BOB DAISLEY Rock Daydream Nation Interview I find a little bit kind of a bit surprised is that you had a little bit of indecision about joining Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow after Widowmaker. He had a bit of an aura about being a band member killer. Did that play in your mind like I've heard things about Ritchie and that may have affected your indecision about joining the band? Yes, I'd been on the road with Widowmaker. We were doing our second American tour and that was in '77 and I hooked up with an old mate of mine who used to play guitar with Jerry Mungo, Dick Middleton. Well, he was mates with Ritchie Blackmore, he was like an old school player, He'd been with Johnny Hallyday and Gene Vincent and he knew Clapton and Blackmore as he's from that era, that school, and I went around to see Dick cause he was having a holiday with his family in LA. I went around to see Dick and he said "oh Ritchie's looking for a bassplayer, would you'd be interested?" And I thought, yes I would be, because things were were a little shaky with Widowmaker. I think more personality-wise you know, there was a lot of squabbles. There was even some fish bites and there it was getting silly and it was annoying me. So I went out one night with Ritchie and Dick Middleton and we had a beer and a chat because Ritchie wanted to find out what people were like before he even auditioned them. So Ritchie invited me down for an audition, he knew we got on fine so I went how to play with Rainbow. That was Cozy Powell and Ronnie James Dio, Ritchie Blackmore, they had a new keyboard player, David Stone. At the end of the audition I think it was Ronnie that said to me, cause they went off into an office somewhere and had a little chat, came back out and they said "Well, if you want it, the gig is yours". And I said to them "I'll think about it". They must have thought you jumped up little fuck, you know, because it was a great opportunity but Ritchie had the reputation of chewing people up and spitting them out. And people were saying to me just just be careful you could leave Widowmaker and then go with Ritchie and end up with nothing in 3 months so I did have to think about it. I had a long conversation with my wife on the phone for about an hour where she was saying "You got to do it, you got to do it. This is a great opportunity. It's a no-brainer. You got to do this". Anyway I still hadn't made up my mind and then we played at the Whiskey A Go Go that night in LA with Widowmaker and Ritchie came along with Cozy Powell. After the show I went up to the dressing room. Another fight broke out with Widowmaker. They were arguing, screaming and bitching. Ritchie told me before the show... he said I'll be up at the Rainbow which is the Rainbow Bar and Grill just up the road from the Whiskey. He said I'll be up there, come and meet me up there. So when the squabbles broke out with Widowmaker it kind of made the decision for me. I just said "That's it. It's a sign to leave". So I said "I'm going". I packed up my bag, walked out and said I'm going up the Rainbow. And I meant up to the Rainbow and to join Rainbow, you know sort of like that yeah. I walked in and Ritchie who sat at a table in the Rainbow and as I walked in he applauded and I thought wow that's amazing. Ritchie Blackmore was not one for giving compliments or anything easily or taking it light so for him to applaud as I walked in I thought "Oh, I've done something right". So I joined Rainbow that night at his table. I said "Okay, count me in" and we started rehearsals the next day. You didn't seem to have many problems with Ritchie. Do you think it's just because your personalities clicked? Yes, plus I knew the situation. It was head down, shoulder to the wheel, get on with it, be professional, be reliable and don't start bitching about anything. Just get on and I did. And that was all you really needed to do with Ritchie. It is do the job right, be conscientious, be reliable, be professional, and I didn't have a problem with him. But he seemed to have an issue against keyboard players. I read with interest there was a bit of a hierarchy Yes yes. I've read a lot of interviews with David Stone, even to this day he seems to have a bit of a grudge about... Ritchie this, Ritchie that... Yeah, there was a funny thing. I don't know what it was but Ritchie and keyboardplayers... I don't know if maybe in the earlier days were Purple that Jon Lord gave him a hard time but I knew Jon Lord well. I couldn't see Jon being like that with Ritchie. so where that came from I don't know but I know he gave David a hard time and Tony Carey the original keyboard player with Rainbow, he gave him a hard time as well. I think he traumatized Tony. There's been many many interviews with Tony being traumatized by Ritchie. When you laid down the tracks for "Long Live Rock'n'Roll", the album, you did four and you did one song as a band. Did you do multiple takes? Yeah that was 'Gates of Babylon' and 'Kill The King'. They were done but the weird thing is that they put Cozy in a different room. We had a like a TV camera and a screen so I could see him that way but it just felt different to being in the room with him that felt a bit weird. And actually I think 'Kill The King' may have been recorded and I put a bass on it and I did that at the board at the desk. That felt weird too, that was the first time I'd done that... But were they a multiple take type of band because I heard like 'Stargazer' was just done in two takes. Yeah it was more like that. It was like rehearse it, get it right, okay let's tape it, we'll do another take and it was sort of like that. There wasn't lots of takes of the same song. It was a couple of the songs that Ritchie had played bass on because the bassplayer they had... Ritchie got rid of him and then Ritchie played bass on some tracks inbetween getting me. So when I went in I did a few tracks and and the rest... one track didn't have bass on it, that was 'Rainbow Eyes'. The rest I did and the others Ritchie had already done. Were there any rehearsal ideas or jamming other songs? Is there anything in the can... in some archive somewhere out? No, I have rehearsal tapes and some of them were some of the songs that I have were released on a Rainbow album as bonus material a few years ago. All the songs are really just from the rehearsals so there's no new songs that we haven't heard before as like you know let's do something with this because no one's ever heard. They were just rehearsal tapes of those songs so I used to record the rehearsals, take them back to my hotel, and then practice along with them and make sure I had all parts right. That's how I have them. I liked your reference to Ritchie as an amazing guitarist but as a bass player.... What do you think is the main difference between a guitarist moonlighting as a bass player and the real thing? I don't know, I think if you become a bass player, because some of the great bass players have started out on guitar. Paul McCartney started out on guitar, John Entwistle started out on guitar, I think Ronnie Wood... he started out on guitar and played bass, he was a great bass player too. There been a lot of great bass players that started out on guitar but if you concentrate on just being a bassplayer you tend to start to think as a bassplayer rather than as a guitarist. Ritchie was technically and precise in his playing but he didn't think like a bassplayer and put in sort of passing notes or other bits that would be considered bassplaying sort of you know. He just sort of followed the song on a bass... I don't know, that's difficult to put into words.... Do you think it's a feel thing? Yes, partially a feel thing too and I think you do have to be thinking based be a bass player in your head. like I was about 14 when I first saw a band with an electric bass in it and and I thought wow that just it just got me it hit me in my heart sort of thing I thought that's what I want to do. I was playing guitar I started out learning guitar at guitar lessons and one week the guitar teacher brought in a little band with a rhythm guitar and a lead guitar and an electric bass and drums. and I say electric bass because in those days, it was 1964, electric bass was still relatively new. Some bands still had an upright double bass but when I heard the electric bass I thought "wow". I just loved it. It felt to me like it was the backbone, the spine of the music, the throbbing heart the... it was just the guts and the emotion and I thought that's what I want to do. So that's why you've got some lifelong relationships or friends with drummers because they're in the pocket with you, like Band of Brothers so to speak. Like with Lee... Yeah, as soon as Lee and I started playing together we knew there was something there. We right away clicked. In your book you talk about in 1997 that you were looking at putting Rainbow back together or proposing to put Rainbow back together. With hindsight,do you think that would have worked with the public in 1997? I think it would have created enough interest because there was enough Rainbow fans out there that certainly would have loved to have seen that. I'd spoken to Cozy, I'd spoken to Ronnie and I think Ronnie had spoken to Ritchie. And everybody was like "Yes, let's do this". I don't know what keyboardplayer it would have been. It could maybe Don Airey, I don't know. We didn't really discuss that but the four of us discussed the idea of putting Rainbow back together, doing an album and maybe some shows or whatever. It was becoming.... we've got the green light sort of thing and then Cozy was killed. We couldn't have done it without him. That was the end of that. Do you have a view on the latest Rainbow incarnation that Ritchie did with Ronnie Romero and the folks from Blackmore's Night? Do you have any views on that outfit? Well, I thought it was good and it was nice to see Ritchie playing that stuff again. if I had any... well this not a criticism, but I just thought when Ritchie was talking about the singer... he said "Oh, he's better than Ronnie"... I just thought "No".... this guy is good and Ronnie was good and they're different and it's not a matter of who's better or who's best that they were different singers and they were both good. It's like I get asked so many times "Who's the best guitar player you ever played with" because I've played with so many of the greats but I don't think there is a best. There is people who are right for the gig and you could say "Oh okay, you played with Yngwie, you played with Steve Morse and Steve Vai and Randy Rhoads and Ritchie Blackmore, now who's the best?" There is no best. It's just who's right for the for the time you know. It's like you could put Randy Rhoads in the Beatles and say "Oh, he's a better guitar player than George Harrison". But is he? No, George Harrison was the right guitar player for them. I think it's a bit like that... In your book you don't have a lot of regrets, but I get a bit of a a feeling about Rainbow that it's kind of a little bit unfulfilled. You would have loved to had one more album with them would that be fair to say? Yeah yeah! Just to continue one more year just to see how it would have gone kind of ground to a halt it got to a point where it was just floundering. I came back to London and I was waiting to hear what was going on and nobody seemed to know anything and there wasn't any sort of word from Ritchie and there was no word from the manager. And then Ronnie Dio phoned me and he said that that he was out of Rainbow and he said "I don't think this version of Rainbow is going to continue" and I thought "Oh dear". There was one time when Ronnie and I were waiting to go to do a soundcheck in the afternoon on the Rainbow tour in America and Ronnie said to me "If this band disbands or doesn't continue would you consider getting back a band together with me?" and I said "Yeah sure". So when Ronnie phoned me in London and he said he was out of the band and he was going to put his own band together and he said that version of Rainbow wasn't going to continue, so I said "Okay, then count me in". He said "I'll start looking for guitarists and keyboard players and I've got a record company in mind. Don't do anything, hold tight. I'll be back in touch". And he would phone every few weeks he'd phone and say I'm still on the case blah blah blah and so I wasn't really looking for anything. I didn't really sort of try to you know do anything else. So I was just waiting and then one day I walked up the street I we lived in Holland Park and I walked up the Holland Park Avenue and I got the... I think it might have been Melody Maker, one of the musicpapers and on the front page it said "Ronnie James Dio joins Black Sabbath" and I thought "Oh, thanks for telling me". But that was that, he joined Sabbath Rock Daydream Nation - January 21, 2024