"HE'S A JAZZ DRUMMER PLAYING HARD ROCK. THAT'S THE COOL THING,"

good, if not better, when he’s doing his triplet fills. I think Bill is right there with John Bonham, the kings of the triplet. He’s a jazz drummer playing hard rock. That’s the cool thing about a lot of the drummers that came up in the ’60s – they’re inventing a rock style but it’s rooted in jazz feel, and that got lost in the ’70s, everything becomes more plodding. On the early Sabbath records, Bill Ward was playing a drum kit that had one rack tom, one floor tom and some cymbals. And that’s where he was swinging the most, utilising the small space. It was a jazz set-up. Those early records are pretty raw, nothing’s over-produced or fancy, they don’t step on the punk rock ethics. There’s nothing pretentious about Black Sabbath that gets in the way of themusic. All the bands in Seattle gravitated towards Sabbath. It didn’t matter if you liked punk rock or whatever – they’re just great, timeless hard rock records. You can’t deny the power of the Sabbath.” As told to Keith Cameron