|
|
 |
Bob Daisley.
Bob Daisley may not be a house-dad superstar like, say, Ozzy Osbourne, but many may be surprised to learn, due to somewhat ambiguous writing credits, that he penned many of Ozzy's most notorious lyrics (eg: those on the 'Blizzard Of Ozz' and 'Diary Of A Madman' albums). Daisley's on the phone right now to promote Living Loud, a kind of concept project in which he decided to reclaim some of those songs by doing them his way; with a little help from his friends.
The result is a self-titled album and live DVD release that sees bassist Daisley team up with other former Ozzy cohorts: Don Airy (keyboards) and Lee Kerslake (drums), along with guitar whiz Steve Morse and our very own Jimmy Barnes on vocals. The members CVs read like classic rock royalty: Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake... the list goes on.
Daisley grew up in Australia before moving to London in the early seventies to pursue music. Although he'd been kicking around the idea of re-recording a half dozen 'Ozzy' songs (including Crazy Train, I Don't Know and Mr Crowley) for over ten years, when it finally happened it was completed in less than a month.
"Drew Thompson, from Thompson Management in Melbourne, suggested that we do it when we did because he has a connection with the Deep Purple camp and he phoned me to say 'we've got a window of about twenty-five days where Lee's available and so's Jimmy and Steve.' I said to Drew that that wouldn't be long enough, because we'd have to write new stuff and rearrange the Ozzy songs and then rehearse and record them, there's not going to be enough time. He then just said, 'Oh go on, you're all professionals.' So Lee and I flew out to Florida to Steve's place where he's got a studio and probably within half an hour of playing with each other we started to think 'this sounds pretty special.' A couple of days later, after we'd come up with new arrangements and writing in new parts, Jimmy came in and start singing and there was chemistry there. I think we spent eight or nine days in total rearranging the Ozzy stuff and writing five more new songs [this time the lyrics were compliments of Barnes] and rehearsing them but the actual recording itself was only fifteen days in total, and that includes having to fly to London for two days to record Don Airy on keyboards. And then the mixing and mastering only took three or four days, so the total time was something like twenty-six days."
Legend has it that Daisley actually thought twice about engaging Barnes' services. "Well, only because originally it wasn't going to be a band and only just a project," he explains. "I thought we'd get a few different singers in. Maybe Ronnie James Dio to sing on a couple and maybe someone else on others, and Gary Moore said he'd play guitar on a couple of tracks and then maybe get someone like Steve Vai or someone like that. But when we all started together I thought, 'wow, this is going to work, let's forget about other guests and just keep it like this.' I did have reservations about how Jimmy might sing this stuff, because Jimmy does have a reputation for being a bit of a screamer, but we kind of directed him to use his voice tone rather than his lungs. He's got a great voice tone and he's a really good singer and he doesn't need the screaming, and he realised that too. Looking back at it now, and I wouldn't use any other singer because it worked perfectly."
As for any confusion about Daisley's part in the 'Blizzard Of Ozz' and 'Diary Of A Madman' albums: "I've heard Ozzy in interviews say, 'Oh, when I wrote this and when I wrote that...' and he tries to take credit for things he didn't do and it's bullshit. C'mon Ozzy, own up," he chuckles. "[The records] don't actually credit anyone for doing any particular thing, they just credit: 'Crazy Train: Osbourne/ Rhoads/Daisley'. It doesn't say that Randy came up with the riff and the musical parts and I wrote the lyrics and Ozzy came up with the melodies, or anything like that. They put his name first because they think he's the most important and then they promoted those albums as solo projects which they weren't. They were by a band and that band was called The Blizzard Of Ozz."
Steve Jones
 |
'Living Loud' is out now through EMI.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
