‘It felt destined’
Daisley is the only one of the four original bandmates still alive. Rhoads was tragically killed only a few years later, aged just 25, in a small plane crash in Florida while Ozzy was asleep in their tour bus.
Kerslake died in 2020, aged 73, after battling prostate cancer.
Daisley, who moved back to Australia in the 1990s, listens to the recording of Chabby’s tape over the phone.
Bob Daisley pictured at Ridge Farm Studio, Surrey, where Blizzard Of Ozz was recorded a few months after their rehearsal sessions in Suffolk
Bob Daisley pictured at Ridge Farm Studio, Surrey, where Blizzard Of Ozz was recorded a few months after their rehearsal sessions in Suffolk
“As soon as I heard it, I thought, yes, that’s us, that’s Ozzy’s voice,” he says. He says they were there for a few weeks from January 1980, and this would have been before they found Kerslake.
“I don’t know if we were auditioning a drummer and just loosening up a bit, or we’re just clowning about… but it wasn’t a song we were working on because we had definite songs by then, we had several songs.”
These songs led to Blizzard Of Ozz, released just nine months later, in September 1980.
The Blizzard Of Ozz cover photoshoot
The Blizzard Of Ozz cover photoshoot
Daisley kept a diary of his music career, as well as his own recordings of rehearsals and writing sessions, but says he doesn’t have anything like the jamming session on Chabby’s tape.
He wrote about the time they spent in Ilketshall in his book, For Fact’s Sake, and still remembers it now.
“I think we had a small audience one night, we went down to the local pub and just invited a few people… to try out our writing and our songs to see what the reaction would be,” he says. “When we did play the songs that we’d had up to that point, it felt good and we thought yep, yeah, this is working.”
L-R: Bob Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads at Ridge Farm
L-R: Bob Daisley, Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads at Ridge Farm
It was a nice area, “nice place, nice countryside, nice people”, he says. One lasting memory is of the farmhouse’s low beams. “It was a very old house, I don’t know, 15th or 16th Century. And every night you’d hear, Doof – ‘Oh!’; Doof –’Oh!’. People forgetting how low the beams were.”
He also recalls Ozzy drawing a black eye on himself with eyeliner to make them laugh after a “kerfuffle” with some locals. “It just looked so funny.”
There are few photos from that period, though, with official pictures taken at Ridge Farm once Kerslake had been recruited and recording of the album was under way.
Chabby has none from their time in Ilketshall, while Daisley has these two, of Ozzy and Randy.
Daisley has a few photos of Ozzy and Randy Rhoads (below) during their time in Ilketshall
Daisley has a few photos of Ozzy and Randy Rhoads (below) during their time in Ilketshall
Daisley says he had been warned off working with the Black Sabbath star due to his drinking and drug taking. “But something in me told me, it felt sort of destined… I really felt like, you know, this didn’t just happen. It was meant to happen.”
Ozzy was going through a difficult time, he says, but they had a “lot of laughs” together.
“Being kicked out of Black Sabbath, it felt like a divorce to him… So I felt for him.” But with the new group of musicians, there was “a magic there”, Daisley says.
The harmony didn’t last long. Daisley has given his side of the story, detailing disputes over credits and the band’s name; by his reckoning, the group was due to be called Blizzard Of Ozz, rather than being an Ozzy solo project. Ozzy, in his first autobiography, said this wasn’t the case.
Daisley and Kerslake were fired in 1981, but Daisley did return to work on Ozzy’s third album, Bark At The Moon, and on other projects over the years. But there were also legal battles.
Daisley says he had not seen Ozzy for a long time, but “shed tears” when he heard about his death.
“What came flooding back was all the good memories and the good times and the creativity, what we did achieve, and how many people we reached by being together.”
It can go months, sometimes years, Daisley says, but he does listen back to the music they made. “It’s great to hear that stuff, to think, wow, we were good – because you forget.”