Bassist Bob Daisley has a shameful secret: he actually started out as a guitarist. “I had guitar lessons for about a year,” he told Bass Player in 2014. “But when I saw my first-ever bass guitar in a band, I instantly went ‘that's what I want to play; that's for me.’ I just loved the warmth, sound and strength of it.”
Daisley's first break came in 1972 with Stan Webb's Chicken Shack. He later joined Mungo Jerry, and then went on to form Widowmaker. As fate would have it, on the eve of Widowmaker breaking up, Daisley came to the attention of Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who asked him to join his group Rainbow.
“Rainbow had already auditioned, like, 40 bass players prior and couldn't find anybody they liked. So when I auditioned, Ritchie put me through the paces and got me to try different styles of bass playing. He also definitely wanted someone who used a pick – which I did – because of the precision and hardness. After the audition Ritchie said, 'You're the one we're looking for – you've got the gig.’
“Funnily enough, I said that I'd think about it. People had warned me about how Ritchie chewed up and spat out musicians almost every day. But later I accepted the position. I had a good time with him. I liked his sense of humor.”
A huge fan of vintage Fender basses played through Ampeg or Marshall valve heads, Daisley also toured and recorded with Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, Gary Moore, Uriah Heep, Yngwie Malmsteen, and many others.
Who were your early bass influences?
“I loved the feel and groove of The Rolling Stones’ rhythm section – Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman – I starting listening to Bill Wyman's bass playing a lot. Later on, The Beatles and Paul McCartney became one of my major bass influences, especially with The Beatles’ later material like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper.
“As to other influences, there was also James Jamerson and the stuff he did for Motown, and Jack Bruce. When I first heard Jack playing with Cream, I thought wow, he's playing how I feel – with aggression and balls!”
So what sort of gear did you have in those early years?
“The first bass I ever had was a Futurama that my mum bought for me in 1964. A couple of years later I got a Maton bass and a Vox T60 cabinet – the same one that McCartney used – along with a custom made 60 watt head.
“From that bass I progressed to a semi-acoustic Gibson EB-2, which were very popular in the ‘60s. Nearly every bass player in a band back then had one of those.”
So how did you find it working with Ritchie Blackmore?
“I knew he could be a bit strange at times and had a reputation... but he was a decent bloke. He used to hold séances sometimes, but he was also against anything dark.
“I remember walking into a bar with him one night and we sat down and the guy behind the bar had an upside-down cross around his neck. Ritchie turned to me and said, ‘Look at that fuckin' idiot; what does he think he's doing? Doesn't he realise what he's fuckin' with?’
“But Rainbow was a professionally run outfit; there was no rampant drug use. All Ritchie would ever do was have a good drink – we all would, really – and Cozy Powell would take a little bit of speed every now and again just to perk himself up. Or Cozy and Ritchie would sometimes take a Mandrax with a few drinks after a gig to go to bed. But that was about it.”
The Rainbow record you appeared on, 1978’s Long Live Rock & Roll, you played on only a few tracks?
“The reason I just played on some of the tracks was because some of them had already been done with Ritchie playing bass on them 'cos they didn't have a bass player while they were recording.
“I played my '61 Precision bass on Kill the King and Sensitive to Light, and on Gates of Babylon I used an early '50s Fender Precision. Amp-wise, I used Ritchie's 20 watt Marshalls and 4x12s.”
How much input did Ritchie and Ronnie James Dio allow you in the process?
“Ritchie and Ronnie were great songwriters and they didn't need any input. They wrote the stuff, put it together and we just played it. Though I had a fairly free hand; I wasn't told to do that much. But Ritchie did have strong set ideas on what he wanted.”
After Rainbow, you hooked up with Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads and later bringing in Lee Kerslake, to record Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. What was the process like for those albums?
“When we recorded Blizzard, we were actually all playing together in the studio; like we didn't put down a drum track and build on it. We put the bass, drums and rhythm guitar down all together at the same time. Then Randy would overdub his solos and later we'd overdub any keyboard parts and vocals.
“I used a Gibson EB-3 bass on that record with one of Randy's 100-watt Marshall heads through a 4x12 cab. I went straight in without effects, though on Goodbye To Romance, I did use a bit of chorus and switched to the Fender Precision.
“For Diary of a Madman, I used an Ampeg SVT with an 8x10 cab and a '61 Fender Precision bass. That album was recorded a year after Blizzard, in April of 1981.”
What do you remember about those days with Ozzy?
“I remember one time while we were rehearsing and writing the first album and auditioning drummers – this was before Lee Kerslake came onboard – we had some song ideas together.
“But I came down one morning and Ozzy and Randy had a bit of paper and a pen and had been jotting down some lyrics. I took one look at it and just said, ‘Those are fuckin' awful!’
“Sometimes Ozzy wasn't productive, and he'd drink too much. Even when we were auditioning for drummers, I remember saying, ‘Ozzy, it's midday and you're half-pissed. If we find the right guy, what happens when he looks at you and just says, ‘Fuck this, I'm not working with him?’ It probably pissed him off, but I wanted to be professional and sometimes he wasn’t.”
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