Bill Ward Interview with Pat Cupito (continued)
3/24/99 3:00 p.m. EST
Copyright 1999 Pat Cupito

By the time Bill had hit rock bottom, he had become a vagrant, living on the streets, panhandling for change during the day in order to buy drinks that night. He had lost it all. With the help of a friend, he was able to begin his recovery process. He was allowed to stay with this friend as long as he stayed sober, and was given a set amount of change, which he used in a pay phone to work on getting his career moving again.
Patsy: Ok, when you started getting yourself back on your feet, I read in Mike Stark's book that you used a little $18 tape recorder

Bill: Yeah, and I still do

Patsy: Which I thought was pretty cool, but couldn't figure out exactly how the heck you do that, so I wanted to ask you "How do you do that?"

Bill: OK. Well, I also have a keyboard, I actually gave it to my son when he was about 12 or 14 years old, so I bought it back off him and I use that. So it is just this little keyboard and little tape recorder and I basically put in the root chords when I feel I have a song. Then I kind of tap out my measurements of time and then I put all my melodies and things on top of that, so I can get quite a lot of information on a single take, a simple piece of tape on a tape machine.

Patsy: Wow, that's amazing. When I read that, I thought it was very interesting.

Patsy: Somehow you went from putting music together on this little $18 tape recorder, to owning your own record company. Somehow in there is an achievement that I could not get any documentation on. I realize it was a slow process obviously, but what were some of the milestones, and how long did it take you to accomplish that.

Bill: Well, I always had an idea that it might be a way to go. Only in the sense that after I got sober, which was in January of 1984, I started to write music again, in the fall of 1984. Then I began to get together with other musicians and begin writing songs and what have you, so by the Fall of 1985 I was pretty active musically. But the idea to have our own distribution and stuff like that was because what came about, what was happening was that in the industry, whether I came from Black Sabbath or not wasn't really a big priority in the music industry. I had spoken to some of my friends who, I will keep them out of the picture, but were really big artists in their day, very famous people, great musicians and I spoke with them and all of us agreed that when the light goes out and the spot lights are off you, there is no pasture, there really isn't anywhere to go. Record companies are really out there to distribute records and they make money. And I think that a lot of them have lost an incredible amount of integrity, because a long time ago in the 60's and 70's, which was my experience, the record companies seemed to have a little bit more flexibility. But a large amount of record companies that we went to, and I think that we must have gone to every single one of them, didn't get it. They hated Bill Ward music, and they didn't get it, they wanted to see 'Bill in a leather jacket', which was impossible, because when I became a vegetarian I refused to wear leather. But they wanted to see Bill in a leather jacket playing the drums. That is what they wanted.

Patsy: Right, they wanted you in that persona and that was it

Bill: Yeah, and I couldn't oblige that, I couldn't fit into that. I had to say "OK, I need to nurture myself." So I've got to build my own surroundings, in order to nurture myself, and to basically mother and father myself, I have got to build my own company, have my own money, which wasn't always easy, and I will have to pay for my own records, and have ownership of everything Bill Ward does in the industry. So I sat down in 1989. Ward One along the Way actually did come out, with a record company here in America and that folded down, the record company just closed down here I am like "Oh Shit" I'm here with a record out and its like suddenly the company closes down.

Patsy: Yeah, I know that it is not available anymore

Bill: Actually about 15 feet from here, where I am sitting, I have Ward One: Along the Way. I've gone back and remastered it. I had to take the Ozzy tracks off, because there are some personal reasons on the Ozbourne side of the fence, so I had to take the Ozzy tracks off, but outside of that I still have Ward One: Along the Way which we remastered a couple of years ago. It sounds dynamite. It will be available again.

Patsy: People had mentioned to me that they are looking for it, so that should make you feel good; people are asking.

Bill: No, that's great! Really, really it is. You know what, we did a couple of launches a couple of years ago at that company, unsuccessful launches. The company took a big loss, so what I have been doing for the last year and a half is to pretty much hold production until we reach the point where we could try again to get our products up and running. We are just about ready, maybe in another 2 or 3 months, we might be just about ready to start launching again. We have made a good financial recovery, which has taken a long time, so we just are a tiny company but we do have our records, so we try to get them out there. Everything is intact and I haven't abandoned any of the ideas that I would still like to continue on with. It is just really painstaking and takes a lot of time and a lot of learning. Just the process to me, learning the process; going into the studio, making the record, mixing the record, cutting the record, after you cut the record, where do you print the record. It was like learning; like going to school.

Patsy: Oh yeah, it is like a whole other industry that you have never been on that end of; it's the same industry, but a different focus than what you were used to. You just used to produce and say "OK, We're done and then someone else would just take care of it.

Bill: That's right, someone else takes care of it. It's so neat to be able to go to the cut plant. I use the same cut plant for my records, and then we have compatible printing places that work really well with the machinery from the cut plant so basically what I am saying is that we have got the cream of the crop. What is done in the studio comes out on the CD.

Patsy: Right, plus it is to your specification, because you are right there during the process so you know no one else is saying "you know what, I don't care what he said, take that down" or whatever.

Bill: That's what goes on. That what is said.

Patsy: Oh, I'm sure. I have heard a million stories, and I know that you have had problems with your management in the past and the different record deals. I'm sure that having total control over the final product is extremely important, not just to you, but to any artist because there is so much finagling going on in the industry.

Bill: That's right, So there are some things that I absolutely needed to have, and one of those things was total artistic control and I have that. Even with the two record companies I've been with, that is a given. There are certain things that before I move forward in my life, there are certain things that are intact, that are established now. They are not just matter of fact things, or 'can I have things', it's like "no, I'm sorry but this is the way it has to work". And if it comes to the point they can't supply it, I will go to another company, or I will build it. Whichever way it's going to work out, but I have to take care of the needs that I have. Sometimes that can be very isolating. Sometimes that can be very frustrating for the people that are around me, for the people that manage my affairs or that take care of things. They look at me and scratch their heads and go "You're Crazy" and I go "yeah I know"…laughs

Patsy: OK…your health. How are you feeling, first of all? We are glad to have you around still, because I know that you have had some problems with your heart, and I was wondering how you feel. I saw you when you were touring with Sabbath in New Jersey, I was there, I was screaming my head off, which is what I am supposed to do, and you looked good. Everybody looked good. You guys looked like you were having a great time. How do you feel at this point?

Bill: I feel, right now I am not where I want to be physically, but then again, I never am. When I am playing drums, whenever I am working with my own band, or especially if I am working with the Sabs, like I am now, I have to be relatively 'on', you know I've got to be really fit, or pretty darn fit. So since the tour finished, I'm, you know, OK. I walked three miles today, we went around the beach and everywhere.

Patsy: And you said you're a vegetarian so that is good.

Bill: Oh yeah, I mean, my actual health is like totally excellent, you know, in that sense. Physically I'm a little bit under par, and so I know that I'm going to start, which I think I actually have already, start to get myself tuned up a little bit. Get my body toned up a little bit, because I believe that we are going to go out and work again soon and play again. I just try keeping myself in relatively good shape. I've been slacking off a bit on my exercises since we came off the road, you know, but that is normal for me. It's what I do, however, I can't get away with much. It doesn't take more than a couple of weeks, It like, OK, time to start getting in shape.

Patsy: Just like anyone else, you get the couch potatoes and you say It's time to get up now.

Bill: Yeah, so other than that, everything else is fine, my heart is great. You know, at least I think I am.

Patsy: How was it, the first solo effort with the Bill Ward band; releasing that, making it, producing it, all that, how was it? It must have been great for you. Was it as satisfying as you thought it would be or more?

Bill: I did not have an expectation on what to expect. I didn't really have a preset feeling inside that I would need to match. I just went ahead and did it, like a song at a time, and it was spread over a couple of years, making that album, so each song was a totally different experience. And there were very exciting moments in every song and everything had it's own individualism, so it was a really good experience. I've got to give some credit here to the musicians that not only played on this album, but the musicians that came to the sessions. Because, I was totally scared Pat, I mean like really, really afraid. It was like I was going to show my ass in public here, you know. The lyrics are incredibly vulnerable but they were real, it was totally me at that time in my life. I wanted it to be real, and that's kind of in keeping with how I believed Black Sabbath was. It came from the heart. The incredible support that I got from a lot of people; family, friends, you know, my manager, all kinds of people: but the musicians stand out the most, in the sense that they were so happy that, number one, I was alive. And number two that I was sober. And number three, I was doing my own thing. They were incredibly interested, I mean, a lot of different people showed up and they would just come in and they would sit in the studio and drink tea and listen.

Patsy: You can't beat that. That's support and that is exactly, I'm sure, what you needed at that point. That is really great. That's nice to hear though, that everybody came around for you.

Bill: Yeah, it was just wonderful. There were like surprises around the corner that I didn't think were going to be there. Then when Jack Bruce, who I totally idolized when he was in the Cream, and I respect Jack as a player and a man and what have you. Jack, at the end of singing Light at the Candles, Jack was just totally overwhelmed by the song. When I see something like that, that tells me the song worked, so, as a writer and a co-producer of that song to be able to touch another person like that, it's like 'OK, alright, you're on the right track'

Patsy: I think that is probably the best compliment you can get, you know?

Bill: Yeah, it was wonderful. When Jimmy Jaeger and I, Jimmy was on Ward One, Along the Way, and when Jimmy Jaeger and I were playing around with Jack's Land, which I still love to this day, I needed to built something for Oz. He was six thousand miles away, and I needed to build something for him. It needed to be tailor made like a coat he could just put on and it would fit him perfectly. Knowing Ozzy, if it isn't smack on, sometimes he has a tendency to just discard it. He is very black and white; yes and no. He can be at times. He was very keen in wanting to come and help me, which I thought was a great gesture. I had been playing around with this song Jack's Land, lyrically and you know, I just had to take everything that I saw in Ozzy, and I put it right into that song, and then we recorded it and sent it over to Oz, six thousand miles away. No sooner had he received it, he called me and he was apeshit, he went totally apeshit. He said "Man, this song is fuckin' unbelievable", he said "I cant wait, I'm on the plane, I'm coming over. Where the beautiful thing is here, again I realized that I could design something six thousand miles away and having some background, knowing Oz a little bit, be able to do that, as a writer, be able to make that happen. It totally fit him, and I didn't have to change the sleeves an inch, you know. All the padding worked in the suit, if I can mention the song as a bit of clothing, as a garment, and I didn't have to change anything. When you are writing and producing, those are really nice things, I get a real good feeling, as a producer and a writer when someone else is going to perform the song, to know that I was able to accomplish that. So, a lot of real nice things happened to me during the making of Along the Way.

Patsy: It probably gave you a lot of confidence too.

Bill: It was a great confidence builder. You know, when you're panhandling in an alley, getting small change, nickels and dimes so you can get a short dog, you know, when you are doing that then you are able to several years later, produce or co-produce a song, it really does help your self esteem a lot.

Patsy: Last year, when you had your heart attack, after you finally got everyone back together, you though "Finally, we got everybody together, and here we go now", and then you had another heart attack. I'm sure that was devastating for you. What was going through your mind at that time? I mean like, I can't even imagine, after everything else that had gone on.

Bill: We had done our first rehearsal all the way through, non-stop rehearsal of the entire show, and it was halfway through Paranoid, kind of like the encore, so it has to be timed, you know, for the techs, sound people and everything, and halfway through I felt myself starting to feel like something was really wrong with me. I honestly didn't know what it was, except that it was getting really bad. So we finished Paranoid and I put my sticks down and I turned to my tech and I said "you know what, I just don't feel right. I think I have really bad cramps", but I don't cramp like that when I am playing. Sometimes my body will hurt if I do four or five gigs in a row. So apparently I started to get into a lot more pain, at that point I guess I was going into a heart attack. All in all, in the ambulance, I pretty much made my peace, you know. I said to Phil, my drum tech, I said to him, just a couple of things. "Just make sure the guys know that I know they are going to have to have another drummer, and they will probably choose Vinny. I think that is a good choice. Go choose Vinny to come and play.". So basically my concerns were basically to do with rehearsal. I was in the back of this ambulance, pretty much not knowing if I'm going to live or die, you know.

Patsy: And your worried about who is going to cover for you when you are out…

Bill: Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah that really is pretty much where it was at. We got to the hospital, and it is like whoa, somebody's having a heart attack. The hospital moves pretty quickly on that. The next day after the heart attack I wanted to leave and get back to rehearsals.

Patsy: Isn't that what you did the first time?

Bill: I've only had one heart attack.

Patsy: I thought you had one early on. In Mike's book it said you had a heart attack, early, early on.

Bill: Oh, in my twenties. Yes I think I did.

Patsy: Yeah, and it said you took a month off and just kind of laid off the booze a bit. Not even that you had stopped, you know, you just kind of chilled out a bit. You just took a little while off, then went right back out on the road.

Bill: Yeah, yeah. That is the night that Ozzy saved my life. That particular heart attack, Oz was like really on top of it. He just like got the doctor there, man, he was so on top of that shit.

Patsy: Oh really?! See, it didn't even say that. Really, very interesting.

Bill: Yeah. I was in a lot of trouble, and so, but I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about the one last year.

Patsy: No this one, I was talking about the one last year, but what I saw is that you wanted to go right back to work now, which is the same exact thing you did the first time.

Bill: Absolutely, the band was preparing to tour, and I was really, really looking forward to going to Europe. I hadn't been there for a long, long time and I was really excited about just going to Europe. I mean, I would have just gone and carried the bags, you know what I mean?

Patsy: Laughs, I know exactly what you mean.

Bill: So it's like, you know, this thing showed up. On the second day I was in the hospital I walked around the ward and I was waiting for the doctor's news on just how much damage there was, and if there were any complications or what-have-you, and I looked around. There were some men there the same age as me, and some older men, and most of them were still smoking, and they had all had heart attacks, and they were all in this emergency unit, we were in the intensive care unit. I looked around and I saw the majority of them were surrendered. In other words, they had become a victim, and I knew that if I was going to survive the hospital, I couldn't become a victim. So at that point all of my energy went out to trying to think about how could I get back on that tour, if they would have me back on the tour, and I started outwardly, I would have to give up everything. All my thoughts had to go somewhere else. It was how do you survive the hospital. The people at that particular hospital where I went, Nevill Hall in Abergavenny, I think it was Abergavenny in Whales, were just unbelievably fucking beautiful, they were really incredible people, and so they got me back on my feet. I guess it was inevitable that I wasn't going to go on the tour. But all the guys came down, Tony came down and Ozzy came down a couple of times, but I was totally disappointed. The tract is that what did it was that they found the problem in my right artery, so they needed to do more tests, and to do that I had to go to this specialized hospital in Cardiff Whales, and they found something that would have killed me in a year or two's time.

Patsy: Wow. See that, something so bad can save you from something much worse.

Bill: Yeah, so they fixed the problem.

Patsy: That's good. Whew, Thank god. And that's got to be good to know now, you have a clean bill of health, and you can just go ahead and do your thing, and not have to worry about it happening again.

Bill: Oh yeah, It's great, I mean it really is, I mean I felt so good about it, but when they did the surgery on me Pat, it actually did knock me about physically, so I felt more physically hampered by the surgery then I did by the heart attack. That's when I really had a problem. I had to stay in England for awhile, and start walking again. About three weeks after I got out of the hospital I could walk about 20 feet, and then I would have to sit down, and that was it.

Patsy: And drumming is such a physical activity.

Bill: Well yeah, shit man

Patsy: I mean, you're banging, you know

Bill: Oh yeah, you have to be 'on'

Patsy: Yeah, so to get to that point is a major recovery from not being able to even walk.

Bill: To be honest with you, in the early part of June; that was probably where I had the most of the depression, because I had very little hope that I was going to be able to play again, because I could barely walk. I thought, oh my god, this journey back is going to be…….it seemed like there was a lot of, at that point there was a lot of darkness on top of me, you know, and I had managed to put a lot of energy to going through the hospital thing, getting the right stuff done to me, not letting it get me down, being determined to get back on the road as soon as possible, being determined to get to see my children and loved ones as soon as I could. When I was finally released from the hospital and I had to convalesce in England that's when the real problems started. It took awhile to get back on my feet. By the time I was fit enough to fly, I flew back from England, after I went and saw the Sabs playing one of the festivals there in England. That was the night Ozzy debagged me. So, my entire private parts were shown on a massive screen.

Patsy: You know, it doesn't get any more personal than that, does it?

Bill: I look at it; I had a heart attack maybe four weeks before, and I'm out on a stage in front of about forty or fifty thousand people, and he is saying "come on, come on out" and I can't believe it. I had been in the hospital, so you know, there isn't any privacy, you know there was a couple of times when I was left in the fucking hallway with me ass hanging over the side of the cot, you know what I mean, flailing in the breeze. They got these great big screens now, you know, it's all this like U2 shit, you know you got all this fucking modernization. They got these fucking sixty by fucking ten thousand feet screens and of course as my trousers come down, the cameras go straight to my private parts, you know and I am just standing there. And I ain't feeling too good, cause I still couldn't walk that well, and I got no force to combat Ozbourne, so I am just standing there with a cup of tea in my hand with my fucking trousers hanging around my feet. My Misses says "Jesus Christ"

Patsy: And you are saying "why am I friends with this guy? Why am I friends with this guy? Someone remind me why I am friends with this guy"

Bill: Well, If I'd had the energy, I would have tried to strangle him right there on the stage.

Patsy: I can imagine. Laughs…

Bill: We flew back to England, just after that, we came back to America, and then I started rehabilitation there but it took about two or three months to really get the work in with the swimming you know. It was like really difficult getting any kind of stamina to work. But it worked out fine, and I feel like I'm pretty much fully recovered now.

Patsy: No, you looked good, you looked good when I saw you guys in Jersey you played really great.

Bill: Thank You

Patsy: How was Ozzy. I know his throat was a problem. I know that he cancelled some dates. He didn't cancel my date. I was very lucky, he didn't cancel my date, but he cancelled a couple before me. Then you guys reset those dates. Mine was, I think, the second show when you came back. To me, he sounded….OK. Not great, you know, not himself I don't think, but he sounded OK…then band was great, obviously. Of course, everyone is concerned about him, his health. I don't want you to think I am dragging information out, because I know you guys are friends, and I don't want to intrude on your friendship either. Can you tell me if he is alright, or not alright. If you don't want to say, I just wont include it in the interview. I'll leave it out, I don't have a problem with that.

Bill: Yeah, OK, sure. I personally think that he is total magic, and I think that he is doing phenomenally well. I know all of us were really disappointed about not being able to do the gigs, and my heart absolutely went out to him when, you know, he ran into the throat problems that he had.

Patsy: Yeah, I cant imagine it for him, because he is such the performer…Such the front man. For him not to be able to go out and do what he does, for him must have been devastating.

Bill: Yeah, it was really sad. His heart, is great, you know. I'm just very happy right now, for Oz to be honest with you. I'm looking forward to seeing the old fart, and screwing around some more, in about another month's time. You know, he's absolutely hilarious. I mean, I've got to be careful you know, we've got a new thing there. I have to avoid eye contact with him on stage, cause he'll fuck with me, you know. Since I've had the heart attack, I'm like expelling a lot of energy when I am playing but I try not to make eye contact with him, because what happens is I start to laugh so much that, it's like if you are running a race, and you start laughing…

Patsy: Then you kind of lose the pace.

Bill: Yeah, exactly. You lose the pace, you lose your energy. I've got to be careful of that now, Its like since the heart attack, it's like "you know what, you'd better be careful up there kiddo". I don't fear having another heart attack, you know? I'm not in like any kind of doom about it, you know. It's like 'fuck it'. If it happens again, it's going to happen again, whatever, if I die, I die. I go up there on stage and play, and I'm not going to let death bother me, you know, in the sense of needing to play music man, I mean…god. So when I go up and play, I just go up there and have a really, really good time. I just have this thing where I'm just a little bit careful to try to avoid eye contact with him. Cause he is hilarious man, since we were kids, since we were teenagers, and I just can't get past it.

Patsy: Well you have to figure that if that is the worst of your problems, then you are doing really good.

Bill: On the stage, that is what I've got to watch out for. And he's a fucker, because sometimes he will come up from the stage and I wont know it cause I've got my head down doing something, and I'll look up and he's right there, and I'm like "fuck!".

Patsy: Like.."get out of here!"

Bill: So, he's great!.

Patsy: I know that you have recorded another album already, right? It's called 'Remembering', did I get that right?

Bill: Yeah.

Patsy: I wanted to know the release plans for that, if you have them down yet, and tour plans for The Bill Ward Band.

Bill: Release plans for Remembering, I can't make any yet. As soon as I know that we have reached the final point with Sabbath, whether it be a temporary final point, or it's the end or whatever, once that's done I've got to get back into the studio. I've got about 22 or 23 more days of work on Remembering and that includes the mix, so that's like 15 days out right there for mix. We were already into overdubs and things like that, so Remembering has got a little bit of work to be done. We won't have a release date probably until next year, I would think. As far as touring with the Bill Ward band, as soon as I know that we're ready to go and we have the new album, and get When the Bough Breaks moving a little bit more as well, then we will be out on the road. We will go out and do clubs and just get out there and play.

Patsy: Excellent. When you do tour with the Bill Ward band, are you going to do a full tour, I mean, how extensive of a tour is it going to be, any idea? I mean like Nationally, is that what you think you are going to be able to do?

Bill: Yeah, I'm hoping to, but you know, the logic is to get out there pretty extensively, because it does help if we've got some support going on. That's why I kind of lost my ass a couple of years ago. There wasn't a whole lot of support. Basically I own my own record company so we couldn't really stay out there too long, and the money that we were making was not a whole lot, in compared to trying to keep a band out there and a crew out there, and all the costs that are involved in doing that. So, it took a big dent, the company took a big dent so we had to repair the dent and get things a bit up to scratch again.

Patsy: Well hopefully this article, as limited as distribution may be, or as wide as it may end up, who knows….hopefully this will help. You have to keep your fingers crossed, keep the faith. I mean, you have done so great up to this point with all the ups and downs, what do they say, Life is a Roller Coaster Ride?

Bill: Oh fuck yeah! Laughs…

Patsy: You just have to enjoy the ups while you are going, the downs come up on you fast enough. You just have to have a great time while you are at it.

Bill: There you go!

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