Of all the raucous antics Black Sabbath got into in their heyday, perhaps the most frightening (at least for Bill Ward) was when they almost killed their drummer…multiple times. Indeed, the pioneers of darkness were also not-so-practical jokesters who often challenged one another to come up with the craziest, grossest, or wildest pranks and dares.
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Sometimes, those shenanigans came in the form of Ozzy Osbourne’s wildest touring moments, which included snorting ants and lapping up urine while on tour with Motley Crüe. Other times, Black Sabbath’s drummer, Bill Ward, was the butt of the joke. Unfortunately for Ward, those jokes often ended with an ambulance ride.
Tony Iommi Set Bill Ward On Fire In The Studio
In a 1992 interview with Metallica’s James Hetfield, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi admitted that his band used drummer Bill Ward as a sort of target for the other three members’ tomfoolery. Iommi recalled a night in the studio when the band was recording ‘Heaven & Hell,’ during which Iommi asked Ward if he could set him on fire. “An hour later, Bill said, ‘Well, I’m going home now. Do you still want to burn me, or what?’” Iommi said (via Louder Sound).
“I got this bottle of petrol, tipped it on Bill, set fire to him, and oomph! I couldn’t believe it,” Iommi continued. “He went up like a Christmas tree. Well, he knew I was going to burn him, but he didn’t know to what extent. He screamed and started rolling around on the floor. His clothes started burning, and his socks melted—the nylon socks stuck to his leg. I wasn’t able to help him because I couldn’t stop laughing.”
Ward had to go to the hospital due to the third-degree burns on his arms and legs. The next day, Iommi said he received a scathing phone call from Bill’s mother. “The next day, his mother phoned me up and said, ‘You barmy b******. It’s about time you grew up. Our Bill is going to have his leg off.’ She exaggerated a bit. Things like that were a regular occurrence with Bill.”
Black Sabbath Almost Killed Their Drummer With Paint Twice
Indeed, the rest of Black Sabbath terrorizing Bill Ward was a regular occurrence, but not always one that included fire. In other instances, the band almost killed their drummer with seemingly innocuous paint. Tony Iommi shared one such story in a 2016 interview with The Guardian, explaining, “We were staying at John DuPont’s house in Los Angeles, the bloke who owned DuPont paint products.”
“We found all this paint in the garage, and we were all p*****, so thought it would be fun to paint Bill gold from head to toe. He started having convulsions. The ambulance people gave us a right bollocking: ‘You idiots! You could have killed him.’ They gave him adrenalin, and we had to use paint stripper to get it off. He looked like a beetroot by the end.” Unfortunately for Bill, that wasn’t the only painting snafu.
Ozzy Osbourne later recalled urinating outside next to Bill Ward during a recording session, high on cocaine, when he noticed a can of spray paint nearby. Naturally, Osbourne decided to antagonize Ward by spraying his penis with paint. “He starts screaming and falls down,” Osbourne recalled in I Am Ozzy (via Far Out Magazine). “I look at the can, and it says, ‘WARNING: DO NOT SPRAY ON SKIN — HIGHLY TOXIC.’ I poisoned Bill through his d***!”
Of course, not everyone in Black Sabbath got off scot-free. Sometimes, the entire band fell victim to their pranks, like the time a haunted castle humbled them during the making of their debut album. But all in all, it’s safe to say Bill Ward got the fuzzy end of the lollipop (or, perhaps, the wrong end of a spray paint can) more often than not.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
