Michael Ward, who was part of the Rock band named, The Wallflowers passed away at the age of 57 as per People magazine’s reports. Ward was the guitarist in the band and has worked with several producers in the music industry.
On April 4, the band announced this sad news in a tribute post on their official Facebook account. In the caption, the band wrote, “With love and gratitude the Wallflowers say farewell to the great and singular Michael Ward. Michael’s role and talents will forever remain a crucial part of the band’s history.”
The band further expressed, “His contributions to music began before his time with the Wallflowers and continued long after his time with the band.” They ended the caption by writing“ Listening to Thin Lizzy on a sorrowful day. Rest now Mike. Much love to his family and his two children.”
Who was Michael Ward?
Michael Ward was born on February 21, 1967, in California. According to Wikipedia, he was the founding member of an alternative rock band under Capitol Records, named School Of Fish. His extraordinary tone provided the underpinning hook for the band’s hit tune in 3 Strange Days. The tune has been used by many musicians like Dave Navarro and Tommy Lee.
Throughout his long career spanning around 35 years, Ward has recorded over 50 studio albums. His unique talent as a guitarist caught the eye of several industry producers. He worked with Matt Wallace and Matt Endert.
His hits include Perfectly Good Guitar, from John Hiatt’s album, and also the hit song by Gavin DeGraw, I Don’t Wanna Be from Chariot album. The producer of these songs was none other than Matt Wallace. Ward has notably toured in 50 countries around the world.
Michael Ward’s departure from The Wallflowers
In 1995, Ward was approached by Jakob Dylan, the lead vocalist of The Wallflowers to join the band. The band’s album Bringing Down the Horse was a huge hit. It sold over 5 million copies. One Headlight, a song featured in the album won a Grammy in the Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal category.
Ward quit the band in 2001, but he wanted to depart from it earlier. The reason for this was apparently falling out with Dylan, as per MTV. In the interview with MTV, He revealed, “About a year ago I quit the band and then was persuaded into staying by our manager, Andy Slater.” He added, “So I stayed through the whole Breach tour.”
He told MTV at the time, “For me, what music is all about is sitting down and creating songs from scratch.” Ward added, “That’s my life, and it’s not really about adding guitar parts to someone else’s music. That’s not really satisfying for me. For a long time we were writing together, and then that stopped, and that made me pretty unhappy.”
