In a recent episode of their podcast, The Osbournes discussed the existence of former Ozzy bassist Bob Daisley's so-called "Holy Grail" demos, which are said to contain seven hours of unreleased material featuring the late Randy Rhoads, recorded during the writing sessions for Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman albums.
Jack Osbourne, Ozzy's son, raised the topic, stating that someone had commented on a post asking when Ozzy would allow Daisley to release the recordings: "Someone commented on a post someone and it was like, 'Oh when's Ozzy going to let Bob Daisley release the recordings of Randy Rhoads writing in the studio?'"
"Supposedly – I don't know if it exists – but there's audio recordings of Randy, Dad and Daisley writing stuff for Blizzard… or Diary… and Daisley's gone out and said, 'Oh Ozzy's not letting me release it.' I turned around and said, 'Why should he release it? He should give it to Randy's family and it should be up to them if they release it or not.'" Jack added.
Ozzy, however, seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea, stating that the quality of the recordings was subpar: "The quality sucks. He'd record everything we ever did. He would record the fucking milkman… The quality is fucking dreadful."
Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy's wife, chimed in, agreeing that the recordings were not good enough to be released and that it was up to Randy Rhoads' estate to decide what to do with them: "He recorded on a cassette machine. A tiny little cassette machine. And it's not for us to do anything with."
As usual, there are always three sides to each story, and Daisley, recently offered his comments regarding the matter in a new interview with Artists On Record Starring ADIKA Live!: "Well, I don't know if Ozzy's actually heard it. There are snippets of what I have on my web site … And the quality is not bad at all. And it's not a little cassette player. It was done on my boombox that I used to record all our rehearsals on.
"I used to record the rehearsals really just for us to have a reference of what we were doing as we were writing because the famous last words, 'Oh, we'll remember that tomorrow,' and I'd never, ever wanted to take that chance. So, I used to record everything. That was the only reason I recorded everything, was so I'd have a reference the next day and we wouldn't forget anything. But it's pretty good quality, actually, for having been recorded on a cassette player — a big cassette player, one of those boomboxes; in those days, they were called ghetto blasters. People don't call them that anymore"
"But if anybody wants to hear the quality for themselves, they can judge. It's on my web site. I put snippets there. I put a snippet for the anniversary of Randy's death. I put a snippet there for the when Lee Kerslake passed away. There's, I think, three or four snippets of about 30 or 40 seconds long. You can play 40 seconds of something legally without having to get permission." Daisley added.
Elaborating about the quality of the recordings, Daisley enthused: "I remember there was a couple of guys that came here, Andrew Klein and Peter M. Margolis, to do a film on Randy many years ago — it must be 10 or 12 years ago or something. And I played Andrew Klein some of what I had. And as soon as I started playing it, he said, 'Oh.' He said, 'Man, people would just shit.' That's what his words were. I'm just repeating exactly what he said, 'cause I remember it word for word. He said, 'People would just shit if they could hear this.'
"It's rehearsal studio quality. It's not bad. It's not recording studio quality, mastered like a finished product. Although, having said that, in this day and age, with modern technology, we can clean things up, separate things, do all sorts of things to improve it. I have about eight hours worth of this stuff, of us writing songs. I mean, there's repetitions of songs. There might be six different versions of 'Crazy Train' several different versions of 'Mr. Crowley' or whatever else. And there's us with ideas that didn't get used and us clowning about and us jamming. It's all good stuff, though."
Maybe someday we might get a chance to hear the music that was created during those legendary sessions, despite the less-than-ideal recording quality, but I suggest you don't hold your hopes too high.
