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Taken from Ultimate-Guitar (Jan 26, 2022)

Don Airey Describes What Randy Rhoads Was Like on His Last Tour, Talks How Rhoads' Death Affected Him

"I don't think he was a very happy guy towards the end. He wasn't happy with the way things were going."

by The_Phoenician


Don Airey and Randy Rhoads. Photomontage
Don Airey and Randy Rhoads. Photomontage


Don Airey has had more than fifty years of experience as a professional keyboardist, over the course of which he helped shape rock history by playing in some of the genre's biggest names. He played on Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Variations"; he masterminded the keyboards for Black Sabbath's "Never Say Die!"; with Ozzy Osbourne, he helped launch one of rock's most iconic solo careers through "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Bark At The Moon"; he worked the dreamy keyboard magic on "Whitesnake"; he took part in Judas Priest's resurrection through "Painkiller" - all while having a solo career and many other things on top. In 2002, Airey joined Deep Purple's permanent lineup after filling in for John Lord on several gigs, and he remains with the band even today.


Airey's experience makes his perspective unlike any other out there, and it's pretty clear that the man could tell some very unique stories - such as the ones he recently told Rolling Stone's Andy Greene, as part of the magazine's "Unknown Legends" series.


Airey also used to tour, and was close friends with most of those bands - among other things, he was also the sole witness to the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, whom he still remembers often. When asked to describe meeting Randy for the first time, Airey replied:


"I first met him at the studio, Ridge Farm. He was very quiet. He gave off this lovely vibe. He was a sweet guy, a good-looking guy. You saw him and went, "He has a real rock god kind of thing." But he was very quiet. He had a very gentle sense of humor, and he wanted to know all about Gary Moore from me. It was a very good session, the first Blizzard of Ozz album. This was 1980 when I was still in Rainbow."


Six years Randy's senior, Airey already had an impressive portfolio when he came in to record "Blizzard of Ozz", including Gary Moore's 1978 "Back on the Streets". Airey was brought in to give the album a finishing touch with his keyboard magic, as the vast majority of material had already been written by Randy Rhoads and Ozzy Osbourne previously. When asked to describe what stage the album was at when he arrived, Daisley replied:


"I just came in to do keyboard overdubs. They'd finished the album, more or less. They had all the tracks and rough vocals on everything. I think the first track they played me was "Crazy Train." They wanted me to put something on it. I went, "I've got nothing to add to that! I'd just spoil it."The guitar playing was just immense. I'd never heard anyone play quite like Randy."


Tell me about making "Mr. Crowley."


"They played me the song and went, "We need some kind of intro." The thing that was funny was that I had all the keyboards in the control room. And there was Max Norman, the engineer, there. And the band were sitting behind the desk like a judge and jury. I threw them all out and said, "Come back in half an hour and see what I come up with."

"Out they went and Ozzy came back after half an hour. We played him what we'd done and he was like, "It was like you plugged into my head." That was that. I then added a few bits and pieces to the actual track. But there wasn't a lot you could do with that track. The guitar just said everything. I didn't want to spoil it."



How many Blizzard of Ozz songs do you think you play on?


"I only played on four or five tracks. I played on "Goodbye to Romance." I put that trumpet thing on at the end. I also played on "Revelation (Mother Earth)" and "Suicide Solution." The guitar wasn't finished on "Suicide Solution." I think the last thing I did on that was with Randy. He played me the part and there was a Hammond organ. When you hear the guitar, it's an amazing sound, but there's a Hammond organ in there with him. It's very tied to him.

"He really listened and he really made you listen to what he was doing. You hear the Hammond at the end where it goes into a bit of a freak out. It's quite a disturbing track at the end."



Why weren't you on Diary of a Madman?


"Ozzy phoned me up about doing it, but I couldn't since I was still on tour with Rainbow. I didn't make any contribution to it."


But you went on the tour.


"Yeah. And I have many fond memories of Randy from it. It was in the days before mobile phones or internet. We'd find ourselves in a hotel in Rhode Island, just the four of us. Ozzy and Sharon weren't there. The tour manager wasn't there. We didn't know how we were going to get to the next gig.

"We didn't know who to phone. We tried to management in Los Angeles, but there was no answer. And so Randy goes, "I know what to do." He went off and came back with this big tray with eight Long Island iced teas. He put them down and said, "This will sort the problem out."

"We started drinking these iced teas. And sure enough, by the time we finished them, the tour bus had turned up. And off we went.
"He had some lovely quirks about him. He used to carry a little portable television with him. If there was a lapse in the conversation, he'd just take it out and plug it in and start watching cartoons or something."


Randy Rhoads would tragically lose his life in the notorious plane crash of March 19, 1982. The band and its crew had spent the previous night at the Flying Baron Estates in Leesburg, Florida, where they stopped to fix the tour bus's broken air conditioning. On the morning of March 19, the bus driver Andrew Aycock (who also worked as a personal pilot) found a single-engine Beechcraft F35 plane and started taking some of the touring crew for joyrides. He took Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan on the first flight, and Rhoads and the makeup artist Rachel Youngblood on the second. Some time during the second flight, one of the plane's wings broke after clipping the tour bus. The plane then crashed into a nearby garage and burned, killing all three passengers.


Don Airey was the only person to witness the crash, as he was standing nearby while trying to take pictures of the flight for Randy's mother.


After the tragedy, you kept playing shows. It must have been really hard emotionally.


"We couldn't believe what had happened. We were like, "What have we done to deserve that?" It wasn't like the band was a mad bunch of party animals. Sharon kept a tight rein on everything, which I loved. It was a great band to be in. There were no drinks backstage and hardly any drinks on the bus. It was great.

"We were all in terrible shock, but we eventually started to try and find a replacement guitarist. What do you do? You have to carry on. We ended up in L.A. and we auditioned various people, none of which were very suitable. Bernie Torme came in for a few gigs, but he just got overwhelmed by everyone being so upset. It just affected him. He said he couldn't work like that.

"Eventually Brad Gillis turned up. I went in a room with Brad and we started going through the set. After two songs, I was like, "You know this. God bless you, man." He just knew everything, so we didn't have the agony of teaching someone Randy's guitar parts.

"Brad just slotted right in. It was his first real gig. He turned up somewhere like Baltimore. He paid his own fare and had $10 left in his pocket. He did such a great job, and he put everybody at rest. We were able to do the shows and carry on, but the sadness was just enormous."


The trauma must still affect you today.


"I think about Randy every day. I can still hear him. I remember the last time I spoke to Ozzy, I said, "I can still hear his guitar in my head." I can still hear his laugh. He had a very infectious giggle if he liked something. He'd have this laugh.

"When I first joined the band, we'd go in the back of the gig and there would always be a live tape of the show. I very much sensed that the British way of playing keyboards wasn't going to fit with that band. I had to find something different. I was looking for a lot more sound effects from the synthesizers, voices. We had a vocoder onstage and I was doing a lot of effects. I was putting more of a halo around the sound than actually being part of the sound.

"If Randy liked something when I played it on the tape, he'd let out this laugh. I knew I was doing alright. He was a lovely guy to work with, but he was also a very imposing figure. He knew what he wanted, and he was a force to be reckoned with.

"I don't think he was a very happy guy towards the end. He wasn't happy with the way things were going. I used to say to him, "Don't worry about it, man. In 10 years' time, you won't think anything of this. You're young. You get ups and downs and disappointments. You've just go to ride it." It was hard work being on the road with the Ozzy Osbourne band. It was five or six gigs a week."





 
 

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