GEEZER BUTLER Doesn’t Have Any Inside Information About BILL WARD’s Absence From BLACK SABBATH’s Final Reunion

In a new interview with Houston Press, BLACK SABBATH bassist Geezer Butler, who is promoting his upcoming autobiography “Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath – And Beyond”, said that he has no inside information regarding the absence of original SABBATH drummer Bill Ward from the group’s final album and reunion tour more than a decade ago.

“We asked him if he’d do two or three songs a show or whatever he felt comfortable doing,” Geezer said. “And he said he’d do the whole show or nothing at all. And I totally respect that. If they told me to do two or three songs on bass and go away, I’d have told them where to go. All I know is Bill was in the band, then me and my wife went to Hawaii for a week, and when we got back, Bill wasn’t in the band anymore.”

Bill was on board for the SABBATH reunion when it was first announced more than 11 years ago but backed out soon after. The drummer later claimed that he sat out the recording and touring sessions because of unfair contractual terms, although the members of SABBATH have hinted in other interviews that he wasn’t physically up to the task.

All four original members of SABBATH were present when the band announced its reunion in late 2011. But Ward split from the group in 2012, citing an “unsignable” contract, and singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi and Butler carried on with their Rick Rubin–produced “13” LP and extensive international touring without him.

In March 2021, Bill admitted to SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he no longer had the “chops” and the “ability” to perform with BLACK SABBATH. “I have to be back to 60 years old to be able to do that,” he said.

“I would love to do a studio album with SABBATH, with all the original members,” he continued. “I’m just saying that — I’m just floating that out there. But I’m not done. So, the other three might be done, and I respect that, but no, I’m not done. I think as long as we all exist [laughs] and we’re still breathing in air, I think we have every possibility of making some great music together.”

Ozzy told The Pulse Of Radio during SABBATH‘s last tour that Ward was not in shape to participate. “Bill Ward has got the most physically demanding job of the lot of us, ’cause he’s the timekeeper,” he said. “I don’t think personally he had the chops to pull it off, you know. The saddest thing is that he needed to own up to that, and we could have worked around it, whether we had a drummer on the side with him or something.”

It was rumored that SABBATH wanted to bring a second drummer on the road to share duties with Ward, something that Iommi confirmed in 2017 during a question-and-answer session about SABBATH‘s “Ten Year War” box set.

In February 2017, SABBATH finished “The End” tour in Birmingham, closing out the quartet’s groundbreaking 49-year career.

“The End” was SABBATH‘s last tour because Iommi — who was diagnosed with lymphoma in late 2011 — can no longer travel for extended amounts of time.

In 2015, Ward released his first solo album in 18 years. Titled “Accountable Beasts”, the record can be purchased on iTunes.

In November 2017, Ward‘s band DAY OF ERRORS released its first two songs, “Day Of Errors” and “Blaspheming At Creation”, via iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3 and Google Play. Two more tracks, “Dark” and “Ghost Train”, followed in 2019.

“Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath – And Beyond” will be released on June 6 in North America via HarperCollins imprint Dey Street Books. The book will arrive in the United Kingdom on June 8.

“Into The Void: From Birth To Black Sabbath – And Beyond” is described by the publisher as “a rollicking, effusive, and candid memoir by the heavy metal musician and founding member of BLACK SABBATH, covering his years as the band’s bassist and main lyricist through his later-career projects, and detailing how one of rock’s most influential bands formed and prevailed.”

A founding member of BLACK SABBATH, Butler is also the lyricist of such SABBATH classics as “War Pigs”, “Iron Man”, “Paranoid” and others.