BILL WARD Interview Page 8
By Bob Nalbandian and Mark Miller

SW: Again, that helped define the Sabbath sound, your drumming and Geezer's bass playing was not at all formulated to what every other rock band was doing.
BW: Geezer used to be a rhythm guitarist and we played a gig when we were in the band Rare Breed. We went to northern England to do some gigs and found that we really needed a bass player so Geezer became a bass player over night.

SW: Geezer does these intricate bass riffs that sounds like he is meandering with Tony, weaving in and out.
BW: That's what we do - we weave. If Tony's busy, I stay back, but Terry (Geezer) goes off and does his own thing. I just stay in the hole and do whatever I can.

SW: Do you feel your sobriety has also affected your lyrics and songwriting?
BW: I feel like I've got a bit more confidence. I'm also trying to learn other instruments and I'm allowing my melodies to come out a lot more. I have no restrictions upon myself - whatever is gonna come out of me I let it come out of me. Lyrically, I'm turning new corners all the time, because I'm in the process of self-discovery and so wherever I was at 19 years ago, I'm not that person now. I'm 19 years sober, but I feel I've grown just a little bit, enough to be able to identify myself a little bit more. We talked a little about the song "Hate" earlier, and everything I wrote in that song was everything that I experienced. So everything is guts-balls true. It's easy to blame and criticize...that was me. It's easy to covet and to blame somebody else's messes. It's easy to look at somebody and go, "look at that asshole, shame them". All these ingredients in a person are quite negative, and they tear the body to pieces.

SW: Do you feel the need to help other people who may be struggling in similar ways?
BW: If that happens than that's a bi-product. I know Henry Rollins is a big Sabbath fan, and he talks sometimes about the lows and highs for himself as well. If the music that I write can help other people in some way, than that's great. If I judge what I'm doing...it's not up to me to allow judgments of myself, I had to stop doing that because I drove myself crazy.

SW: Do you feel using (drugs and alcohol) was perhaps a way to modify your art?
BW: I used to kill the pain. And now I'm facing the pain. I'm not pain-free every single day - I'm just an ordinary drunk. I'm just a sober drunk. I couldn't stand the pain for a long time, man. All that what was reflected in Sabbath for me was all past-life. I can't live 100% of whatever I was then. And it all meant something - all those songs like "War Pigs" - were so precious to the history of art. When I came in to do the reunion - as a sober person - for a moment I had to question myself and say, "how in the hell can I play in a reunion when the songs emulated me in my drunk-life. Then I stopped for a second and said, "f**k it, that is me...that was me." All you got to do is get back in touch with yourself as you are and as soon as I tied that together, it was no problem.

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