Ritchie Blackmore

The Moody Genius



In 1975 Blackmore himself decided to quit Deep Purple.

I left because I had met up with Ronnie Dio and it was so easy working with Ronnie. We recorded this LP. We were going to do one track. We ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks, so I was over the top about that. I was so excited about it that they could see there's no way I was going to stay with Purple. It wasn't that I found Ronnie Dio and I was into this band Rainbow. I was going to leave Deep Purple no matter what because I didn't respect that type of music that we were getting into. It's funky business, but luckily at the same time I met Ronnie and he was into a medieval come rock side to things and it worked by however long we did it, which was three or four years I think.

Ronnie Dio along with three other members of ELF formed the first Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. A band that from its earliest beginnings committed itself to an American audience. Blackmoore appeared to be ready to stretch himself again by 1977 the line-up already dramatically changed. The Rainbow "On Stage" album was released and featured 'Blues'.

It's a challenge to play the blues guitar because you're so limited within the minor mode of the blues. If you start to get golf into majors and diminish scales it doesn't sound right, so you're limited to about six notes and certain people that can pull it off. I don't know who they are at the moment but it must be somebody, but it is very difficult within the blues frame to come up with something that's different and that's what I find is a challenge with the blues. It's a case of slowing down and playing three or four notes very well with a very good vibrato which is a lot more difficult than it would seem on the surface. When I started playing the guitar, I was after playing as fast as I could play and then I got to the stage where I was so fast that people would say "yes, but you know, you're going from A to B. What are you seeing on the way? Nothing!" I mean that's true but I did get from one end to the next to the other record time but what's the point. so I started to slow down round about '67 after hearing Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. I suddenly realized that the public were not interested in hearing fast guitarists as of John McLaughlin style.

Now what about guitars has the choice been a problem for him.

I'm very unadventurous when it comes to new guitars. I play the fender guitar and I have my own special concave wood effect, that on the neck and I'm very satisfied with that same with amplifiers. People come up to me say try this try that which I don't which is probably detrimental to me. I mean I hear certain sounds phasing and all sorts of things which I should really try but I never do for some reason. I'm too busy either just practicing or thinking well....

It's quite clear that Blackmore's thinking doesn't always extend to the lyrics of songs. This was his reaction when we asked him about a track from "Long Live Rock'n'Roll" called 'Kill The King'.

Lyrically I have no idea what the lyrics are about. With Ronnie I didn't know too much about the lyrics. They were very abstract, most of them, talking about demons and devils. The riff was just a very fast riff which is my typical type of block chord in G, type of rhythm of which I've done that. I must stop writing in the key of G, but 'Kill The King' is just a very frantic upfront no-nonsense number you either love the thing or hate it. I knew that when we were playing it. We were playing that particular number in a haunted chateau that been haunted by Chopin in France. And it seemed to be very weird. The fact that we were doing this out and out rocker where we should have been full of melodic content and playing in a very sympathetic way to the way the shadow was the environment of the place, but we were crashing out with 'Kill The King' which was disturbing all the residents around it's a very interesting number.

In 1979 with a lineup that included Cozy Powell on drums, Roger Glover on bass, Don Airey keyboards and Graham Bonnet on vocals, Rainbow killed the idea that they were heavy rock elitists by recording the very successful single 'Since You've Been Gone'.

I first heard it in my manager's house and said "What do you think about this song?" I said "It's a hit, let's do it!" and he was totally "What? You want to do it? Of course! So we did it. I'm think about two takes because Cozy hated it and it was released and it was a hit of which we knew all along. It was a way of getting in our foot in the door and getting a broader public, but at the same time we weren't letting the side down because 'I Surrender' is a similar type of song. I'll always stand by those songs, they're great songs. People say "How can you do that? How can you sell out... you're a heavy metal guitarist that's known to be uncommercial." That's rubbish, I'll play anything if it has a good melody, even if it's 'Over The Rainbow' by Judy Garland. If it has a good melody that's all that matters and that's why I one of the reasons I did 'Since You've Been Gone'. I thought it was an extremely good melody and I think it's a very good song and I listen to it now and I'm quite proud of it. I'm more proud of that song than I am with some of the Deep Purple songs that were kind of underground hits, things like 'Woman From Tokyo'. I can't stand things like that.

Although in his earlier days Blackmore had sometimes practiced guitar all day long, he now finds that other things dictate just how he spends his time.

I practice more mentally, I think that's an easy way out of that one, in other words I'm lazy. I don't practice at all and everybody says that they practice mentally but now I practice for about an hour or two hours a day especially when I have the time off, When I'm on tour, I don't practice very often because I can't see for looking because it's on stage, into the hotel, into the bar and it does you start to lack that impetus, that kind of enthusiasm to make music, which is very bad really. It's not until you get home and you start to relax. After a couple of weeks off you start to wake up with I'd like to play that and you play with that... you relish what you're doing. Wereas on the road I don't think anybody can enjoy what they're doing unless you're a very new band.

The progress of Rainbow has been marked as much by the personnel changes in the band as any other factor, Apart from his admitted low tolerance level at times, Can Blackmore identify any other factors?

Every band has to have limitations but I find it very hard to accept, that is why I keep changing members because I might have an organist that's a brilliant reader and he's a very good at chords and sound but he can't improvise, then I'll get an organist that can improvise and he's not very good at sound. And I'll have a bass player that's a very good bass player but he can't sing very well and vice versa, then I'll have a singer that sings in a way of which I like for the first year, then I get tired of his sense of improvisation.

Second example of the highly accessible style that Blackmore's able to affect, 'I Surrender'. Ritchie Blackmore is keen to underline the moody even the roguish side of his nature, he has like most of us, made some friends and lost some, made some bad decisions, made some good. Whenever he can play guitar he'll always find a way to survive but it seems he'll have to do without ambition.

I don't know what direction I have, I don't think I have a direction. I shall remain as stubborn as I've always been and given enough time and patience I might come out with something worthwhile somewhere along the line. I have the ambition of a slug and I'm not interested in goals of any sort. That's why I don't hang out the right places and talk to the right people and do the right things probably. The only way I do certain things that appear to be so right is because I feel that it's inside of me. I like to play in front of people, a lot of people, I love playing the guitar but I don't like being involved in everything else that goes with the business. I don't have to work upon the image side it just happens. I don't really understand myself, my parents certainly don't understand me, I don't understand myself but in a way I like to leave it that way because I'm never bored with myself. I'm often confused, very confused with myself, but I'm never bored.


Backstage Pass 1983