Bill Ward Speaks About Accountable Beasts and Drumming


bill ward pic

Veteran drummer Bill Ward has been a man on a mission when it comes to creating music. Best known for his time in Black Sabbath, his iconic playing style has become a part of many musicians and fans’ lives over the years, and has helped shape the way future generations of players look at how they play.

He has released his long awaited solo album Accountable Beasts, his first solo album since his 1997 album When The Bough Breaks. While “Straws” was originally released as a single for charity in 2002, the rest of Accountable Beasts was written over a period of years until its recent release.

Our record that’s out right now Accountable Beasts, we actually started work on that about six years ago and then as it is in my life, when I make a record, it’s kind of off and on and we wait for production funds and then we move forward a little bit. Then we have some other things came up when I went away to try to work with Black Sabbath for a while and that didn’t work out. So there have been different things going on,“ he explained.

Spending time to write music is something Ward does regularly and he has been constantly working on his own music, whether it were his solo material or with other people. He shared how his working process towards writing music, and his mind frame towards different themes he incorporates into his songs.

bill ward accountable beasts

Normally I write every day. It’s just a process. I’ll sit down at the keyboards and I’ll see if anything’s going on inside. Sometimes we don’t get anything, sometimes we get something. So it’s normal for me to touch the keyboards every day. Sometimes I don’t but most of the time I do. I’ve been doing that for years and years and years. Way back in the days of Black Sabbath, after we would finish recording something, I’d go back home and I would get on my keyboards and write things and do things and write riffs and all kinds of things. That’s been going on for a long time.

bill ward ward one along the way

The music that’s come out – the first record came out in ’87 I think (1990’s Ward One: Along The Way). Four or five years after I got sober, we put the first record out. It seemed to be the most natural thing to do. I definitely like to stretch my wings. I definitely like to create. There are a lot of things I like to indulge in. I still like my hard music. I still like things that will fight some things. Sometimes I’ll write politically and sometimes I’ll write things that are very controversial. I’m ok doing that. I say things if I think it needed to be said or if I feel strongly about something. It’s something I have to do. It’s a natural development for me to be a vice as well as being a pessimist.

bill ward when the bough breaks

He admitted that the writing and recording process behind Accountable Beasts took much longer than expected, due to various factors. But he also learned to adapt towards newer recording and mixing techniques that has appeared in recent times.

[With] Accountable Beasts, we started I think about six or seven years ago. It might have longer than that actually. We had some stops and starts. One of the biggest things that slowed the whole process down was the fact that we first recorded Accountable Beasts, we were still using tape. So we had to blast everything to digital, and then when we got to digital, we were still working off of loud speakers in the studio. By the time we actually finished making Accountable Beasts, we advanced so much sonically that I did the final nine months on earbuds! Just like the same ones you would listen on your iPhone. I actually did a mix on earbuds. So what you’re hearing went to my ears first on a set of $20 earbuds. Can you believe that? It didn’t kill me. I was screaming blue murder!

There’s so much new stuff now sonically that we had to keep up with everything. So we actually brought about a lot of changes, and we have to do that with some of our other earlier stuff, which we haven’t yet released, but we have multiple other songs that are recorded. We’re going to have to do the same process and eventually come through an earbud mix, which I’m not really looking forward to, but we’ll do it. It’s something that you have to do now. As far as I’m concerned, if you want to get the sound so it sounds as you can get it so please can listen to it on earbuds.

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner

One aspect on Accountable Beasts that gets little attention is Ward’s vocal abilities shine through, aside from his drumming. While he is better known for his drumming, singing came natural to him as he was no stranger to getting on the microphone and singing away these songs he had written.

I love singing. I started in the school choir…or the church choir when I was a child, so I’ve been singing all the way through my life. So it’s something that comes naturally to me. I just enjoy writing and I enjoy being a songwriter and I enjoy singing. I wanted to be in a band where I could not only play a little bit of drums but also where I could play some keyboards and definitely sing. I’d like to be in a band like that. So I created BWB (Bill Ward Band) so I could also get into the songs I have written. It’s really helped and actually for a long time.

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

While Accountable Beasts is still a relatively new release and the public is getting better acquainted with it, Ward is moving ahead to release more music. Despite not revealing the band moniker, he spoke about a rock trio he is working on with guitarist Joe Amodea and bassist Nick Diltz (also of All Hail The Yeti).

I also have a trio – a rock trio. I formed a rock trio in 2013. I got the idea in 2012. I can’t tell you the name of it and I apologize profusely because just yesterday we finished this record. I’m playing drums. I do minute vocals. I do backing vocals, but I’ve got two great singers in the band – bass guitar and lead guitar. We’ve got a powerful trio. I have a life as a drummer. I need to exist as a drummer in a band. So I created the trio so I can go ahead and play wherever I can in the world and still perform as a drummer.

I just don’t roll over because somebody said I couldn’t play any more. I couldn’t believe some of the statements about me – ‘Bill can’t play any more’ or whatever. That’s simply not the truth. That’s just what somebody said but in my life or my reality I haven’t stopped playing. I continue to play, so I formed a trio. You’ll probably be hearing about that relatively soon.

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

While on the subject of new music by Ward, he also revealed that he has another solo album completed. Prior to this release, he was working on another album titled Beyond Aston, which he put aside after working on it for an extended period of time. Once he released his current album, he returned to completing what he began with what is now the forthcoming album.

At the same time today, I spoke to my producer who’s working on an album called Beyond Aston and that’s a BWB (Bill Ward Band) album. That’s 13 songs on that album, and we’re in the final mixes of that. We haven’t done the earbud mix yet. We are getting everything finalized on what we call a pre-earbuds. When it’s time for the earbuds, I listen to the mixes and go in about once a week to listen to all of the mixes as they are coming together. I make my finite notes.

We have another album by BWB. It’s all been recorded. Everything’s done. We have a couple more overdubs to do but we’re actually mixing the album as I speak to you.

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

Photo Credit: Christopher Wagner (via Facebook)

He briefly explained the background story behind Beyond Aston and how it was pushed aside in favor of Accountable Beasts.

This is a record that got put on the shelf to make way for Accountable Beasts. I was working on Beyond Aston and I just shelved it. I can’t do any more. Then we decided to pull it off the shelf and finish it. We added some new songs in there and it totally kicks ass. It’s a great record,” he said, proudly of his latest outing.

black sabbath

While Ward is filling up his time with lots of different musical ventures going on all at once, he said it will never replace what he did with Black Sabbath. He admits that filling a missing void once filled by his former band is not an easy task.

There’s a huge hole. To be honest, there’s a huge hole in me…in my gut where the band lived. Of course everything’s changed now.

I miss them. I miss the idea of playing ‘War Pigs.’ I miss the idea of playing ‘Into The Void,’ ‘Masters of Reality’…man, I’m going to miss those until the day I die. I’m going to miss playing those songs. But in the meantime, I have a life to live. I have to listen to the musician in me. I need to give it all and continue playing.

Dave Lombardo, Bill Ward and Charlie Benante from the Bonzo Bash 2015

Dave Lombardo, Bill Ward and Charlie Benante from the Bonzo Bash 2015

As for touring with Bill Ward Band, he said there are currently discussions toward lining up dates. While he was also doing his art showings, he clarified that those do not interfere with live show dates.

The art gallery, we do them once in a while. We’ve been talking about going to London and Paris for the art thing, which would be great. All of those things could be worked out. If I have to tour with the trio, if I’m fortunate enough to do it, then all of these things could be worked out. We can go in and out with these things. Same as BWB being on the road – I can work in and out of working with the trio and BWB as well. It’s all workable stuff. They’re flexible and doable but we’re in the stage where we’ve at least presented Accountable Beasts coming out on iTunes. I think we’re coming out on streaming soon and onto other sites. We’re going to be adding more social media. So we’re doing that.

We’re also talking to promoters and starting to play around with ideas so we’re looking to see what we can do, as far as going out and touring. The same applies for the trio. We’re doing private listenings for the trio and we’re talking to again, promoters. We’re talking to other musicians. We have a lot of other musicians listening to the trio and seeing what they think and getting other ideas on getting out on the road. We wouldn’t make any announcements until we have everything firm. I really hope we could tour.

bill ward

Lastly on a separate subject, Ward shared his overall thoughts on how sonically music recordings are heading and his experiences dealing with the digital world. He encountered this during the mixing of his solo albums and had a lot to say on this subject.

We’re running into problems with the sound and the way the music is put together these days and the way it sounds sonically. I talk to a lot of my buds – the musicians, engineers, producers, and fans – people who listen to music. Everyone’s got a whack around the hedge.

I’m looking at how we can work better sonically, from bringing better productions. They’re really valuable bunch of people in my life including my own who is really smart with the different things that could be done with what would records sound better. We give all kinds of production things or to help with doing mastering to help bring about the best sound before compression happens in the digital world. That’s something that’s now become a part of my life. I’m looking at that and I’m taking a big interest in it. I’m looking and talking to other people about it, and basically I’m going to take some action on it. I’m not sure what that action would be, but it’s definitely something new that’s come up out of sheer frustration. I write the stuff and play the stuff and I’m part of the production of it and I go all the way to mastering with it. I birth these babies! Then the outcome after is quite a letdown when I listen to it go through the compression of digital sites.

First I got really upset with the sound and I’m surrendering slowly but surely, but at the same time I’m taking great interest in how can we economically really do better in this market and bring better sounding music to the people that listen to it? So that is something that’s new in my life. It’s something that’s [for the] last two and a half years I’m look at that now at a bigger picture.

He also shared his thoughts on the future drummers in music and educating them in both the way that they perform as well as understanding their roles within music.

On a different subject, I’d like to take more participation in spending time with more drum students. There are some things we may be doing but can try to better the drum students or the future drum students of tomorrow, in terms of what things to look out for, what things to be aware of and so on and so forth.

There are a lot of drummers that do things like that to bring further knowledge to education to the students. My heart goes to the students, especially in this day and age. There’s been a shift and a change in the way that people make music, and I’m afraid the bass players and the drummers are kind of getting a bit of a kick in the ass. Hang on a minute. No no no…let’s re-check this. I’m looking at this as well. I’ve been pretty outspoken about that as well. I’m using the slogan drumming equals publicity, which it does because drumming is art and drumming is part of the music that we listen to. So I’m an advocate of that. I’m standing up for that. There’s things like that that’s going on.

By Rei Nishimoto


Bill Ward Talks About His LA Art Gallery Opening


bill ward

Within the world of veteran drummer Bill Ward, his life has taken a whirlwind of twists and turns in his life. Aside from his vast musical ventures he is involved in, he recently unveiled a different project he took part in, involving light based photography and his drumming.

Bill Ward explains art piece at LA Gallery showing. Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Bill Ward explains art piece at LA Gallery showing. Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

He unveiled a number of his pieces he created with multimedia art company Scene Four, and captured a different side of his drumming by bringing out a visual side to his playing. He explains how the project came together.

First of all, there’s a company called Scene Four and they’re based in Los Angeles. They were doing special camera and special things with percussionists and slash drummers. They have done things with some other artists and they were developing different ways of producing visual effects from drummers playing drums. I was invited through my publicist Liese Rugo. She said ‘look…there’s this company called Scene Four and they’re interested in having you come along and see if you’re interested in trying to play a drum kit in the dark with lots of different lights and lots of different lighted drum sticks.

Avi Dosaj of Scene Four with Bill Ward signing an art piece.

Avi Dosaj of Scene Four with Bill Ward signing an art piece.

I was encouraged by other people very close to me that said ‘look…go ahead and try it and see what develops.’ So I went in with something of an ‘I didn’t quite know what to expect’ kind of point of view. The first thing that happened when I arrived at the actual session [was] we did one session first which was like an interview and we went through the ideas of how we would perform it. I like the guys, Cory [Danziger] and Ravi [Dosaj] and the guys in Scene Four, and I like them a lot. I became interested in what they were doing. I said ‘let’s go ahead and we’ll do this.’ “

A couple of weeks later we actually shot in a very big dark room. Pitch dark actually. We had multi cameras…I don’t really know…maybe six or seven cameras at all angles [and] different lighting effects and they said play. They said just go ahead and play.”

Bill Ward's Proof of Dignity art piece

Bill Ward’s Proof of Dignity art piece

Ward talked about the process going into creating the visuals, which includes multiple cameras shooting him playing drums, and capturing various angles of his playing. What made the images special was the outcome from the reactions of what he was playing that made each art piece unique, and his frame of mind at the time of creating each piece.

There was no soundtrack. I didn’t play to any music or anything. I played for about an hour and 40 minutes of rudiments, and they captured all of that. After about ten minutes of playing, they kept changing the fix out. I realized that they kept changing the fix out and the brushes, they had different colors attached to the sticks. So I noticed when I play towards my floor tom toms, in the arcs that I normally play, I noticed the different colors I was producing.

Bill Ward's Cloven's Apparition's Ascent

Bill Ward’s Cloven’s Apparition’s Ascent

Then I played on high hats, there was a different effect from [high hats]. The high hats are more of a notation rather than a circular motion. So when I started getting into this, I started to realize what I could do here. I started to play multiple bass drum notes. I started playing really fast. I was in good shape at the time. I put in a lot of myself into the drums!

Also what’s really strange about it [was] when we looked at the end result of the sessions – I often play jazz interludes. I’m playing for an hour and 40 minutes flat. It’s a pretty good level of energy. I needed to take a couple of minutes out so I play jazz interludes and that’s when I was pacing myself getting my breath. Honestly I didn’t know how long the session would last. I had guys stop in and changing cameras. Those guys were working their asses off! I’ll give total credit to them for their work that they did.

Bill Ward's Hello, I don't think we've met (yet). Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Bill Ward’s Hello, I don’t think we’ve met (yet). Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Ward discovered the differences in imagery within what he plays, and each visual distinctly shows up how different each one looks. He explains this plus how he named each art piece after seeing the outcome.

I kind of put jazz into it. When you look at the pictures you can see what was jazz and what was rock. It is really quite amazing. You can see what was angry and when I would develop and doing triplets or some of the hard, aggressive things. You can see the anger that comes out. It’s more stark, and it looks completely different. To me, when I look at it…oh my god! Is this kid angry or what?

The best part about this entire thing for me was after we looked at the pictures that we’ve done after the sessions, Cory and Ravi suggested that I’d title them. That’s another thing for me to do. I love writing and titling it. So I came up with titles for each picture. What I did was I wrote an entire paragraph, two paragraphs, three paragraphs to what those titles meant to me. So what we had was lyrical or verbiage content that was also involved in the actual picture. It didn’t become just a picture or a piece of art. It became more than that. It became an emotion or emotions and it had depth and it had other dimensions to it, other than the dimensions of the cameras and the camera work that they did. It became a lot more than that. It’s involved into a very nice project to talk about.

Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

He admitted that playing anything resembling music from Black Sabbath or his other works was not what he worked around, and stuck to simpler drumming patterns he plays when he is not playing for any specific artist.

They were basic rudiments, which I would do if I were practicing. If I were playing with Black Sabbath, a lot of the riffs that I would play through some of the older songs, I was playing some of those things. The basic things that I would play on drums, the things I was inventing. It was actually writing music while I was playing as well and jamming or writing parts as I was going along. There were probably things that I was also practicing from things that I had written with BWB (Bill Ward Band), with my own bands. I think it was a collection of everything that was coming out of me. They’re just grooves and stuff you’re time tested and things that come out,” he said.

Dave Lombardo, Bill Ward and Charlie Benante from the Bonzo Bash 2015

Dave Lombardo, Bill Ward and Charlie Benante from the Bonzo Bash 2015

He admitted that prior to committing towards doing this, he was familiar with some of the other people who also participated with Scene Four. Ward also discovered the cross section of interested parties who viewed his work, and it transcended music and Black Sabbath fans who followed what he did.

I knew a couple of the guys. I was a little skeptic. Of course Dave Lombardo, he did his performance after I did mine. We did our first workshop, or our first art exhibit, I think it was in the spring of 2014 in Annapolis in Washington, DC. So we’ve already had one showing. It was a phenomenal show. It was great.

What’s great about it is all of the community that shows up to look at the art, and the community a lot of them are a cross section of interested parties for art and a cross section of music lovers, Sabbath fans, Ward fans and whatever it would be or metal fans period. So we had this huge cross section of people and it was very intimate structure. I like to be as vulnerable as I can for everybody so I can be strictly honest.

It’s taken off and some other artists that have also done this with Scene Four. I missed Dave’s show. I wanted to go but I didn’t see it. I could only imagine as a drummer I’ve seen him very often. The last time I saw Dave play was three or four weeks ago! I know what he is capable of so I can only imagine his artwork. He’s probably brilliant.

Bill Ward's Pain Art Piece. Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Bill Ward’s Pain Art Piece. Photo Credit: Rei Nishimoto

Lastly, he shared some of the pieces he created and talked about what each piece meant to him. He shared how specific moments in his life at the time factored into how he played each piece and the outcomes even shocked him at times.

There’s one picture, it’s called ‘Grief’ and it scared the heck out of me. If I had to, ‘Grief’ captures the pain that I was feeling at that time in 2012-2013. I was going through a very painful period of my life. A tremendous loss…there had been some problems with Black Sabbath and I was feeling that. I really loved the band and there were some disagreements and there were some things that didn’t fall into place.

It’s quite strange actually because we were back at the workshop…back at the art shop and I was trying some of the pictures and the canvases…I felt something behind my back and I didn’t know what it was. The guys hadn’t told me about ‘Grief.’ They hadn’t told me about this picture. They just stood it up behind me. I could feel its presence in my back. I turned around and looked at it. I took two steps back and went ‘oh my god! What the fuck is that?’ They went ‘you created that Bill…’ I named it immediately and called it ‘Grief.’ That’s so profound. It’s such a profound piece of work, but it capsulizes how really the essence of really where I was most of the time at that point in 2012-2013. I was in a very heartbreaking and enduring place in my life. I was grieving. That capsulizes it very well. I’m actually still afraid of that picture. I haven’t fully embraced it.

There are some other ones that I really like. This was during a jazz episode and we have this one thing called ‘Making Flowers From My Heart,’ which I really like. I like solidarity. I can see what I was doing there. There’s a lot of movement on the cymbals, and I was probably doing a lot of crescendo work at that point.

bill ward la art show

There’s another one that I…this was kind of a reminder for myself because as a drummer, I did feel some ostracized at the time when I was making these pictures. So in terms of validating myself, drummers, and drum students, there is a track in doing a jazz interlude I wrote called ‘We Focus Because Of Air.’ That has become a very, very popular picture. That has become a favorite, especially with drummers. I’ve given it to some of my friends in the drum industry. It’s a very powerful, poignant…it’s at the point of a significant historic time in music so to me, it’s very poignant.

By Rei Nishimoto