In his first interview since asking for an apology from Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward talks to Rolling Stone about all this Black Sabbath controversy (read Ward and Ozzy's statements here). Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Rolling Stone: To begin, are you legally a member of Black Sabbath?

Ward: “That's a good question. I wonder myself actually. I don't know. I'd probably have to ask my legal department [laughs]. I'm actually not sure. I've always regarded myself as a member of Black Sabbath, so….”

Rolling Stone: You wrote in your statement, "I've neither severed not discontinued my relationship with Black Sabbath."

Ward: “Right. In other words, I haven't left. If I was leaving the band, I would make a statement saying I've actually left the band.”

Rolling Stone: The other Black Sabbath members have said they're working on a new album. Have they approached you at all about that or touring?

Ward: “No, they haven't approached me directly. They talk about it, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to be vocal about this now, because I feel like sometimes when I hear those stories, they're talking about me, but they don't actually directly contact me. The only person that's directly contacted me was [bassist] Geezer [Butler], and that was a couple of years ago. He was asking me if he could do one more gig with me, and I basically said, "Well, you better ask Sharon [Osbourne]." That actually was my answer. On my part, it was rather not a very good answer, but at the time, I wasn't in a very good mood about these things.”

 

 

Rolling Stone: Ozzy also claimed that you were "incredibly overweight." Is that true?

Ward: “The truth is that I was overweight for playing onstage, but I wasn't overweight for the studio. I could cut tracks with the weight that I arrived at. All of those guys know that I have a really rigorous exercise regimen. In August 2011, I started to drop weight because, at that point, I thought, "OK, we're probably at five or six months away from actually doing a tour." When we were in England, I was walking six miles before breakfast, I was doing bench presses, I was walking possibly two to three miles in the evening, and I was playing, like, three to four hours a day.”

Rolling Stone: Would you be in shape right now to rejoin Black Sabbath?

Ward: “Absolutely, yeah. I have no doubt in my mind. I know that they've suggested that I played half the gig, and I don't want to play half the gig. I'm quite capable of playing a complete fucking Black Sabbath set. So this health thing has been bandied around, and it's true that I have heart disease, and it's true that I did get sick a couple of years after the fact. But when the health card is being thrown around, the bottom line is that I really tried to take care of myself. Every day, I always look at the day and say, ‘Could I have played a gig today no matter what's going on with me?’ And the answer is always, ‘Yes.’ I'm much harder on me than those guys could ever be.”

Rolling Stone: Anything else you'd like to tell Black Sabbath fans about the current situation?

Ward: “I come with a realistic point of view. I have no hidden agendas. I have no desire to batter them into the ground. I have no desire to argue with them or to be mean or weird toward them. There are some things that have been said; they need to be cleared up. They need to be addressed before I can move on and feel comfortable in saying, ‘OK, let's renew our friendship.’ If they don't want to go down that road, that's OK. I'm just simply stating the truth and I'm bringing it out into the open, and I hope that the fans can understand that. I'm just trying to be accountable, literally, about where I'm at and just trying to be forthright and honest.”

Read more at Rolling Stone.