The Wallflowers and School Of Fish guitarist Michael Ward dies, aged 57

Michael Ward, the former guitarist with the Wallflowers and School of Fish, has died, aged 57.

His death was announced by his sister Tracy Ward Hartfiel on Facebook on Tuesday (April 2).

She wrote: “Michael Ward has left this plane,” she wrote. “It’s with tremendous sorrow that I let you know complications from diabetes took his life last night. Obviously, we are all in shock and overcome with grief. This is all I can handle writing right now. Please tell the people you love just how much they mean to you.”

On Wednesday (April 3), the Wallflowers also shared a tribute to Ward on Facebook.

“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. 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 sorrowful day. Rest now Mike. Much love to his family and his two children.”

You can see the band’s tribute here:

Ward was born in 1967 in Minneapolis and formed School Of Fish in 1989 with Josh Clayton-Felt. Later members Michael Petrak and David Lipson joined the band.

The band signed to Capitol in 1990, releasing their self-titled debut in 1991 and follow up Human Cannonball in 1993. They broke up in 1993.

Ward later joined the Wallflowers in 1995 and played on heir 1996 album, ‘Bringing Down The Horse’ and 2000’s ‘Breach’.

The band went on to win two Grammy awards in 1998 for the song ‘One Headlight’ from ‘Bringing Down The Horse’.

Ward left the group in 2001. Speaking about his decision to leave, he told MTV at the time: “For me, what music is all about is sitting down and creating songs from scratch. 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.”

Ward, who lived in Los Angeles, continued performing after he left, playing with Ben Harper’s band the Innocent Criminals as well as Gogol Bordello.

Throughout his career, Ward contributed to 50 studio albums, including Gavin DeGraw’s Chariot which featured One Tree Hill theme song, I Don’t Wanna Be.’

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