Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Legendary Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward says his drive to create music remains as strong as ever, revealing that a new solo album is approaching the mastering stage and that he has a substantial amount of unreleased material waiting to be heard.
In a recent interview with Metal Express Radio, the 78-year-old musician explained that songwriting has been a constant part of his life since childhood. He continued writing on his own even during his years collaborating with his Black Sabbath bandmates.
Ward said the forthcoming record features contributions from approximately 15 to 20 other musicians. He often develops songs at home using keyboards, drums, rough vocal ideas and provisional bass parts before bringing the material to collaborators.
We are mastering a new record next month. And we are shopping this year, and so hopefully we can get this record out to the public. I can’t stop writing, I’ve always written when I was in Black Sabbath. I would interact with [the other members of the band] as a co-writer. But also when I came home from writing with them, I would just continue to write. I’ve been like that since I’ve been a kid. I’ve been writing or playing or dithering or whatever. And so when I’m at home, I can’t stop writing. I write lyrics. I’ve got a keyboard. I play keyboards and I write out the parts, record them at home. And I just can’t stop. It’s just something that’s inherent, that’s in me. ‘Cause I’m powerless over it. It just happens to me. So writing for myself was fine. When it was time to bring it to the band, I got used to being able to direct and work with other musicians.
He also shared more about his songwriting process.
On this new album that we’re trying to bring out, I think we’ve got at least 15 to 20 other musicians that are guests or they are interacting with the music. And it’s fine for me to do that because I’m used to interacting with musicians. It was the same way, coming back to the final [Black Sabbath] show [in July 2025 at Villa Park in Birmingham, U.K.]. I interacted with so many musicians [there]. It’s just something that’s really normal for me. And so I have the same thing when I’m writing. If I’ve got a part, then I’ll bring it to whoever I’m working with, guitar players or bass players, show them the ideas, and we put it together, and it seems to work out.
So, it feels very normal for me. I don’t have any special skills that I’m aware of. I’m able to bring it to people and work out the ideas to where they sound like music. But I usually write down the background. I usually lay keyboards and drums on a track, and then I put a rough vocal on. I also usually put a bass on, but I’ll put the bass on myself. I play like a mouth bass. And so I’ll put a mouth bass on about kind of roughly where I wanna go. So it’s already kind of there, the shape of the song is already there before we bring the other guys in and they go, ‘Okay. Well, we need that, we need that.’ And if I need orchestra pieces, I’ll write the orchestra piece, and then I work with orchestra players who are just absolutely incredible, who interpret my version of an orchestra piece, and they make it into an actual orchestra. They are actual orchestra players.
And so that’s how I do it. If I want a bass player, then there’s a number of guys that I’ll call. I don’t necessarily use one bass player because I like to pick a bass player that will work for the song. So I listen very carefully to the song, and then it’s, like, ‘Okay, well, who would probably suit this best?’ And I have a choice of at least 10 different bass players that we know, that we’ve known for years, that just come in and lay it down if they’re not on tour. And that’s how I do it. Same way with lead guitar players or guitar players. I probably work with at least 10 different guitar players on a regular basis. And those guys come in and they go, ‘Okay. Well, can you do something here for that?’ And I give them a couple of ideas that I’ve got, and then we just write from that point on. So it’s my favorite thing to do. I love being in the studio and writing with other musicians and writing — period. I just love it. It’s just fantastic. I feel very grateful to be able to do that, to be honest.
Ward provided an update on the status of previously unreleased material from Day of Errors, the three-piece project he established over a decade ago alongside guitarist/vocalist Joe Amodea and bassist/lead vocalist Nick Diltz. Following Diltz’s departure from the lineup in 2017, the group recruited Kill Devil Hill frontman Jason “Dewey” Bragg to handle vocal duties. Day of Errors officially launched their discography in November 2017 with the digital release of their first two tracks, “Day Of Errors” and “Blaspheming At Creation,” across major streaming and download platforms including iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3, and Google Play.
[Day of Errors] came after there was a problem with some negotiations that I had with Black Sabbath. So I just wrote a bunch of songs in a reaction to feeling the emptiness of having to go through a dispute. And I just wrote what I thought were really hardcore songs. At some point, I’d like to release Day of Errors, where there’s a lot of music that hasn’t come out from that album, and I’d like to get it out.
It’s not easy for me to just get an album out. There’s a lot that we have to do to do that and to get it out. And most times we kind of run at a loss in terms of how the music business is. So, unless we’re unbelievably popular, we run into all kinds of financial problems. And I’m not trying to cry poor me or anything. I’m just talking about the realism of making records these days and still wanting to play music and being in a band.
Day of Errors stuff is really good. “We released a couple of things. We released ‘Blaspheming At Creation’, and Dewey’s singing on that, and that’s a Day of Errors song. And I think we released ‘Ghost Train’ and a couple of other things. But, yeah, I’d like to make sure that if I’m somewhere else, then other people can take over and release Day of Errors at some point.
