BILL WARD Interview Page 10
By Bob Nalbandian and Mark Miller
BILL WARD Interview Page 10
By Bob Nalbandian and Mark Miller
SW: I always thought it was such a shame that people, especially critics, totally disregarded Sabbath, and that really frustrated me. As a kid, whenever I would wear my Black Sabbath shirt, people would always sneer at me and say "Black Sabbath are devil worshipers!" People are so na•ve and ignorant. I totally admired the band for their lyrics as well as the music. And only recently have people started to give the band any credit.
BW: I really believe that a lot of the "heads" got it immediately - they got "Sweet Leaf" immediately. I think there were those people too, partly because of the way the press had basically shunned us...I think our music went over there heads. But it didn't go over the heads of the 20-40,000 people we played in front of at the open-air gigs - flags were flying, Vets were wheeled down in their wheel chairs holding up their crutches, totally rocking out.SW: What was it like playing the Fillmore?
BW: What, in the old days? It was f**kin' great, man. That was when booze was working, man! Fillmore East was a real New York crowd that didn't quite know what to expect, so it was a little bit of an education for us. They were sitting on their ass, being cool at first, and we were getting more and more angry. I got so angry by the third or fourth song that I tore up my drums and threw them in the audience. Ozzy was screaming at them and Tony was stomping really loud. It went like lightning -the whole crowd f**kin' stood up and took notice, and Ozzy yelled, "Now, clap your f**kin' hands!" We ended up doing seven encores that night.SW: That's incredible. I heard that about the Fillmore East. Apparently, Jimi Hendrix got the same reception when he first played there with The Band Of Gypsies. But he won the crowd over in the end.
BW: Yeah. We played there in the early '70s, we haven't even gotten to the west coast (US) yet. And by the time we played Los Angeles, we were playing the Forum.SW: Was that the show you played with Grand Funk?
BW: Yes, that was the show. Actually, we did play the west coast - we played the Fillmore West (in San Francisco) with Arthur Lee, and also Joe Walsh, when he was playing with The James Gang.SW: When was Black Sabbath first labeled as "heavy metal"?
BW: I think we were first called that by Rolling Stone. We thought we were a hard rock band, to be honest with you. It appears people labeled us as a metal band then on. We just play what we play, it came out of blues and jazz, and we just started to write.SW: Last question...what would you say is your favorite Black Sabbath song?
BW: Hmm...I would have to say "Hand Of Doom."
