Sabbath Drama Sabbath

Butler posted an open letter to fans on his website. Here is what he had to say: I feel sad to see the Sabbath reunion becoming a bit of a soap opera on the internet. It has been a very tough year for us as a band, having announced our reunion plans, only for Tony to be diagnosed with lymphoma, leaving us no choice but to postpone the proposed Sabbath tour, and then for Bill to go public on his site about an un-signable contract. None of us knew how Tony was going to respond to his intensive chemo therapy, and radiotherapy. Ozzy and myself flew to England to be with Tony, and on his "good" days, we'd meet at his home studio and put ideas together for the upcoming album, all sitting down together, no drummer involved, just 3 of us quietly putting together ideas. We thought that when we had enough songs together for a full band rehearsal, we'd move back to L.A and put the whole thing together with Bill. Unfortunately, to our surprise, Bill issued a statement on his site saying he'd been offered an un-signable contract. He hadn't told any one of us he was having contractual problems, and frankly those things are worked out between our representatives, and never between the four of us let alone in public. We had the idea of keeping just one show in this year, hoping that Tony would be well enough for that show, and that things with Bill would be sorted. As you may expect, a one off show at Donnington Festival (Download) costs an absolute fortune to stage, involving over 50 people, transport, air fares, hotels, meals, agents, promotors, accountants, lawyers etc, so none of us, expected to make much money from it- it was a one off Sabbath show for the fans, before we go into recording the new album. Apparently, this wasn't acceptable to Bill's representatives, they wanted an amount that was so unrealistic that it seemed to have been a joke. So we resigned ourselves to doing Download without Bill, hoping he'd change his mind and at least make a guest appearance. We started rehearsals a few weeks ago with Tommy Clufetos, the drummer who will be on the Ozzy and Friends Tour. Brilliant drummer and good bloke. It was decided we'd better do a warm up show, to break the ice since we haven't played together live. The O2 Academy was available in Birmingham, where we were rehearsing, so we decided on that, and to make a donation to Help For Heroes Charity, since we'd be ironing out any glitches we may have. Then Bill put out a further statement saying he'd been ready to play the Birmingham show , but he was expected to have to do it "for free"- well, I think that's basically how you raise money from gigs for charity � you play them "for free".

All I am saying is that there are two sides to everything. I do hope to play with Bill again some day. For whatever reason; it wasn't meant to be this time. Bill's made his decision, and I have to respect that. Hopefully this painful year will be worth the wait for the new Sabbath album and end in joy and happiness for all.

Yesterday, Ward posted this response on his site: I have read Geezer's statement of May 19 titled Heavy Heart. Out of respect for the Birmingham gig, I wanted to wait 24 hours before releasing this statement. There are some points he brought up which I want to respond to.

1) I had indeed notified Ozzy, Tony and Geezer, well before my first public statement, that I was having contractual difficulties.

2) I came out into a public forum to be accountable to the fans primarily, and to say at a public level there's a problem. The band members stopped talking and corresponding with me some time ago, with the exception of a nice letter from Tony on my birthday. Prior to that, Geezer and I were corresponding, but that stopped abruptly in late February after I emailed a specific question to him.

3) In my statement of May 15, I clearly stated I would play Birmingham for free. That was not a problem � charity or otherwise.

4) My Download fee was not an extravagant amount. Originally, when Download was part of a full tour, I had asked for a decent fee. More recently, as we were negotiating just Download/Birmingham and Lollapalooza, I told my attorney that I would accept the proposed small Download fee, but there were other parts of the offer that were unsatisfactory.

I will continue to be honest and respectful towards the band and our fans. I will also confront any untruths about me, and any fault finding missions aimed at me that come to my attention.

I hope the band and the fans had a good gig in Brum.