Former OZZY OSBOURNE bassist Bob Daisley recently spoke with Rolling Stone about the controversial 2002 re-recordings of the drum and bass tracks on Ozzy’s “Blizzard Of Ozz” (1980) and “Diary Of A Madman” (1981) albums.
The tracks featured on the original albums were played by bassist Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake who were replaced by Robert Trujillo (now in METALLICA) and Mike Bordin on the effort’s reissues. After Daisley and Kerslake sued Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne over royalties, the tracks were restored for the 30th-anniversary editions.
When asked how he felt when he found out that his parts on the first two albums had been re-recorded, Bob replied: “To be honest with you, I thought it was pathetic. Someone sent me a copy of one of them, and I laughed. I thought, ‘Is this a joke?’ I just didn’t think it was done right. The thing is, you can’t reheat a soufflé. You can’t take the ingredients out of a cake and then try and bake it again. It happened once. We did various takes of each song and we used the parts where each of us shined the best. There might be five takes of ‘Crazy Train’ or four takes of something else, or eight takes of something else, and we picked the one that had the best vibe. And it was four people being recorded in a room together. You can’t change that.
“And the fans hated them for it. It was, like, ‘God, you’ve got no respect for the fans and everyone that spends money on this music.’ They were hated for it. I’m just quoting what fans said, not me.”
Bob Daisley has said that he and Lee Kerslake were fired from Ozzy’s band because of disagreements with Sharon over numerous things including refusing to do two shows in one day so Ozzy could rest his pipes.