Former Ozzy Osbourne bassist and songwriter Bob Daisley is making his first public comments since filing a $2 million lawsuit against the singer over claims of unpaid royalties from the 1980 classic “Crazy Train” and other songs.
Daisley was the original bassist in the band Blizzard Of Ozz, which included Osbourne, guitarist Randy Rhoads and drummer Lee Kerslake. The group’s 1980 debut morphed into Ozzy’s solo debut under Jet Records, which was launched by Don Arden – the father of Sharon Arden, who later became the singer’s wife and manager.
“When a publisher collects royalties and pays the writers,” Daisley explains to Joel Gausten, “they take a percentage as their administrative payment for doing it – but here the Osbournes have been taking 25% rather than the 10% I agreed to. It’s also been mentioned in some of the press releases and comments that this case is about ‘Crazy Train.’ That’s the song that’s used most…but there are other songs as well…‘Mr. Crowley', ‘Over The Mountain’, ‘Flying High Again’ have been used as well. It’s not just about ‘Crazy Train,’ although that was the most high-profile.”
The Osbournes responded publicly to Daisley’s legal action by stating that the bassist has received millions of dollars over the years (“no, it isn’t in the millions,” says the bassist) before claiming he is retired (he isn’t) and making a series of wild accusations.
“After 36 years, this is tantamount to harassment,” said the Osbournes. “We would have hoped that after 36 years that Mr. Daisley would have lost his unhealthy personal obsession and resentment towards Mr. Osbourne's success. Blizzard Music and Mr. Osbourne plan to vigorously defend these proceedings.”
“No, I’m not obsessed,” laughs Daisley. “It’s great that Ozzy built a lot of his success on the stuff that we wrote, because his whole career and empire was built on the foundation of those first two albums that put him back on the map. That’s the foundation of what Ozzy and Sharon are sitting on. I wish Ozzy every success. I just have a problem with not getting paid properly.
“I've also been asked why I waited so long to take action regarding these royalties and the answer is simple: The Osbournes were good at hiding what they were doing, and it was only relatively recently that I found out what was happening to me.”
Daisley also commented on actions taken by Sharon Osbourne as personal revenge for his previous lawsuits alongside Kerslake, which saw Ozzy’s wife have the pair’s work on “Blizzard” and “Diary Of A Madman” re-recorded by his then-current band members – Robert Trujillo (now with Metallica) and drummer Mike Bordin – for a 2002 re-release of the records.
“It was disgusting,” he says. “It was such an insult to the music, the music fans and to Randy personally. Obviously, we were suing them, so we expected some backlash, although we did not expect that the integrity of the music would be compromised. And to insult Randy like that – to take his performances and put them with two other people without the knowledge or approval of his family – was very disrespectful.”
An expanded 30th anniversary edition of “Blizzard” released in 2011 presented the original recordings that included Dailey and Kerslake’s work, but the bassist says he still hasn’t been paid.
“No, nothing changed,” Daisley adds. “We didn’t get performance royalties before, and we didn’t get performance royalties when our tracks were re-instated.”
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