H! Everybody,
It’s Bill.

I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New year.

I’m looking forward to, hopefully, a few days of quiet over the holidays. The year has been long and bittersweet. Musically, it’s been a great year. However, in saying that, I have failed to get the album “Beyond Aston” finished. I never experienced ever being part of a project with so many stops and starts. June 2nd – that was the date I singed off to start mixing. It felt at times that we were doomed not to progress. Technical problems and production loss gradually ground us to a halt. I even started another album at Keith’s home studio (Keith Lynch, Bill Ward Band guitar player), in early November. We have six songs done so far on that album, untitled as yet.

I do regret that “Beyond Aston” didn’t become available in 2007. We’re in the action of re-setting up a production team to finish up in Jan/Feb 2008.

Highlights of 2007:

My daughter, Em graduated, and I was there. I missed my youngest son’s graduation (I was on tour), so seeing her graduate was a first-time experience (my oldest son didn’t graduate – he dropped out and joined a band). I sat with my grandson in my arms and watched her graduate – brilliant.

I saw Ronnie, Tony, Geezer and Vinnie in Fresno. It was very nice to see them. I’ve definitely missed walking with Tony this year, and I always miss playing with them (Tony and Geezer). I watched the show and found myself taking a walk down memory lane when they played “Heaven & Hell.” The show was great, and I’m still thinking about Geezer’s bass playing. That night, he played brilliantly, I thought. I’ve never watched him play before, not even with Oz. I’ve never seen him live, not since the Rare Breed days. When I’m playing with Geezer, it’s a totally different experience, so watching him perform on stage as I stood in the mix area was very powerful visually, and sound-wise, demolishing. He’s just brill, period. His chops were tight, I’m honoured that I know the bloke.

Our cats have taken over the house. I’ve finally surrendered to their will. For me, I have become their walker, waiter, scratcher and general servant, doing the most meaningful labour, some of which is too sordid to mention.

I didn’t go anywhere this year – Fresno, but I think that was it. Nearly all of my time was spent either writing or being in the studio. My wife went traveling. My oldest boy, Aeron, flew in from the UK. with his girlfriend. He did a quick visit/trip up and down the west coast, and headed in no time at all, back to Blighty (GB.).

I’ve been walking and working and struggling and overcoming and laughing and getting past it; healing, speaking, singing, playing and talking to a lot of other people and musicians (there’s a difference). I’m alive, and I’m not roaming the streets anymore like I was doing in December 1983.

I can appreciate Christmas can bring heartache and financial worries (above the already possible existing financial worries). I hope you find solace among the shortfalls and anxieties. The healing focus to the suffering rich and poor alike, I hope, will always be thoughtful and strong. I hope that the misery of mankind stops or becomes less. I hope that all nature’s animals and creatures will reign in prosperity. My Christmas wish is that our eyesight and hearing will continue to better detect the truth of any matter. I hope that we all grasp a little tighter to understanding the words “objectification” and “should.”

Merry Christmas.

Love,
Bill

Place your head upon whatever you’ve been chosen to call bed. ©

As the Christmas season begins, Bill is participating in a new series by the website classicrockrevisited.com. Bill’s contribution is a reading of the classic story, “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”. It’s quite cool to listen to. You can grab yourself a copy of it by downloading this mp3.

You will want to check out the rest of the series over at crr’s website. Here is their press release for the entire series:

ROCK STARS RECITE TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. A CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED EXCLUSIVE

Tis the season to be jolly and at Classic Rock Revisited that means bringing something cool and unique to our readers. This year we asked several of our musician friends to recite the classic Christmas poem Twas the Night Before Christmas. They did an amazing job! Check out Bill reading the poem here!

First up is Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward. He did a great job! Every few days during the holiday season we will add to the list. We have members of the Heart, Boston, Uriah Heep, Krokus, The Tubes, Tower of Power and more all coming your way.

Kevin DuBrow, Quiet Riot

On Monday, November 26th, I was saddened and shocked to hear the CNN News report announcing the death of Kevin DuBrow.

Sincere condolences to Kevin’s family and friends. We shall make an announcement of his passing on our Christmas radio show on December 8th, and also dedicate the show, in part (as we sadly do far too often these days,) to Kevin’s family. In January, during our Metal show, we’ll play two Quiet Riot songs as an acknowledgment to Kevin’s work.

His voice was like no other – an original artist aligned to passion, mayhem and verse.

–Bill Ward

Bill did a half-hour tribute to veteran KNAC DJ Tawn Mastrey during his monthly “Rock 50” radio show on Saturday, October 27. He spoke about how Tawn was so helpful in promoting his first solo effort outside of SABBATH — “Ward One” — and how important a figure she was to all of the metal community.

You can listen to that segment of yesterday’s show at this location.

Tawn Mastrey was a disc jockey, music video producer and one of rock radio’s top media personalities. She hosted a daily show on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Hair Nation Channel 23 and was also heard nationally on Westwood One Entertainment’s “Absolutely Live High Voltage”. Mastery also hosted, wrote, produced and syndicated her own radio specials, “RockZone” and “Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Happy Hour”, through Mastrey Productions, Inc. She did voice-overs, has owned her own video production company, Ladies In Production Services, and has written a cookbook, “Eat This”.

Tawn Mastrey died October 2, 2007 in Minneapolis at the age of 53. She had been suffering from the effects of hepatitis C which she contracted as a child.

Today we bring you something cool from the archives. It’s the music video for the track “Children Killing Children” from Bill’s 1997 album, “When the Bough Breaks”. We’re glad to finally be able to bring this video to you as it’s been in the vaults unreleased for some time now. This video was the only video produced from Bough Breaks, and we’re glad that you can finally see it.

Bill still sells the Bough Breaks album direct on his merchandise page. If you haven’t heard it before, or just want another copy, you can buy it on Bill’s Merchandise page.

We will be having more video and audio downloads available in the future, so make sure to keep it tuned here. Coming shortly will be a jukebox player for Bill’s site here with some cool audio clips.

Here are the lyrics for Children Killing Children:

(continue reading…)

It’s Bill.

I have been expecting negative letters, rumors, and general gossip mongering over my not participating in the “Heaven & Hell” project. It’s not unusual, as yet I’ve made only one brief statement to confirm that I would not be involved.

It has been brought to our attention that there is a posting on a few web sites which discloses a supposed statement I made to a Clear Channel personnel. THIS IS COMPLETELY FALSE. Every piece of verbiage therein that posting – supposedly quoting me – is FALSE also.

OK. I’m off to get on with my life. Hopefully there won’t be too many shite letters floating around, as I don’t think anyone out there – myself included – wants to waste anymore time on complete falsehoods.

Sincerely,
Bill Ward

Bill has sent in the the 15th edition of his Audio Diary series. This new edition, totaling 15:44 in length is available right now. It was recorded on Saturday August 12th, but due to some technical problems was not placed online until today (Aug 21st). Here’s some of the highlights of what Bill has to say in this edition:

• Talks about several of the bands he plays on his Rock 50 show, and a few words about Dave Mustaine’s Gigantour.
• An update on the Garage Sale
• Bill’s column in the “Hails & Horns” magazine
• An Update on “Beyond Aston”, saying he’s “nearly at the end of it”.
• A few brief remarks about terror issues in the world.

There’s plenty more to hear as well, so make sure to check it all out. Here’s the link to the audio diary:

https://www.billward.com/sounds/diary081206.m4a

(Right click and select “Save As” or “Save Link As” and save the file to your hard drive, don’t just click this)

You need one of any number of free audio players (Winamp, iTunes, or Musicmatch Jukebox) to play this file. Don’t forget about Bill’s Podcast for the diaries, you can get more info on that here.

You can discuss the audio diary in this thread on Bill’s forums here on billward.com. A short note, if you have Windows Media player, you may have to rename the file extension from m4a to mp4 to get the file to play right in that player.

My condolences to Arthur Lee’s family, and my thanks to Arthur for all his music. My most vivid memory as a teenager was rehearsing “My Little Red Book” for the local community centre gig and the Friday night gigs (pre-Sabbath) and later (with Sabbath) in Frisco at Fillmore West or Winterland (I’m not sure which venue.) I was honoured to be a part of helping Love’s drummer (at that time, 1970) fix his snare drum, being high as we were in those days, it was a challenging project. Becoming successful, Love continued to play on. Fond memories.

Arthur Lee – certainly original; influential – yes; different – yes; and so soulful. Thank you again, Arthur. You are remembered fondly, and your music will live in my heart forever.

Bill Ward

Thank you, Syd for the brilliant lyrics, melodies and songs.

Like so many you touched, you reached me also and provoked much to contemplate.

Rest in peace, Syd. My condolences to your family.

Syd and Gerald forever.

–Bill Ward (Black Sabbath)

Comment:

It’s plain, if we look at history, that bombing “the enemy” (these days we can include missiles, also) will only unite a country or a city.

Bombing kills and maims and destroys material worth; it scars the hearts of those still alive (like many, my parents were bombed multiple times, I’ve heard their scars.) Eventually bombing/missile attacks will win nothing, in my opinion.

I think the only positive effect that comes from being attacked is the unification of those in peril. It’s well written historically how people of all nations have tightened their belts, dug in and fought for life itself, overcoming anything “the enemy” tried to destroy. From the London Blitz to Stalingrad, Berlin, Vietnam and Iraq, it’s so obvious that the missiles and bombs bring no real solution to anything.

–Bill

P.S. For those glued to CNN, I humbly suggest the following:

1. Educate yourself in the word objectification.
2. Stop using escalating words and statements, i.e. World War III.
3. Have an open mind and maybe don’t gather up all of the world’s trouble spots, potential, or otherwise (media-fanned), and amplified for dramatic effect, to hit yourself over the head with fear. Don’t do that. You’re worth more, way more, than that.
4. Pray President Bush will preside with an open mind and not be one-sided and judgmental to all those in conflict at this time. A humanitarian process to stop the guns and back off, I hope, will be forthcoming.