During the Q&A portion of his March 3 spoken-word show at at Palace Of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California, IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson was asked if BLACK SABBATH can exist without its founding drummer Bill Ward.
“I’m a massive lover of Bill Ward‘s drumming style; I think it’s inspired,” Bruce responded. “‘Cause he’s not really a rock drummer; he’s more like a jazz drummer playing rock. And I love that kind of style; it’s kind of like drums that kind of wander around the rhythm and everything else. But he’s on it; he’s brilliant. And I met him. He’s a lovely bloke as well. Slightly mad, but very nice. But then aren’t we all? All of us are on the madness spectrum a little bit.”
Circling back to the original question, Bruce said: “Does BLACK SABBATH exist without Bill Ward? Well, it’s not a matter of… I don’t think BLACK SABBATH exist at all now.” He then took a swipe at Sharon Osbourne, the wife and manager of SABBATH singer Ozzy Osbourne, saying: “I think Sharon‘s made sure of that.”
In 2005, Sharon allegedly arranged eggs to be thrown at IRON MAIDEN while they played at the Ozzfest, supposedly because Dickinson had made some comments on stage that she disliked. Sharon reportedly took exception to comments that Dickinson had allegedly made about the Osbournes‘ MTV reality series. And ordered interference with MAIDEN‘s PA system and delayed the stage entrance of the band’s mascot Eddie.
In a conversation with Attitude magazine after the incident, Sharon said she didn’t liked Dickinson, saying he “has a chip on his shoulder”, but respected Iron Maiden, saying that the rest of the group were really nice guys. IRON MAIDEN manager Rod Smallwood criticized Sharon after what happened, saying that in 30 years in the business he never saw anything so disgusting and unprofessional like what she did.
