On Monday night, Michael Ward, the former guitarist for The Wallflowers, passed suddenly at the age of 57.
From 1995 to 2001, the musician from Minnesota played with the band led by Jakob Dylan, and “his talents will forever remain a crucial part of the band’s history.”
The Wallflowers posted on Facebook on Wednesday, saying, “His contributions to music began before his time with the Wallflowers and continued long after his time with the band.”
Who was Michael Ward?
Josh Clayton-Felt and Ward founded School Of Fish in 1989. Ward was born in Minneapolis in 1967. David Lipson and Michael Petrak joined the band later.
After signing with Capitol in 1990, the group released their self-titled debut in 1991 and Human Cannonball as a follow-up in 1993. 1993 saw their breakup.
Later, in 1995, Ward became a member of the Wallflowers, appearing on their albums “Bringing Down the Horse” (1996) and “Breach” (2000).
The song “One Headlight” from “Bringing Down the Horse” went on to earn the band two Grammy awards in 1998.
In 2001, Ward departed the group. He said to MTV at the time, “For me, music is all about sitting down and creating songs from scratch,” in reference to his choice to depart. It’s not really about playing guitar solos on other people’s songs; that’s my life. I don’t find that to be all that satisfying. We had been writing together for a while, so when that stopped, I was not happy.