William Thomas Ward (born 5 May 1948) is an English drummer. He is the original drummer of Black Sabbath, co-founding the pioneering heavy metal band in 1969 alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. He has released three solo albums, the most recent being Accountable Beasts in 2015.
Born in Aston, Birmingham on 5 May 1948, Bill Ward started to play drums as a child, listening to the big bands of the 1940s; his early influences were Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson. Later he was influenced by drummers such as Larrie Londin, Bernard Purdie, Joe Morello, Keef Hartley, Hughie Flint, John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Jim Capaldi, Clive Bunker, Mitch Mitchell, and John Densmore. In the mid-1960s Ward sang and played drums in a band called the Rest, before he and guitarist Tony Iommi played together in a band called Mythology, and upon that band's dissolution joined vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler, who had previously played together in a band called The Rare Breed. The new band called themselves Earth, but were soon renamed Black Sabbath. During this time Ward played occasionally with the band Bakerloo.
Bill Ward is credited as one of the four original and founding members of Black Sabbath, having played on the first eight albums with frontman Ozzy Osbourne, dubbed the "Osbourne-era". Ward would leave the band for good in 1983, occasionally making appearances until the final Black Sabbath show in 2025.
Black Sabbath (1970) and Paranoid (1970)
After recording a series of demos under the name Earth with then-manager Jim Simpson, the band was renamed Black Sabbath at the suggestion of Geezer Butler, and debuted their first album in February 1970. Butler has said that the song "N.I.B." was named after Bill Ward's beard "because it was pointy" and resembled a pen nib. Four months later, Black Sabbath recorded their follow-up Paranoid, on which Ward performed the instrumental drum solo "Rat Salad". According to Butler, the track resulted from the band having to play eight 3/4-hour spots a night in Europe early in their career. "Bill used to fill out a whole 45 minutes doing a drum solo just to get rid of that 45 minutes" he revealed to Classic Albums. "I have no idea where the title came from, though." In 1971, Butler was on record stating that the title came from a joke about Ward's hair having not been combed.
Master of Reality (1971) and Vol. 4 (1972)
Recorded and released in 1971, Master of Reality saw a heavier sound in the band in terms of production. "Master of Reality is where we found ourselves[...] I know people feel that Sabbath invented heavy metal with our debut album – and that is true to some extent. But I believe that it's with Master of Reality that we proved the potential and power of the music." Bill Ward has cited the band's intake of "uppers, downers, Quaaludes, whatever you want[...] It was after Master of Reality that I remember Geezer broaching the issue for the first time of how out of control everything had become. He started saying he was getting tired..."
After Master of Reality, the band traveled to Los Angeles, California to record Vol. 4 at the Record Plant.
Master of Reality, I always felt, was the last album in terms of the constant touring. We went around the world multiple times and we played just about everywhere. We needed to take a break, so we decided to make our next record in California, and so some of the sunshine and some of the effects of that bled into Vol. 4.
And this included the aftermath of the counter-culture; there were still a lot of people still wearing flowers in their hair – and this is in 1972 – and that was still very prominent, especially in California. Geezer, Ozzy and myself even visited a lot of the hippy ranches and communes. We’d hang out there and we’d get high, man. They were all singing and banging tambourines.
A song came out of that. We went to Laguna Beach in southern California and we came back absolutely impressed. We must have looked changed to Tony but before too long "Laguna Sunrise" appeared; he just wrote the song. And I thought, 'Oh my God! That's exactly what it was like.' He’d just taken a musical photograph of it and he must've seen it in us when we got back. He's a phenomenal songwriter; absolutely brilliant. And every time I play "Laguna Sunrise", it's smack on the money.
Things like that were a huge influence and by that time I was using cocaine and become addicted to it. I'm now in my 32nd year of being clean and sober but back then I was using a lot of cocaine on Vol. 4.
"The band were definitely in their heyday, in the sense that nobody had burnt out quite yet" recalled Ward. Struggling to record the song "Cornucopia" after "sitting in the middle of the room, just doing drugs", Ward was nearly fired. "I hated the song, there were some patterns that were just... horrible." Ward said. "I nailed it in the end, but the reaction I got was the cold shoulder from everybody. It was like, 'Well, just go home; you're not being of any use right now.' I felt like I'd blown it, I was about to get fired." The record company changed the album title from Snowblind to Vol. 4 at the last minute. "There was no Volume 1, 2 or 3, so it's a pretty stupid title, really", Ward observed.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) and Sabotage (1975)
Bill Ward returned to England with Black Sabbath to record Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in September 1973, and it was released two months later. Ward described the album's artwork as "brilliant".
Two years after Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was released, the band recorded Sabotage. The album art featured a picture of the band with Ward in red leggings. "I had this old pair of jeans that were really dirty, so I borrowed my wife's tights"..."and so that my bollocks wouldn't be showing under the tights, I also borrowed Ozzy's underpants, because I had none." he told Classic Rock.
Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978)
The ballad "It's Alright" on the Technical Ecstasy album was written and sung by Bill Ward. Initially reluctant to sing the song for fear of offending Osbourne, he was encouraged by the band to do it. In his autobiography, Osbourne praised the performance, enthusing, "He's got a great voice, Bill, and I was more than happy for him to do the honours." It was released as a single because, said Iommi, "We want to break out as far as we can… so we've decided to hit the singles market." It has since been covered live by Guns N' Roses, and features on their Live Era '87–'93 album. It also featured in the 2010 film It's Kind of a Funny Story.