Don Airey has a theory about the great guitarists. “They’re insecure,” he says. “All of them. A lot of the best guitarists don’t know how they do what they do; it’s like it comes from another world, almost. When you’re a keyboard player you just read music and play it. That’s easy.”
This is typical Don Airey. You’d be hard-pushed to find a more self-effacing musician, especially one who has played keyboards with some of the greatest acts in rock history: Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Whitesnake…
During his 50-year career, Airey has seen the best and worst rock’n’roll has to offer. He’s been there at the birth of countless now legendary songs and iconic albums; he has also witnessed the sort of devastating tragedy that no one should have to live through.
We’re sitting in the upstairs kitchen at Headline Music Studio on the outskirts of Cambridge, where Airey recorded his new solo album, One Of A Kind. The 69-year looks surprisingly healthy for a man who was hospitalised with pneumonia five weeks ago, having been taken ill at Los Angeles airport while he was waiting for his flight back to Britain.
This morning, his wife jokingly teased him that he would be talking to Classic Rock about his favourite subject: “Me, me, me, me, me.” Except that’s not Airey’s style. As befits a man who has spent most of his career just out of the spotlight (where he prefers to be), he’s more comfortable heaping praise on anyone else but himself. He’s rock royalty, although he’d be the last person to admit it. “It’s nice that people just appreciate you, that they think anything all,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to be a lead singer for anything. I’ve got a keyboard in front of me. I can’t think of anything better than that.”
His dad, a World War II veteran who played piano in the pubs and clubs of their native Sunderland, was dubious about Don’s chosen career, especially the shady business side of it. Still, by the time Airey Sr saw his son play Newcastle City Hall with Rainbow in the early 80s, he’d come around to the idea.
“I said: “What did you think, dad?’ And he said: ‘That’s the loudest and most impressive thing I’ve experienced since El Alamein.’”
Airey spent a year studying piano at the Royal Manchester College Of Music, then two years playing in a band on cruise ships. It was a lucrative job – he returned with enough money to buy a house in Sunderland for cash. Instead he opted for London and the pursuit of his rock’n’roll dreams.
Airey was playing in some long-forgotten band on the club circuit when someone asked if he wanted to join a new group that Cozy Powell was putting together. The former Jeff Beck Group drummer had just bagged a solo hit single with the thunderous Dance With The Devil. “I said: ‘Yeah, sure.’ Cos I loved that song.”
The two became great friends. Airey talks fondly of Powell, who died in a car crash in 1998. “He was the best bloke I ever knew,” he says. “He always looked the part, he was straight in his dealings with you, he kept himself together all the time. He’s someone I really miss.”
The band, Cozy Powell’s Hammer, notched up three hit singles before the drummer left to form a new outfit, Strange Brew. Within months, Powell had joined Ritchie Blackmore’s latest band, Rainbow. Airey would follow him into Rainbow a few years later, but not before forging his second great musical friendship.
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