Don Airey Interview

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hello Don, welcome to TrueMetal, how are you doing?

I’m good, not too bad, you?

I’m good, thank you.

Where are you?

I’m in Milan, Italy.

Oh, Italy, right.

And, it’s funny, I’ve just seen your niece yesterday, she was playing with Girlschool here, they’re touring with Saxon.

Oh, Girlschool right, yeah, yeah.

You got this new solo album, “Pushed To The Edge”, being released soon. I’ve been listening to it for the past few days and really like it. But the first thing I was wondering about this album, before we even start talking about the music itself: you just released an album with Deep Purple last year. You’re releasing this new album now. Can you talk to me about the timing, the timeline of the songwriting? Like, did you work on this after you were done with the Deep Purple one?

Oh, no, this was actually recorded six years ago. Before COVID. And it was 2019 and I was thinking, you know, things were starting to wind down with Purple a bit. But Steve [Morse] didn’t want to continue, [Ian] Gillan was talking about taking some time off. So I thought, well, I better… I’m going to do something with Simon [McBride] while I’ve got the chance. We got together with Carl Sentence and did a few rehearsals. And then we recorded for a week with Dave Marks on bass and John Finnegan on drums, which was our touring band. And it was all very quick. And then, of course, COVID came. We didn’t do the vocals and half the solos till after COVID. And then lockdown came again. So, it got mixed in ‘22. And then, of course, Simon joined Deep Purple, so we had an album to do. This got put on the back burner. I was very surprised when I got the call saying they were going to release it. And I thought that…

Didn’t you try and push to have it released earlier?

No, no. Well, I mean, it just wasn’t possible because, you know, Simon was in Purple. We had an album to make. You can’t have everything, can you? [Laughs]

So, as I was saying, I really like this album. And something that I really like in particular is that sometimes when a musician goes solo, they tend to focus a lot on their instrument. And it almost looks like a showcase of their skill rather than a collection of songs. While here, I mean, your keyboard works very well, but in the context of complete songs. Like, it’s more focused on the compositions rather than on you, your instrument itself. So, I was wondering, would it be fair to say that you have no interest in maybe making another album that’s more focused on keyboards?

I mean, this one, it was done so quickly and it was done with the band in mind. And I said to the guys, what we need to do is just pretend we’re playing live. So, a lot of the solos are live. You know, there’s different sections for each song, you know, nothing’s under four minutes long except for one track. I’ve never really thought about doing a keyboard album as such. I did one a few years ago, “K2”, which had lots of keyboards on it. But I much prefer working in a band, you know.

And it seems, from what you told me, that you were working really together as a band as opposed to just you doing it all on your own, even though it’s your solo album.

Yeah, no, we had a lot of ideas from the rehearsals. And Carl and I, we’ve been writing songs together for years, so we had a lot of ideas. So, really, it was a bunch of ideas which I’d get up early in the morning and put them into a song. So, we did two a day. That was the object. And kind of me calling the shots. You know, very much me calling the shots. [Laughs]

A song that really stuck out to me that I really liked is Rock the Melody with sort of oriental melodies. Do you remember when those came from? Do you have any specific inspiration in mind when you worked on that?

Oh, the actual riff came from Simon. He just played it. He said, well, I’ve got this Indian idea [sings the riff] and it all came from that, you know? I think I did the rest of it really. But he came up with that bit. And I thought, you know, Carl would write a song about spiritual awareness as he sailed down the Ganges on a boat, you know. But he didn’t. He just didn’t get further than his basement. It’s a great lyrics section.

And is it the same with all songs? Like you start from a singular idea and you develop them into a song or sometimes you just work on the whole thing at the same time all together?

I think the riff always comes first. If you hear a good riff you seize on it, but you can’t keep playing it all the time. You’ve got to go to a middle bit and a verse, work out where you’re gonna go for the solos, how you’re gonna end it. I mean rock’n’roll is riff based, you know, or heavy rock.

And do you think you’ll be touring to support this album? Are you planning to do that?

Well, the band on the album is pretty much, we’ve done three tours before, we do a tour every year of clubs and small theatres. Just three weeks. We had an album before called “One of a Kind”. And then other times we’d play greatest hits kind of thing. And we were going to do one in 2019, which was based on my time in Colosseum II, so, you know, it was going to be a fusion section in the show. You know, we’d always try and do something different. So, depending on what happens this year with various bits and pieces, I think maybe in autumn, we’ll be getting together a few gigs. We’ll be going out and will be playing this material live.

Of course, with Deep Purple and all the other huge bands that you played with, you are used to touring much bigger venues than what you do when you were on your own. Is it inspiring and refreshing for you to also being able to play the smaller venues, or is it always the same from your perspective?

It’s a good thing to do. I mean we have a tour bus, and we have a trailer with all the gear in, and we have a couple of road crew and everybody chips in. Simon sets up his guitars, I do my best to do what I can to help with the keyboards or whatever, whatever needs doing. Then, of course, after the gig you get in the bus and you’re off through the mountains to the next gig. It can be pretty wonderful, sometimes, a wonderful vibe. It’s a different vibe in a club to say an arena.

As I was saying, yesterday I’ve seen your niece, and I read online that also your brothers, Keith and Paul, are musicians as well. Of course, we can say that right now your family is very musical, but was it the same when you were growing up? Are your parents musicians or into music? Is that where your interest in music came from?

Yeah, we had a piano in the house. My father was a pretty good piano player. Fats Waller. Fats Waller was his god, and he could play like Fats Waller, you know. My mother played a bit as well, and my brother Paul played piano. The school bus used to arrive at the end of the street, and me and Paul would race down the street to see who could get to the piano first. I always won because I was older than him, and he still goes on about it. [Laughs] So I beat him to the piano. Keith was a very successful guitar player. He worked with Nick Kershaw, all kinds of different bands. He’d been on a couple of my solo albums. He was a London musician. He did adverts. He played in Mamma Mia for 20 years, I think. He’s retired now. He lives in France in some style.

In the past few weeks, I think that something that has been a bit on everyone’s mouth is Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final concert, and a lot of people from his life, his past, his career, have been invited. I was wondering if you’ve been contacted about this gig?

In a word, no. [Laughs]

And is it something that you’d like to participate in?

Well, we just heard from Rival Sons that they’ve just joined the mill. So they said they’ll get us in. [Laughs] Maybe I’ll go along. Yeah, it’s pretty… It feels like the end of an era, you know. It’s going to be Ozzy‘s last gig, I think. Which is a sad day, I think, for music and life in general. He’s added something to the world, I think, in his own sweet way.

And talking about him, I know there is a lot of love for the early days of his solo band, when you were in it. For the band, for I think Randy Rhoads in particular, there is a lot of love for him. When you think of those days, do you have any particular stories that come to your mind? What are your best memories of those times?

[Laughs] I used to say with Ozzy, something extraordinary used to happen every day. Things never quite went to plan. But it was a great band to be in. I don’t think… We always turned up. We always did a good show. The days off, Ozzy could get a bit, you know, a bit off kilter. But I remember once we played in New York somewhere and then the next gig was in Baltimore. We arrived at Baltimore at six in the morning on the tour bus. And there were all these tour buses outside the hotel. You know, I wonder who this is. “Oh, it’s the Grateful Dead”. But the Grateful Dead had two tour buses for the band, and then they had eight buses for the Deadheads. They booked a hotel, you know. There was a message waiting for us when we walked in the hotel at six in the morning. You know, “Jerry Garcia invites you all to the top floor”. So we went up the top floor, and the corridor was just lined with hippies. Sleeping in the corridor [laughs]. And we walked along with Ozzy. And it was a big long corridor. And suddenly a door opened at the far end and Jerry Garcia came out. So there was all this and it was like Moses crossing the Red Sea [laughs]. This great meeting of these two bands at six o’clock in the morning. So we went into Jerry Garcia‘s suite and we all had a beer. And then we went down for breakfast and then went to bed, you know. But it was, oh well, kind of normal start to the day. [Laughs]

I think the intro you play on Mr. Crowley is probably one of the most recognizable and beloved intros in Metal. What do you remember of writing that piece of music?

Yeah, I was working on the album for them. I came down to do the keyboards and they said they wanted an intro. And all the keyboards were in the control room and they were always sitting along it. I started playing and I said, “Guys, get up. Get out. Give me half an hour. Come back in half an hour.”. So, it was just me and Max Norman, the engineer. And Ozzy came back and listened. He said, “It’s like you plugged into my head.”. Well, actually, he said, [Imitates Ozzy] “It’s like you plugged into my fucking head, man.”. I said, “Will it do then?”. He said, “Yeah, that’ll do.”. So that was that. Half an hour.

You mentioned some of the stories from your career, and I imagine you could have so many more to tell. Have you ever thought of writing a biography?

Well, I’ve written a lot of it down. I’m kind of writing the book, and the publishers are interested. “How are you doing?”. I’m always halfway through, you know, because career keeps going on [laughs] and on and on [laughs]. But I’m going to finish it this year. So, I’m making a determined effort. I know I’m quite amazed when I look back at some of the things I’ve done and what I’ve been through. It’s quite unusual, especially now. You know, it’s so long ago. It’s a different world that we live in now to the one I grew up in, musically. So many things have changed and yet nothing’s changed, you know, with music, really. It’s the same story. You know, what you need is a tune and a riff. When you’re somebody who looks alright and can sell it, you know. I remember Crosby, Stills and Nash saying something. The first time they toured, they toured for the girls. The second time it was for the money. And the third tour was for the music. [Laughs] And that’s something that always stuck with me. Being in a band, for me, when I first joined a band when I was in my teenage years, life changed. My life changed. I went from being a rather lonely, academic kind of guy who was interested in Chopin and Schumann to… You know, the world opened up to me, even though it just meant playing different places in my hometown. But sometimes going 12 miles to do a gig. And of course, you know, chased by girls and making new friends. It was very exciting. And it’s still the same, really.

I think for usually there are two ways to go about becoming a musician. For some, it just happens, they just like playing music and somehow, they get a career. And some really set out to become a musician, to become big rock stars or whatever. What was it like for you? Were you really determined to get into this or did you just start playing and somehow things…

I think the main thing, I had a wonderful teacher, I was at a music college, conservatory for a time. And I had a wonderful teacher, he was Polish, and he said, [Imitates a Polish accent] “The three most important things: practice, practice, practice.”. You know, and I think that’s the secret. You’ve got to concentrate on your playing. And musicians say to me, how do we make it big? I said, concentrate on the middle eight. Make it interesting, you know, and know where you’re going and know how you’re going to end the song. And how are you going to begin it? You know, if you take care of the music, the music will take care of you. And that’s the most important thing. And that’s what people have forgotten in the last few years, I think. It’s all about image and making it quickly. A lot of people have, you know, died because they had nothing inside that was real. They’re all faking it, I think. Mind you, that’s what the music business is, faking it. [Laughs]

And do you still practice a lot?

Yeah, yeah, I do. Well, you’ve got to. If you’re playing with Simon McBride, you better be ready, you know. [Laughs]

You never got to the point where you’re like, “Well, now I’m a big rock star. I don’t need to do that anymore.”?

I always remember, I was working with an orchestra, and one of the violin players said to me, he said, if I don’t practice for a day, I notice. If I don’t practice for two days, my colleagues notice. He said, if I don’t practice for three days, the audience notice. So, you’ve got to keep at it, you’ve got to keep it up. And you’ve always got to try and accomplish something each day, musically, that you didn’t do before. You just can’t lie in bed thinking, “Oh, that was good. [Laugh] I love that thing I wrote 35 years ago”, you know. [Laughs]

Going back to the “Pushed To The Edge”, do you have any song that you are particularly attached to or that you like the most in this album?

I like “The Power of Change” very much. It’s got a great riff and it got that Arabic kind of string bit. That just came out of nowhere. I don’t know where it came from, but it suddenly was in the song. And I like the ending where we do an impression of a Roman galley. I love doing oohs and aahs and getting the drums to thump. And Simon came up with this great repetitive figure, so we all joined in with that. Yeah, it’s a big favourite. I think it sounds good. I like “Out of Focus” as well, which was a bit of a tribute from me to one of my favourite bands, Focus. I love the organ player with Focus, Thijs van Leeuwen. So, it’s a little tribute to him, really.

Sometimes the instrument players that I’ve interviewed are less interested in the lyrics, as opposed to the vocalists, but of course, this is your solo thing. So, what is your involvement with the lyrics, and how important are they to you?

Well, my take on lyrics is, I mean, Ray Charles said a wonderful thing. He said, “That song of mine, you know, “Take These Chains From My Heart”… that’s all you need to sing. What follows, it doesn’t really matter.”. So, I don’t have much to do with the lyrics. Not on this album, anyway, I just give the backing tracks to the singers, to Carl and to Mitch, and they came back with the songs, and I didn’t have much to say about what they were singing. It just sounded great to me. But you’ve got to have that little hook that just sums up the whole song. So, you know, when Carl sang, “Tell Me”, that’s all you need to know, you know, “Moon Rising”, Mitch. Or the “Edge of Reality”. Now, that’s the song. You know what it’s about before you’ve heard it. [Laughs]

And don’t you ever feel like you’re playing something and you feel like, “This sounds like this certain topic. Let’s try and write something about this.”?

I said that to Carl on the track about Focus. I usually don’t say anything to Carl about how lyrics should be, but I said, you know, this is like a little tribute to one of my favourite bands. Could we call it “Out of Focus”? It’s a great title. And he went, I don’t know, hold on… I said, go on, just this once… all right then. [Laughs]

I mean, it’s your band!

[Laughs] I bought him a drink.