Ritchie Blackmore Ritchie Blackmore talking about Rainbow members Ronnie James Dio I wanted to write something similar with the orchestra being very Grand and Majestic and compelling, that's where we came out with 'Stargazer'. And Ronnie delivered very well. Ronnie wrote the middle part of that, which is very unusual for a singer to write. The part which goes up, he actually get the keyboard player to play something he heard in his head which I thought was brilliant. Normally singers don't write riffs, but he had good ideas with riffs and he has an incredible sense of humor. He's probably one of the only guys that can make me laugh and he's a very good host. If you go around his house for dinner he fusses all over you, would you like this, would you like that. He's got his little slippers on and what about this? what about that? and he makes you feel at home whereas I've seen him the other side of Ronnie. He can be like a monster if someone bothers him the wrong way, but he's definitely a legend you know. Gary Driscoll I joined up with Ronnie and his band, it was basically Elf in the beginning on the first record and we had some fun in the studio because the drama was so eccentric. The drama when we did the first record with Elf the drama Gary.... he had got a problem with his eye. This is one of the stories. He went to the doctor going I've got this big problem with my eye what shall I do. And the doctor said look I'm going to give you some ointment to put on your eye, but you have to keep it on. You're going to be blind, temporary blind, in the eye for a week so you're going to have to wear a patch and then you'll be okay because you've done some damage to the cornea. He said, oh okay, so he took the ointment and put it in the other eye. So now he's nearly totally blind. He's got both eyes you know as a problem.... That was the first time I met Gary. He was such a fantastic guy. What a wonderful person. I mean he's just an angel as a person and he's going oh I put the stuff in the wrong eye now I'm blind in both eyes. So that that was the first time I met him. Then I watched him on stage with Elf cause I was used to watch them. They were a great band and Gary was a brilliant drummer in places. He was incredible and one night he's playing away and Ronnie Dio is doing this ballad, very calm, and Gary has to just touch the cymbals of course he hits the cymbal and the cymbal starts to come off the rostrum. It starts to go forward and Ronnie is singing this very Angelic song. So Gary now lunges forward to try and catch the cymbal cause that's now going down and he knocks all the drums over so you know.... I forgot what song it was but you could imagine Ronnie is singing la la la la and then bang, crash.... And the drummer is now collapsed behind him all over his drums and Ronnie is just like [shakes his head].... he just had this way of looking at someone when he.... like full of disgust. You did it again. What's wrong with you. Another time Gary, you know unfortunately he's passed on now, but I think he would like to hear these stories. I watched him one night doing the drum solo and he's doing this incredible drum solo and he throws the stick up of course the lights come on above him. Now he can't see it. He's thrown the stick up and go on and it goes straight down in his eye and he goes ohhh. So now he's collapsed again on the drums and it was every night. You never knew what he was going to do. He came to me one day and he said "I'm so miserable because you know I'm so upset". I said "what's the problem". He said "everything I do is wrong". And he came to my room on tour in the Holiday Inn and I was just having room service. I said well come on in tell me about. He said "I'm just so upset, I bought these clogs, I walked out of the shop and I twisted my ankle and fell down". And then he couldn't play the drums anymore. So the band doesn't have a drummer. It was never ending. I went: "Well, you know Gary, everybody loves you. It's just a few accidents you know. It's no big deal". He said "No, everything I do is wrong" and he was like nearly crying. And I'm like "Oh, it's all right" and he said "Oh, thanks for talking to me" and then he goes to get up to leave the room and he catches his foot in the cable of the the lamp standard that's there and now he pulls that down. Crash! That comes down and it hits all my food. All my food goes on the floor and now he's like "Oh, my God, I've done it again. I've done it again". And he runs out crying and I'm like "No, it's all right Gary. It's all right I can get some more room service. The lamp is okay". Everything was smashed. The next time I saw him, which was years, later in Hammerheads in Long Island... he liked that story. I saw him because I went especially to see him because I knew he was coming to town to play with a different band and he couldn't speak cause his jaw was wide shut. I went "what's that?" He said [mumbling] "I can't speak" and I'm like "Well, what happened?" He said, he managed to tell me the story... He said "Some guy thought I was somebody else and he came in and beat me up". Somebody had come in and beating him up and then gone "Well, you're going out with my girlfriend" and he wasn't. He got the wrong guy but he because of been beaten up he had to wire his jaw shut. And I'm like poor Gary, my God, it never ends. We'd been in the studio with Gary doing the Rainbow Record. And then Gary put on the headphones and he would learn the song we're playing away and one of his things he'd be playing the drums and his headphones would start to move. And he'd be trying to keep them on of course. Halfway through the record... Bang! Crash! They'd fall on the snare and we go what's going on? Stop! Oh, I'm sorry about that. So in the end he had to put the headphones on and they were taped to his head so they wouldn't fall off. So he's now got headphones taped to his head with gaffer tape. That was really funny and then we go "okay Gary, count it in". And he go: Okay! And he was always a very nervous guy and he go: "Right, one two, one and it stopped. We go: "What?" He goes: "Oh, I thought someone says stop. I thought I heard someone say stop". No one said stop. "Oh, okay, sorry sorry sorry about that". Okay of course. Then he go: "Right, one two".... And we go: "What?" and he go "I just forgot what came after two for a second said". He was that nervous in the studio and it was hilarious. I mean I was just hysterical crying cause every time he could not count the band in without being.... yeah he was playing where another time he's playing went halfway through he just stopped. We went: "What are you stopping for" and he goes "Someone told me to stop in the headphones". I was like "no one told you to stop". "Oh, I thought someone said stop". It was brilliant stuff, you know it was Monty Python. It was great. I loved it because it made the whole sessions much more relaxed. So we used to edit a lot with him but he would do these fills and come back in and sometimes he be dead on and sometimes he wouldn't and if he wasn't on we'd edit of course. Bonzo heard that and went wow that guy has an amazing feel how he does it. But it was like "well, you don't know the inside story which was he kind of he messed it up" but it sounds so clever but he actually went into the wrong timing. It was great you know. I always love Gary. Brilliant!! Cozy Powell Cozy and I were big practical jokers. trouble was Cozy always went far too far. I would go so far but if you played a joke on him... look out... he was going to kill you. One of the French Chateau where we did 'Long Live Rock'n'Roll' I heard a click against my window and I thought that sounds strange. I kind of looked out the window and he's coming up a ladder. I was up 30 feet and he's coming up the ladder to break in the window and throw a bucket of something on me. So I opened the window and say "Hello" and he went "Oh, shit!". So I called him out but that's nothing compared to what happened. It's called The Honky Chateau in France, 30 miles north of Paris, but Cozy's trick was to get out of his bedroom, go across the roof, because he thought he was Spider-Man. When he wasn't James Bond, he was Spider-Man. He'd go across the roof, get into someone's open window and remove all their furniture via the roof. Can you imagine, an armchair and you're struggling, you get it over the roof and you throw it away or whatever object being... so when someone who came back would lock their door to the room, there's not a scrap of furniture in it and it's how where did it go if the door is locked? It went out the window, via Cozy, and he did it one night and opposite the courtyard the guy that he was doing to the roadie was watching him and you could see the silhouetted Spider-Man carrying all this furniture out of the window. Now the roadies watching him drinking and of course Cozy comes into our room about an hour later sweating because you know just gone over on the roof got rid of all the furniture, thinking he hadn't been seen. Then our roadies friend Colin says right now you can put all my furniture back and Cozy went "Oh, God" he said "you could have told me earlier". I mean, he was crazy, he was always scaling roofs. I mean at 40 feet high you know, you're not. Graham Bonnet I said Graham you know our audience expects you to be a bit more... you know, not shaved and a bit long hair, kind of bit more dirty. Yeah well, I used to have long hair. We're going... okay. I used to have long hair but I cut it. I said you know our audience doesn't want that Las Vegas style, lamee jacket and smooth hair. They want a rough looking guy you know. I thought by the time we get to.... if we let him grow his hair at least that bit longer for the first night in Newcastle which was about three months away. I thought at least we can get his hair to his collar or something and rough him up a bit and he kept threatening to have his hair cut but really short. That's not going to work with the fans in '79 - '80. Everybody was like you got to look... long hair, rough, whatever. We got Colin Hart to a room next to him. I said you know what, you make sure he doesn't leave his room. He might go and get his hair cut. It's just getting kind of longer, now he's looking a bit rough and he looks more you know ok for our audience. So Colin goes "Leave it to me. He won't get past me". Cause he kept his door open and he was right next to Graham and so I went "Good, good", cause at least he is now looking a bit the part that we can kind of want to play to our rough audience. They don't want to see a smooth Las Vegas guy. So what happens is Colin calls me up "Oh no, guess what? I went "What?" and he goes "He got out the back window, got into a taxi and has had his hair cut". I went "Ah, you know I was seething at the time it was the whole principle of the thing, doesn't matter if you're losing your hair or whatever, he went out and purposely shaved his hair and he shaved it right short like it was going to appear as David Copperfield. I was seething and and he did it. He knew... we told him a thousand times "do not cut your hair, just let it grow and be natural and I think you'll be accept by the fans cause you then look rough". Nope. Went out, came back, and ofcourse he looked ridiculous. On stage that night I was seriously contemplating hitting him over the head with my guitar. He was singing to the audience and doing his bit and I saw the back the shaved neck, that very cut hair and I went I'm just going to put my guitar across his head but then I might be back in in prison again. You know I really was like so tempted just to take it off and go Whack!! cause he'd done it deliberately out of contempt, he knew that to be in our band it was about roughness and kind of you know denim jackets and he gone out of his way to be Mr Smooth again. He used to have long hair and it was like... so after that there was no there was no communication, it was total breakdown, it was like you're in another world. Go to Las Vegas, you need to be in Las Vegas. We have our audience which is you know heavy rockers. They don't need to see Mr Las Vegas. © Outtakes from The Ritchie Blackmore Story 2015