgir, Dew Scented, Led Zeppelin, and many more great bands.

Stay strong,
Bill Ward

H! Everyone.

The Christmas Show airs on Saturday, December 6th. As usual, the songs are all brilliant and come from different types of bands and artists. It’s not a Metal show, although we’re featuring some of Metal’s best. The Christmas Show is realistic. I’ve always tried to keep it on the ground in a way that may help those in need, suffering and in hardship. We have uplifting songs ­ strong and hopeful.

Some of the bands/artists we’re playing are John Lennon, George Harrison, Traffic, Type-O Negative, Ministry, Korn, Cream, Slipknot and many, many more. Check us out if you can. Please note we’ll be back in January with our regular abnormal Metal show.

Stay strong. Stay safe.

–Bill Ward

H! Everyone.

This November 15th we’ll be playing our Armistice show on “Rock 50.” Check out the show if you have the time.

Like our 9/11 show, the Armistice show is not 100% Metal. We dedicate the Armistice show to all who have fallen in foreign and domestic wars since November 11, 1918 through and up to today’s wars. November 11th is the official Armistice Day throughout Europe, all over the world, and here in the U.S.A.

We’ve been doing this show for a number of years now, and hope to continue this tradition. Bands appearing: A Perfect Circle, Ozzy, Ministry, Anthrax, Billy Joel’s classic “Goodnight Saigon,” and much, much more.

Stay strong,
Bill Ward

Thanks to all of you who sent in questions for Bill’s year-end Hails & Horns column. Be sure to pick up a copy of the Nov-Feb double-issue when it hits the stands to see if he answered your question. In the meantime, you can check out Bill’s current column “The Royal Iris” in the Sept/Oct issue on newsstands now.