Goodbye to Michael Ward ex Wallflowers

He died at the age of 57 Michael Wardformer guitarist of Wallflowers. News of his passing on April 1 was confirmed via The Wallflowers' social media.

With love and gratitude the Wallflowers bid farewell to the great and singular Michael Ward. Michael's role and talent will forever remain a crucial part of the band's history. His contributions to music began before his time with the Wallflowers and continued long after his time with the band. Listening to Thin Lizzy on a sad day. Rest now Mike. Much love to his family and his two children.

Ward was a member of the band, led by Jacob Dylanfrom 1995 to 2001. He appeared on two of their albums, “Bringing Down the Horse” of 1996, which earned numerous Grammy nominations, and “(Breach)” of 2000.

“For me, music is sitting down and creating songs from scratch,” Ward said when announcing his departure from the band. “This is my life and it's not really about adding guitar parts to someone else's music. It's not really satisfying for me. For a long time we wrote together, but then everything stopped and that made me quite unhappy. “

“It interfered with my riding my bike every day,” he continued, referring to his hobby outside of music. “It's just hard for me to spend my life working on someone else's songs and not do my own thing. It's too stuffy. Jakob is great at what he does and has power, but it's just not my thing.”

In a 2001 interview for the MTV website Ward stated: “About a year ago I left the band and then I was persuaded to stay by our manager, Andy Slater, so I stayed through the whole Breach tour.”

The Wallflowers continue to tour with Dylan as the only original member. Their most recent album, “Exit Wounds”dates back to 2021.

Ward was a founding member of the alternative rock band “School of Fish” of the early 90s, a band that achieved success with “3 Strange Days” which was performed by several artists including Dave Navarro (Janes Addiction) and Tommy Lee (Mötley Crüe) in a live performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. With the band he released two albums: the self-titled in 1991 and “Human Cannonball” in 1993

Appreciated by numerous producers such as Matt Wallace (Faith No More, Maroon 5, Deftones, REM) and Mark Endert (Madonna, Train, Miley Cyrus) he has recorded over 50 studio albums over his 35-year career.

With Matt Wallace producing, Ward recorded the album “Perfectly Good Guitar” Of John Hiatt from 1993, including the title track. He also appears in Hiatt's live “Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan?” published the following year.

Together with Mark Endert, he recorded the album “Chariot” Of Gavin DeGrawwhich contained the smash hit “I Don't Wanna Be“.

After the Wallflowers, Ward joined Ben Harper as one of the Innocent Criminalscontributing to “Both Sides of The Gun”, “Lifeline”, “Call It What It Is”.

Ward has performed in over 50 countries around the world. When he wasn't touring, he resided in Los Angeles, performing as a studio musician and guitar instructor.

In 1995 he accompanied on guitar Adam Ant in an acoustic version of his song “Wonderful” on the Howard Stern radio show.