Beginning this month, BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward will contribute a regular column, titled "Forte, Please", to a new metal magazine, Hails & Horns. The June 2006 issue will arrive in stores shortly and can be purchased at major music retail outlets, including Tower, Hot Topic, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Virgin, Newbury Comics, FYE, Strawberries, and Coconuts. Hails & Horns is a quarterly publication, with the second issue due in September 2006.

Here is an excerpt from Bill's first column:

"From the childhood influences of rock 'n' roll, jazz and blues, to BLACK SABBATH's embryonic stirrings, past the mayhem of the '70s to the 'Sgt. Pepper' triumph of the '90s, METALLICA's 'Black Album', and more recently, to the enlightening 'Vol.3: The Subliminal Verses' by SLIPKNOT, I have been immersed in music and, in saying that, I feel incredibly humbled and fortunate to still be a part of all of this momentum. My peers, and there are a lot of them, they too are still above ground, devouring the future with broad strokes of loud guitars, critical drumming and risking their very souls in the harshness and joys of life. I say again, I'm fortunate and delighted. I am a fan — a great place to be at 58 — and based on the above, I guess I qualify on some level as a person who could share something about metal."