Paul Ward joined the band
Bastille, from Essex, around 79, and recorded a demo tape with them. Later
joined ex Iron Maiden lead singer solo band, Dianno, and recorded the self-titled album in 1984 and the live
DVD recorded at The Palace. Here’s the interview with guitarist Paul Ward:
Q. - Hello Paul! When did you join Bastille? Were you a founding member?
Tell us a bit about the beginning of the band.
Paul - Bastille was already
formed before I joined. It was a local band from my hometown and I joined just
before they started to do shows in London and across the country. The driving
force was Richard Bull on lead vocals. He hustled and got us all the gigs. That’s
how we ended up playing at the Marquee club in London and built up a following.
Q. - How did the band name came up?
Paul - It was just one of those
things that you pick. It wasn’t me who came up with it, as I said I joined the
band later.
Q. - Did you start writing your own songs since the beginning or were
you most concentrated on covers?
Paul - We did a lot of writing
our own material, before I joined they has some original material, but were
also doing covers like AC/DC’s Whole lot of Rosie. I knew that if we didn’t
develop more material, we would never make it moving forward.
Q. - In 1979 a 3 song demo tape were recorded with the help of Adrian
Smith and Andy Barnett. Was it your first experience in studio? Were you
friends with Adrian and Andy? What do you recall from these recording season?
Paul - I really don’t remember
Adrian and Andy being involved. Possibly it was before my time. Although I did
record demos with the band. In those days we were all playing on the same
circuit. Andy and Adrian had a band called Urchin, we all used to hang out with
them. Nobody thought of being famous as such, we were all musicians doing our
thing and mostly living in the moment.
It was the same during my Dianno
days, we’d often have a beer with some of the maiden members (Adrian had joined
by then) Phil Collen was in the same crowd of Musos, he was playing in a band
called Girl then. He can to see the first Dianno gig at the Ruskin arms, which
apparently was the largest audience the venue ever had.
Q. - The song "Hard Man" appeared on the compilation "New
Electric Warriors", how did that happen?
Paul - That would have been
Richards work. He would have talked someone into it. That riff, which was a
Bastille original is very close to Iron Maidens 2 minutes to midnight which was
released in 1984. ;-)
Q. - Was there any promotional tour after the release of this
compilation?
Paul - Not to my knowledge??
Q. - Bastille did several gigs and festivals with bands such as Angel
Witch, More, Trespass, or Samson, do you have any special from any of those
shows?
Paul - My biggest memory was
supporting Gary Moore at the Marquee in London. He was a massive influence on
me, as he was for many others.
Q. - The 1980, 3 track demo, was recorded in order to find a record
deal? Did you send the tape to record companies?
Paul - At the time there were so
many bands out there. Our profile was quite good be pass we played a lot of
gigs and worked hard. But no deal was forthcoming. Eventually it split up and
band members went back to day jobs. I carried on in other bands. I formed a
band called Rich Bitch with Electra McLeod from 12 night and Mick Ransome from
Praying Mantis. He was the one that
introduced me to Paul Dianno.
Q. - What do you think that lacked to "Bastille" to have a
successful career?
Paul - There were so many Rock bands
at that time and when push come to shove I don’t think the personal commitment
was there.
Richard was amazing though, he
was the one who got us playing at proper venues and got us noticed.
Q. – What about Lonewolf? How did the band got together, did you know each
other’s before?
Paul - As I mentioned earlier.
Paul was looking to form a new band and Mick Ransom introduced me to him. Paul
came over and we jammed together and we gelled immediately. The other members
of the band were from an outfit called Minus Tirith. Paul wanted a keyboard
player and they has a really good one. Mark Venables. Paul and I were both
impressed with the band as a whole and Paul decided to hire the bass player
(Kevin Browne) in the end the whole band got hired including Lee Slater on
guitar. Great player and to this day we are good friends.
Q. - The name Lonewolf didn't last too much, did you change the name to
Dianno, because of legal problems?
Paul - Some other band had the
name it turned out, so we ditched it. Our management were keen to use Paul’s
name as he had the most profile. Paul wasn’t keen but gave in.
Q. - Was there any plans for a second Dianno album before the band split
up?
Paul - Yes, we had written some
of the material.
I like to think Dianno was a good
band with first class musicians and Paul was determined not to sound like
Maiden, but the fans couldn’t really accept It. We toured the album in support
slot with Thin Lizzy, which was amazing but after that things started to slide.
I was the first to leave and it just fell apart.
Paul, Kevin and Mark tried to
keep it alive with Janick Gers on guitar, but it was short lived and obviously
he joined Iron Maiden.
Q. - Do you keep in touch with the former members of Bastille or Dianno?
Paul - Yeah sure. Not so much
bastille guys, but with Dianno band members, we speak all the time.
Q. - In what other bands did you play after the end of Dianno? Tell us a
bit about it please.
Paul - I stopped after that. Lee
Slater and I did some session work, but I moved into a different career in the
Sound side of things.
I still play a bit, but that’s
for my own amusement really.
Q. - Do you keep an eye to hard rock and heavy metal music nowadays? Are
there some bands that got your attention?
Paul - I like a vast variety of
music, I’m not fixed on Heavy metal. I really like Killswitch engage though.
Q. - How do you want to end up this interview? Anything more you want to
say?
Paul - Thanks for the
opportunity, it was interesting and brought back some fantastic memories.
Thank you for your time, and wish you all the best for the future!
