BOB DAISLEY Talks About OZZY, BLACK SABBATH And Possibility Of RAINBOW Reunion

Australia's Inside_Out666 recently conducted an in-depth interview with legendary bassist Bob Daisley (RAINBOW, OZZY OSBOURNE, MOTHER'S ARMY, URIAH HEEP, KAHVAS JUTE, LIVING LOUD). Several excerpts from the chat follow:

Inside_Out666: You mentioned to me at The Basement that you were going to be working on Gary Moore's next album. What details can you give us at this stage?

Bob Daisley: "Nothing etched in stone. When I talked to Gary last, which was a few months ago now, he mentioned that he was going to be recording in August. Gary was in the middle of changing record labels and because of that, things were being put back and I haven't really spoken with him since then. The only thing that seems to be definite is that Gary wants to do another rock album which will be more along the lines of the THIN LIZZY Irish style rock, which would be really good and fans have been crying out for, for years now."

Inside_Out666: Last time we spoke, there was a possibility of an Australian/European LIVING LOUD tour. Can you shed any light on to what is happening with that?

Bob Daisley: "That's another difficult one. As we all know, Lee's [Kerslake, drums] in URIAH HEEP, Steve [Morse, guitar] and Don [Airey, keyboards] are in DEEP PURPLE and Jimmy's [Barnes, vocals] got a hit album here [in Australia] at the moment. We just have to wait for that window of opportunity for everyone to be able to get together. Lee Kerslake, Steve Morse and I are going to try to get together soon to do some writing for the next album. Jimmy will come in on that when he's free to do some lyrics and melodies etc. I can't see any new recording happening until the New Year. We recorded the last album in Florida and if we do the next one over there we might do some live shows while we are there. But nothing has been planned at this stage."

Inside_Out666: I believe you have a lot of unreleased material from the early days working with Ozzy, Randy Rhoads and Lee. Have you ever considered releasing any of it?

Bob Daisley: "Well, as much as I would love to, there is a legal situation there. The Osbournes own the rights to anything associated with the name Ozzy or the name Randy Rhoads. I don't know if Randy's turning over in his grave but Sharon manages the Randy Rhoads estate. After Randy died, Mrs. Rhoads had to sue the Osbournes for years to try and get her royalties. I spoke to her about that and she said 'Bob, I just ran out of time and money. I couldn't be bothered, I'm getting old.' She's about 80 now but this was back when she was in her sixties. When the Osbournes wanted to release the Randy Rhoads tribute album they had to get Mrs. Rhoads' permission, so they cut a deal with her. I think she bent and gave in because she wanted to keep the name of her son alive who died in the line of duty. I have tapes of us in the studio writing stuff together and you can hear Randy and me talking but I don't think I could ever legally release it because of the Osbournes."

Inside_Out666: Out of all the years you worked with Ozzy, who was the best musician that auditioned for Ozzy's band but in the end never made it?

Bob Daisley: "One of the drummers that Jake [E. Lee] and I auditioned in L.A. back in 1985 was Eric Singer. As we all know, he didn't get the gig. But I think it was at a time where Ozzy had left it up to Jake and me to audition everybody. It was funny — we auditioned so many drummers and every time we heard somebody wanted to audition we said, 'Learn these three songs that we are auditioning everyone on.' I remember 'Over the Mountain' was one of them because of the drum feature but I can't remember the other two — probably 'I Don't Know' and 'Mr. Crowley'... If they were crap we would let them play the next couple of songs then say 'Thank you, leave your name and we'll contact you, but it got to the point after the first twenty or so drummers that if somebody was crap we would just stop [laughs] say, 'No! Next!' If somebody wasn't right it was pointless wasting their time and ours. I don't know what happened with Eric but later when I was working with Eric in BLACK SABBATH and with Gary Moore, I used to say to him, 'You know, you would have been perfect for Ozzy' [laughs]. He'd say, 'Yes, I auditioned and you never gave me the gig.' [Laughs]"

Inside_Out666: Do you regret not joining BLACK SABBATH?

Bob Daisley: "No not really, I did well with Gary. At the time BLACK SABBATH weren't being handled right by management and people were getting messed about, I wasn't one of them but some people weren't being paid. People were coming and going in the band; it didn't seem to be too stable. But it was great to work with Tony."

Inside_Out666: Twelve months ago there were a lot of rumours about a possible RAINBOW reunion, obviously this didn't eventuate. Is that something you would consider given the opportunity?

Bob Daisley: "It would be weird after all these years [laughs]. I think it would be a good idea but to be honest with you, I don't think Ritchie [Blackmore] is even interested in playing rock anymore. Ritchie is aand has always been into the medieval/folk music that he's playing now. I haven't spoken to Ritchie in a long time but I have heard that he doesn't even like to listen to any rock music anymore, so whether he would do it or not I don’t really know."

Read the entire interview at Inside_Out666.