Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward are Publicly Fighting About Stuff (groan)
UPDATE, 12:22pm EDT: Bill Ward has issued another statement in which he details what he’d consider to be a fair contract. Read it here.
Original Post:
Ex-Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward published a very lengthy open letter to Ozzy on Wednesday in which he demanded a public apology from the purple-spectacled singer for the way Ward was dismissed from the band a couple of years back. We didn’t cover it because this is 2015 and there are hundreds of newer metal bands making better and more relevant music than Black Sabbath that are more worthwhile of our and your attention.
But this being the Internet the story just won’t go away, and tons of you have been emailing us about it.
So: Ozzy has now fired back at Ward with an open letter of his own in which he basically says, “Cut the crap, Bill, you were a mess, and you still are.” Here’s that letter, via Ozzy’s Facebook page:
I never wanted to discuss this in a public forum but Bill’s statements left me no option to but to respond honestly.
Wow Bill,
What the fuck are you on about? I cannot apologize for comments or opinions I may have made about you in the press during Sabbath’s “13” album and tour– physically, you knew you were fucked. Tony, Geezer and myself didn’t think you could have done a two hour set with a drum solo every night, so we made the decision to move on. With Tony’s condition we felt that time was not on our side.
Bill, stop this smokescreen about an “unsignable contract” and let’s be honest. Deep down inside you knew you weren’t capable of doing the album and a 16 month tour. Unfortunately for you, our instincts were correct as you were in hospital several times during 2013. Your last hospitalization was for a shoulder surgery that you now say you’ve only just recovered from. This would have meant that our world tour would have been canceled. So how is all of this my fault? Stop playing the victim and be honest with yourself and our fans.
Bill, we go back a long way, let’s stop this now before it gets out of hand.
God bless you.
Love.
Ozzy
What to make of this? As is the case in most of these public tiffs, the truth probably lies somewhere between what each side is saying.
More importantly, now that we’ve gotten that out of our system can we please go back to talking about relevant bands again? I mean, fer chrissakes, David Hasselhoff released the music video of the century yesterday and Varg Vikernes wrote an RPG book. C’mon people!
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