Just yesterday, Bill Ward released a statement in which he threatened to bow out of the recently announced new Black Sabbath album and world tour unless he was given “a ‘signable’ contract.” Now Black Sabbath have announced via their Facebook page that they are, indeed, proceeding without their now-once-again-former drummer:

We were saddened to hear yesterday via Facebook that Bill declined publicly to participate in our current Black Sabbath plans…we have no choice but to continue recording without him although our door is always open… We are still in the UK with Tony. Writing and recording the new album and on a roll… See you at Download!!!

- Tony, Ozzy and Geezer

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UPDATE, 2:06 pm: Reader Joe Siegler tells me that Ward didn’t “hold out” in ’97 — he was never asked to re-join the band. I apologize for my lapse in knowledge of Sabbath reunion lore. If he really wasn’t asked in 1997, that makes this whole thing all the more dramatic and dispiriting. Original story follows below…

Hope you weren’t too excited about Bill Ward participating in the upcoming Black Sabbath reunion.

Ward has always been the hold-out with these reunions. He didn’t participate when the band got back together for Ozzfest in ’97 (although by 1998, he had indeed rejoing the band), and he wasn’t a part of Heaven & Hell, the Dio-era Sabbath reunion, either. Now, according to a statement on his website, he may not be part of the Sabbath’s recently announced new album and tour, either:

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Until their new song, “Time and Time Again,” premiered online today (stream it here), I had not heard any music from Kill Devil Hill, the new band featuring Rex Brown and Vinny Appice. (I was about to type those dudes’ previous credits when I realized that if you don’t know who Brown and Appice are, I don’t especially care about you anyway.) I know there have been some live bootlegs floating around — the band has been gigging for awhile now — but I somehow managed to avoid them and wait for the real thing.

And now that I’ve heard it… it’s good. Not great. But not bad at all.

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For a while I’ve been trying to pitch an interview to former Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee. Of course, I want to ask him about replacing Randy Rhoads for Bark At The Moon (yay!) and The Ultimate Sin (okay!) albums. And I’ve heard that he’s assembling a new band, so we’d discuss that, too. But mostly, I plan to break my wrist from petting Lee’s ballz about Badlands, his post-Ozzy heavy rock band. Well, wait, I mean, my wrist would break from petting them so thoroughly, not from using great force to pet them. I don’t want Jake to fear for his ballz here.

Ahem But it’s not just that Badlands was awesome, but interesting too. Their debut album, which I’ve privately retitled Bonerlands, convenes a creative team of super-stud Lee (fresh from parting with Ozzy), Ray Gillen (short-term singer for late Black Sabbath and early Blue Murder, total stud), drummer Eric Singer (now of Kiss, then going big like an Appice), and producer Paul O’Neill (the mind behind Trans Siberian sn’Orchestra, Savatage’s Streets: A Rock Opera). Weird team, right? It’s unclear how much Lee would ever discuss with me, cuz Badlands ended pretty acrimoniously (onstage arguments) and then sadly (Gillen’s fatal illness). But for now, let’s click play on “Devil’s Stomp” (above) and you’re jamming! Jake call me!

-ADF

I’m gonna tell you right now – I don’t usually get all “fan-girl” and nervous talking to people, even those I greatly admire on an artistic level. When I was told I was going to be interviewing Rex Brown, the fact that I was going to be talking to someone who helped mold my musical tastes as a kid didn’t hit me until probably an hour or so beforehand, and that’s when, admittedly, I started to get a bit weak in the knees. I started to remember so vividly hearing Pantera’s “Floods” for the first time on a family road trip to the Midwest, how it chilled me like nothing else ever had, and those days speeding down 95 in my first car blasting Cowboys from Hell. As one of the founding members of Pantera – up until their unfortunate end – he helped open the gates for a great deal of us to the world of metal. With his involvement in Down, as well as Crowbar, that love for many of us was kept alive.

Of course, with his recent departure from Down, some may have been wondering what else, if anything, Rex had next up his sleeves. Thankfully, there’s plenty.

As soon as I answered the phone, one of the first things Rex said to me (with a laugh) was that he’d been “giving interviews all day.” That in itself I thought was a true testament to someone who, even after over two decades working at it, is not looking to give up anytime soon – a fact that’s emphasized by his enthusiastic involvement with his new band Kill Devil Hill. The new project, featuring Vinny Appice (Heaven and Hell, Dio, Black Sabbath) on drums, Mark Zavon (Ratt, 40 Cycle Hum) on guitar and Jason “Dewey” Bragg (Pissing Razors) on vocals, is currently on tour and looking forward to releasing their yet-to-be-named debut album early next year on SPV/Steamhammer Records.

Talking with Rex was not only an experience in that he’s someone I have long admired; it was something getting to speak with someone so excited and hopeful about his current conquest. After over two decades playing music – through the triumphs as well as the hardships – to be as enthusiastic and passionate is not an incredibly common thing. I think that’s something that all of us can not only appreciate, but hopefully aspire to.

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2007′s Down III: Over the Under was pretty sweet, right? I can’t speak for the masses, but I thought the album found Down sounding as good and as energized as ever after a five-year hiatus following the release of Down II. Five years will be the magic number once again, as according to guitarist Kirk Windstein via Twitter the band is recording a new album (Down IV?) this month:

Kirk followed that up with another tweet three days later saying that recording had already commenced, so it seems like things are moving pretty quickly. New Down record in Spring 2012?

Bassist Rex Brown, however, will not be participating. Following months of speculation and a statement by drummer Jimmy Bower, Rex finally broke his own silence on the situation. From an interview with Metal Maiden:

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For metal fans over the age of 30, there’s little fresh news to be found on VH1′s That Metal Show; the weekly show functions mostly as a clubhouse for “remember when?” type gab with flabby old-timers. (For metal fans under 30, TMS provides a peek back in time to when the term “metal” meant “heavier than Paul McCartney & Wings.”) So I was one of tens of viewers of the TMS season seven finale, in which former Ozzy drummer Carmine Appice (above, big brother of Heaven & Hell skinsman Vinny Appice) shot ropey jets of great and hilarious news all over the sweaty boobs of the dinosaur metal world.

Wow, that’s a clusterfucked metaphor, but ahem the important thing is that the unconvincingly bewigged Appice addressed the status of Blue Murder to TMS host Eddie Trunk, who along with me makes up about half of the post-Whitesnake John Sykes supergroup’s restless, rabid fanbase. But that was only the happiest news, not the weirdest. According to Appice:

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“Bark at the Moon” is to Shadows Fall as “Holy Diver” is to Killswitch Engage. They’re both covers of classic solo tracks by former Sabbath vocalists, and both songs were released in their original incarnation in 1983. (The connection between the two songs gets even weirder if you consider that Vinny Appice played drums on “Diver,” while his brother, Carmine, appears in the original “Moon” video even though he didn’t play on the recording.) And just as I imagine that it’ll be some time before KSE ever play another set without doing “Diver,” so it seems that “Moon” is now a staple of the Shads’ live show.

The band recently played the song in Toronto, with a special guest appearance from Alex Skolnick on guitars. The influence of Testament on Shadows Fall has always seemed pretty clear, so it’s cool to watch them get to jam with one of their heroes. Bonus: you can imagine an alternate world where Skolnick left Testament in 1992 and became Ozzy’s guitar player. It would have been post-No More Tears, the last truly worthwhile Ozzy album; Skolnick might have saved us from another seventeen years of sub-par material and guitar squeals!

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

There are probably more old farts making relevant music than I usually give credit for. For every Ozzy or Metallica, whose later years have been more or less a total fucking disaster (creatively if not financially), there’s a Testament or Napalm Death who are still making music worth listening to after two or even three decades in the biz.

Of course, few of those artists have been at as long as the members of Black Sabbath – now re-christened Heaven & Hell – and even most of the Sabbath peers who can still pull it out live (Priest, Maiden) aren’t really releasing albums that are worth a damn these days. So the fact that The Devil You Know is so freakin’ sweet makes it feel like something of a marvel.

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The Devil You Know, the new Dio-Sabbath record, is every bit as rockin’ as I’d hoped it will be. I’m working on a review before its release a week from today, but if you’re anxious to hear it – and you really, really should be – it’s currently streaming on The Leak, which, for better or worse, is a VH1 sub-site.

GO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. IT IS AWESOME AND PUTS ALL OTHER VETERAN BANDS TO SHAME.

-AR

In 2004, the Painkiller-era Judas Priest line-up reunited and blew Black Sabbath off the stage at Ozzfest, so I supposed it’s only fair that in 2008, Sabbath should return the favor on the Metal Masters tour.

Of course, swapping out Ozzy Osbourne for Ronnie James Dio didn’t hurt.

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