In a recent interview with Tone-Talk, Bob Daisley criticized the 2002 re-recordings of’Blizzard of Ozz,’ calling them disrespectful and unnecessary.
“Yeah, that sort of stuff happens. I’ve seen it with people like the Rolling Stones and that to how they take Bill Wyman out of photographs and change things or rewrite history and that… I mean really when you think about it, it’s pathetic,” the bassist said.
Daisley had previously expressed similar thoughts. In a 2021 interview with Rolling Stone, he discussed his reaction upon discovering that his parts were re-recorded on the first two Ozzy Osbourne albums. “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?'” he stated.
He went on to explain, “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,” Bob added.
He concluded by mentioning, “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.”
In 1986, Daisley and Lee Kerslake won a lawsuit against Ozzy Osbourne over unpaid royalties and earned songwriting credits for ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ and ‘Diary of a Madman.’ In 2002, these albums were reissued with new bass and drum parts by Mike Bordin and Robert Trujillo.
Sharon Osbourne claimed that Ozzy wanted to remove Daisley and Kerslake due to their behavior, but Ozzy later clarified that it was Sharon’s decision and that he wasn’t aware of it. Initially, the reissue didn’t include a sticker explaining the changes, but it was added later following fan complaints. In 2003, the lawsuit was dismissed, and the 30th Anniversary editions now feature the original recordings.
