The Daizies Part 3: The Risible Rise, Further Fall and Demise of the Rock Legends
The Daizies Part 3:
The Risible Rise, Further Fall and Demise of the Rock Legends
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In Part 3 Wayne talks about the rebirth of Rock in the 80's.
The time of the 'New Wave of British Heavy Metal' and for the band more problems on tour, but this time in South America.
Also their involvement in the 'Band Aid' charity phenomenon and the challenges of Grunge, Thrash Metal and the Reagan-Thatcher politico-economic environment.
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"So we were ready to rock as we entered the ninth decade of the twentieth century. Discussing this with Bash he asked why it wasn't 2090 instead of 1980, I couldn't be bothered explaining it to him and told him he should have stuck in at school. He threw back in my face that I had once been "a fakkin' Quantity surveyor!!". How our dark deeds come back to haunt us.
Ronnie, Maggie and the NWOBHM
Momentous events were happening all over the world, the rise of militant Islam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Cold War tensions between the great Superpowers. Oliver's dad became a virulent anti-communist as the Russians had cut off 50% of his heroin supply after the fall of Kabul. He got nicked a couple of years later anyway for VAT fraud.
We had a B-movie cowboy in the White House, which started a modern trend, inner-city riots in England, the Miners Strike and Maggie bashing the unions with one hand while hand-bagging the Europeans with the other. It was a time of Thatcherism, Reaganomics, nuclear re-armament and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal or NWOBHM as it was affectionately known. Even Maggie got in the act, appearing on early Iron Maiden record sleeves."
"But Jacky was perplexed , "Ne-wob'im?? , Na-woo-bum??, how the bloody hell do you pronounce it??" he asked. He had a point as it did sort of come up short in the old acronyming department. I mean R n'B , AOR and MOR have a catchy ring to them, even 'jazz', 'punk' and 'thrash' have an excitement and a drama in the phonetics, but NWOBHM?
Anyway, fine bands they were, well some of them. We had Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard top of the heap, although the Leps did disappear pretty smartish to become huge in America. I must admit I was a bit jealous considering our pure unmitigated over there."
Playing the festivals
"But Heavy Metal was back and so were we.
We played a lot of festivals in the 80's most notably the 'West Taunton Cider Harvest' , 'Dagenham Blitzkrieg' and the 'Pockle-ma-Humpty Gathering' up in Scotland.
Never got invited to 'Monsters of Rock' but we did play Reading a couple of times and had fantastic gigs.
Even the year I got sunstroke and Oliver got knocked out by a bottle full of urine , thrown by Bash from behind the drumkit.
He was still drinking a lot then. To add insult to injury the top came off on impact, so the first-aid guys deserved a medal for bravery. The head of security asked us if we knew where it came from , we pointed in the vague direction of the left of the crowd or maybe the right and up the back somewhere we thought. The crowd were chanting 'Bash! Bash!' and pointing at him, so we pretended they wanted a drum solo and he duly obliged until Oliver came round."
"Our albums 'Hot n' Horny' and 'Headbang Jesus' sold well and into the bargain we got some free publicity from Mary Whitehouse (social commentator or rhyming slang?, we wondered). We didn't get embroiled in all that hidden backward messages controversy, because we just put them in the lyrics in the usual forward direction and nobody bothered us. So things were going really well."
"We toured extensively in the 80's, even the far East, as far east as Hull Civic Centre.
But seriously we played gigs in Europe, including some of the best 'leisure' clubs and massage parlours that the Continent had to offer. Our tour of South America in the autumn of 1982 didn't go down too well as they were still narked about the Falklands War.
We had to cancel a gig in Beunos Aires in case hostilities were re-opened against the nearest Brits, namely ...us! But I learnt some choice Spanish phrases, "puta madre" and "follacabras" being the choicest but I wouldn't have said them in front of Mary Whitehouse."
A clamour for glamour
"And just when things were going so well, dark clouds were a-looming overhead.
Yes! The New Romantics flounced onto the scene with their laquered hair, outrageous gear, caked in make-up and prancing about on stage like badly-dressed transvestites."
"And then there was Motley Crue!! Glam Rock was back, spandex trousers, poodle perms and lipstick!
I was having flashbacks to the 70's so I was, without the drugs. But what the hell! , each to their own.
We got on OK with the pantomime dames, we even met Boy George at the Band-Aid get-together along with his pal Marilyn who had an androgynous dog called 'Puffball', it takes all sorts.
We arived 6 hours late after a points failure at Willesden Junction and missed most of it but you can hear me singing in the background just before the fade-out. Probably lucky we were late as Parfitt and Rossi's cocaine stash had been well used up by then. We were staying clean, if not totally sober."
Hear n' Aid
"We didn't appear at Live Aid as Bash had been given a life ban from Wembley Stadium after an incident at the F.A. Cup Final in 1984. But me and Jacky went to the ‘Hear n' Aid’ recording organised by Ronnie James Dio. We enjoyed that, although Jacky dislocated his left pinky trying to keep up with Yngwie Malmsteen.
It was put back into place by Don Dokken and the scream was included on the original tapes. However, it was mysteriously missing in the finished version, although we heard on the grapevine that Rob Halford got it cut as he didn't like the competition. Never took him for the envious type."
"Can't complain too much overall as we had good times in the 80's , 'greed is good' , 'loadsamoney' and 'luvvly jubbly me ol' darlin'. We made more cash than ever in those years but I was older and wiser and invested a lot of dough in public utilities, blue-chip trading companies and a nice little pension plan. There was still a bit of the quantity surveyor in me. I even invested in Eric Daley's anchovy farm."
A New World Order
"Into the '90's , a 'New World Order' as President Bush said, we were no longer under the tyrannical thumb of the unholy trinity and axis of evil of Stock, Aitken and Waterman.
They were on the wane, their dictatorship of the music scene was coming to an end.
No more subjection to Rick Astley's carefully coiffured hair or Saville Row suits, no more Kylie warblings and electronic pap.
But alas, it was not to be. Jeez!! even Angry Anderson sang the wedding theme for the Australian TV soap 'Neighbours', he must have calmed down a lot to have agreed to that."
"As it was George Orwell's '1984' was now a History book and 'Space 1999' was losing it's credibility, despite the unexpected comeback of flared trousers years later. It was the decade of the break up of the Soviet Empire, the break up of the Berlin Wall, the break up of Tory dominance and worst of all the break up of The Daizies, at least for a few years.
Hard to decide what was the most traumatic. The comparisons were clear, we were living under the totalitarian order of Oliver and his Dad and the brutality of Bash on the vodka and coke. The cracks in our wall were crumbling."
Calling it a day
"It was 1995 when we threw in the towel as a band. It was the time of Grunge, Thrash and even Brit Rock, we were Rock dinosaurs consigned to our very own Jurassic Park of club dates and appearances on Breakfast TV. How ignominious, how degrading!!
The Rock world wanted Metallica, they wanted Nirvana and those Mancunian hooligans 'Oasis'. Beatles in disguise I said, and unconvicted house-burglars into the bargain. Two for the price of one, can't say fairer than that. We decided to get out while we were at the bottom. We went on our 25th Anniversary Tour the previous year and decided to make that our farewell tour, since not many people turned up anyway."
And then we went our separate ways.
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The Daizies 4
- The Fading then Falling with Slight Return and Back in Fashion Rise of the Rock Lege
In the fourth and final part of this revealing interview Wayne talks about his environmental work, the solo projects of the band members and the comeback of The Daizies as they moved into the 21st century celebrating their 40th anniversary.