Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake sued their former bandmate and his manager/wife Sharon over performance royalties for two Ozzy Osbourne albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” (1980) and “Diary of a Madman” (1981).  Kerslake and Daisley’s dispute over publishing royalties will be decided via arbitration not in court. 

Daisley and Kerslake have been battling the Osbournes over these issues for 20 years since they were fired from the group. The latest slavo in the battle was fired by the Osbournes when they released reissues of the two albums Daisley and Kerslake originally played on with new drum and bass tracks supplied by Osbourne’s current band members, thus erasing any trace of the musicians performances on those albums. 

Then last month Bob Daisley heated up the dispute by dropping a new bombshell, Daisley told the Canadian music publication Chart Attack, that he in fact wrote the lyrics to the classic Ozzy songs, not Ozzy! 

"Ozzy didn't write lyrics" Daisley told Chart Attack." He never wrote lyrics in Sabbath — Geezer Butler wrote all those lyrics and Randy [Rhoads] wasn't a lyricist, and  Lee Kerslake wasn't a lyricist, so I took over the lyricist job.” 

"Ozzy doesn't play an instrument and he's not all that musical," said Daisley. "He's got good ideas as far as melodies go, but usually the melodies came after the music hadbeen put together, and most of the music [on Blizzard] was put together by me and Randy, and for the second album, me, Randy and Lee."

Daisley is once again speaking to the press about the case, this week he spoke with Yahoo’s Launch Media and explained what happened all those years ago that lead to the current confrontation. 

"Lee Kerslake and myself were fired after recording the Diary Of A Madman album. During 1980 and the beginning of 1981, contracts were drawn up and went backwards and forwards from our lawyers to their lawyers,” Daisley told reporter Bruce Simon of Launch Media. “We were told to keep working, that it would be eventually all sorted out. The contracts were actually physical, but not actually signed. And then when we got fired, we brought up the situation of royalties, and they just said, 'Oh, well. End of story--you're out of the band. Off you go.'"

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