GRAHAM BONNET Star-Studded Rock Interview When you were approached by Rainbow, obviously a rock band, wizards and fairies and all this sort of stuff. At this stage you didn't actually know anything about them, did you? You had no idea who they were? No, my manager said to me there's this band called Rainbow that would like to audition you to be their new singer. And I said "Rainbow?" I thought that sound like a folk group, Rainbow sounds like a folk group almost and my manager said to me "Well, they used to be Deep Purple, now they've changed the name. Roger Glover is still playing bass and Ritchie Blackmore guitar player, they changed the name to Rainbow." So what happened was he wanted to send me over to Switzerland where they were recording and he said "You better learn some of their songs". And then he got in touch with me and said learn "Mistreated". I learned that one song and I went over for the audition and, to make a short story even longer, they gave me the job. What happened was I was so scared of, to put it mildly, on this song that... well I won't sing it on microphone, I will sing it off mic. So the mic was over there somewhere and the man was playing very loud and I sang the thing and when it was over they were all laughing and I thought "Oh crap, was it really that bad". They stared at me said "Yeah, let's do it again" and okay then we did it again. I was still off microphone, then Don Airey said "Graham, how about this time you sing on mike this time". I sang on microphone and they were just overjoy. They said "You're the guy". Anyway I went back to England saying to my manager that I didn't think I was right because this wasn't what I was used to be singing. I do R&B, pop and whatever, not like this sort of semi classical sounding music you know, very sort of heavy but back then and so he said "No, you got to do this, it's good for your career". It was good for his wallet, my career I'm not sure. No, it was great for my career, I mean I got a lot of recognition because I did join Rainbow and I thank Ritchie Blackmore for taking me in and the guys. It was such a great great journey and so pleased that happened. So how did it happen then because obviously you weren't spotted singing rock songs. What was it that Ritchie had had heard or seen? What was it that that picked you out of the crowd then? It's because of our song "Only One Woman". They were playing a game, spot the tune. They had the cassette machine there and Cozy was playing spot the tune. Who's this, then who's this, then who's this and my and my cousin's song came up and Ritchie said to Cozy "What's he doing now? Do you know this guy?" [Cozy said] "Oh, I heard he lost his voice." Oh okay, so he's not not working anymore. Then Roger Glover chimed in and said "No, he hasn't lost his voice, he's managed by same management as Micky Moody" and Micky Moody was recording with Roger Glover with Whitesnake, the first beginnings of Whitesnake and we're managed by the same management company. He said "No no, he's working with my manager", so anyway I was picked out to come audition so it was.... I didn't know what to expect and I just didn't think I was right for the band but anyway I went back again and we started recording. I was like "Oh crap, what do I do here", so Roger said to me "I'll help you through with some of the melodies and then I'll write the words". I said "Okay, that's good for me" and so Roger wrote the words and he gave me a brief outline of the melodies and I sing it my way, how I interpreted it, whichever way I wanted. A bit like 'Only One Woman' really. And it's all my cousins fault with the C sharp and a D even comes into all my songs ever since. So anyway that's kind of how it all began and it was a lot of fun. Roger taught me a lot, Roger Glover is a great teacher and great producer apart from anything else and songwriter. We made the album in that way. Roger will give me a rough idea how the melody should probably go with the lyric in it written and I would just had to live and you know "No, not that one, not that one, oh this one". We recorded each one, each song was recorded four times and Ritchie would come in and he would pick out which one he like best. That's how we did every song, it took a long bloody time because it was all kind of bad life but it was it was a great learning tool for me. I thank Ritchie and I thank Roger so much, well the whole band really, for putting me in that position of being a student of sort of heavy rock I guess, which I wasn't, but now I guess I am. Let's be honest, there's not many better people to be learning from than the names you're talking about there, Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover and Don Airey and Cozy Powell obviously. I mean you went into a group of superstars really didn't you? Oh my God, I mean how could you fail in such a band. When we went on stage.... you know when you walk in front of you know 20,000 people or whatever, I always felt comfortable with the band, no matter how shitty I felt, once I walked out on stage and those guys were behind me how could it fail? If I croaked or messed up in a song it didn't matter, these guys were so good. I never felt nervous, I always felt excited about going on stage with them because they were so damn good. Obviously it was a change for you but it was also a change for the band as well in kind of direction. Let's be honest people, us humans we don't deal traditionally well with change. Did you get any negative feedback during the early time being in the band? Oh yeah, I remember the very first show we did was in an arena somewhere, I can't remember what city it was in, but it was in the States and there are some guys down front of the stage like heckling me and go "Get off, Ronnie Ronnie". They were calling out for Ronnie Dio, I expected that anyway. Ronnie was a great singer, bless his heart wherever he may be. I couldn't concentrate and Ritchie looked at me and he started playing this D chord in an arpeggio and I knew what that song was. It was a song called "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", I sat down on the stage in front of these guys and looked him straight in the eyes and sang "Tonight's your mind completely" and they started laughing and from that moment on I was in, I was part of the game. It shows that I was a human being and I didn't mind being made fun of like shut up and get your bloody haircut whatever it may be. I was the only short haired guy in the band for Christ sake. From that day on I felt very comfortable about going on stage and not being heckled for some reason. It's just that one night, the first night. Cozy was so nervous, I never forget that, he kept going to the bathroom. I'd go for a piss again, oh really? And he said "Graham, you're going to be all right?" And I said "Are you?". He was more nervous than I was. It was very successfully after that, little confrontation with those guys and they were so nice after that. "Down To Earth" was a huge hit here in the UK, in fact it was a higher charting album than any of the previous Rainbow records. 'All Night Long' is a classic and 'Since You Been Gone' is world famous. I saw recently posted on your social media that it had been used on the the trailer for the upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie which means it lives on ands it's finding new audiences now as well, isn't it? I don't know how how much will help my career but it's so nice to hear that song on a movie. I was very surprised when BethAmi said "Listen to this, the "Guardians of the Galaxy" promo". What what what? And she played it and I said "That's me!" She said "Yeah I know" and so the rest is history I suppose. We'll see what that does, I hope I do gather more younger viewers, listeners, whatever from that, but their parents or their grandparents are gonna say "I know him. that's our Graham from Skegness. I don't know if it will help but it's a great honor to be part of that movie. Those movies are so popular. Take me back to that time in the recording studio, you said you were doing three or four versions of all the songs on the album. Can you remember getting it down and was there a general consensus about which one was going to work because it is such a classic? "Since You Been Gone" was already written. It had been recorded I think four times before we did it. The version I heard was by a band called Clout which was a girl band and I heard this and nobody likes it. I remember Cozy said "We're not going to do that shit". Nobody liked it because it was very poppy. It was very sort of very light and airey... Don Airey, and so it had to be changed a little and I love that the way that guitar starts the song off. That's Ritchie Blackmore 100%, that sound he had, identifiable you know. We made it a little heavier but not too much. We were encouraged by our management, by Bruce Payne, he said "That's fuckin good, we're going to get radio play now". And that's the reason it was done to get be more radio. Nobody likes it but then after that we all like it. You're asked a million times I'm sure, you mentioned it just a few minutes ago as well, the famous haircut thing with the very famous video of Ritchie talking about the haircut and having you locked in a room and you snucked out to go and get your haircut, and then he was raging with you and that's one of the reasons he fired you and all this sort of stuff and I know you've rubbished it over the years but can you tell us a little bit more about that famous story? I'm surprised that story is still traveling along after all these years. What actually happened was we were in... I can't remember, maybe in Scotland I think actually, and I was with my ex-wife and my hair was getting like this... Anyway I was walking around the city with her, I think it was Edinburgh, and I said to her I'm going to get a haircut while you go to a shop. So I went to get a haircut and that was it. That's all I did and there was no guard on the door or anything like that. In fact I saw our road manager about 3 months ago and we were talking to him and laughing about that story said he said "I wasn't put on the door to guard you" and I said "I know but isn't that a great story?" [laughs]. I just done my haircut and so I walk out on stage that night, now Ritchie hadn't seen me all day, we never saw each other all day. It was always just showtime, that's when we all see saw each other and I sort of come on last. They're doing the intro to the song called "Eyes of the World", and I'm running on and he looks at me and goes.... flabbergasting and he disappeared, he went behind the amps and didn't come out and he played there all night. And next day Ritchie called a meeting he said "I want to see everybody in my room". We all went to his room in the Holiday Inn somewhere and we walked in and everyone thought "What is the matter?" I thought it was something really serious and he looks at me and he goes "It's Graham's hair" and everybody burst out laughing. Ritchie said "He had it cut. I thought he was being mean to me. I thought he was insulting me by having his haircut because I'm always saying his hair's too short" and he always did he always say well yeah it's short you know and because everybody else in the band had longish hair and so that was the meeting. Everybody just thought he was a complete fool but Ritchie, bless him, every time I've seen that interview or another interview he brings that up and it's magical because I didn't know what I did that day but he's telling me what I did.... you know guard on the door and I went out the window and then what happened, I'm waiting for something... hit by a car but he still add a little bit. I think it's good just going out the window is good enough because we're like seven floors up so... [laughs] you mentioned in there that you love Ritchie and he loves you. He's got a reputation obviously as being one of the greatest guitarists of all time but as well as being someone that can be difficult at times. What are your memories of working with Ritchie, what's your relationship like with him? Well, if that was the most difficult thing I had was a haircut, musically no damn problem at all. He was always like "Graham, what do you think of this?" I remember one night he came and said to me "You know that Rolling Stones song 'Baby baby baby You're Out of Time'". He said "I've got this idea for a song", you know the melody is the same as that song, yeah 'All Night Long' because Chris Farlow did it and that was a hit record in England. I said "Okay, I'll make up a melody around that" and that's what happened with that. We always done pretty good and that was just one moment where he said you can make something up of this, Roger will write the words. You know it's pretty much a complete rip, the melody is sort of... it's not exactly the same but I don't think the Rolling Stones would mind. I mean and that was a hit record, again we did very well with that song but he was always very open to me. Before every show he would say "What time you going to come down to my dressing room?" So I go down and I sit with him and he would say "What can we do tonight to fuck everybody up?" [laughs] I remember one night he said "What we should have after Cozy done his drumsolo, we should come out with cards", you know 7 out of 10, all like just for a lap and that's what we did one night that was one joke we played on Cozy. We're walking across the stage with these numbers which is kind of funny. I can't remember some of the other things but that one I particularly remember. I know everybody's like they have the heavy metal thing but it's not really like that what we're doing is we're playing a different person when we go on stage. We really are two different people. It kind of all fell apart by the time of the second album for you. What made for you the decision to leave the band? We were rehearsing in Copenhagen trying to write the next album and we had a new drummer because Cozy had left. We had this new drummer with this huge fuckin hair do and we would go to this rehearsal room and some days there be like two people there, another day there be three of us, one day there'll be just me there. Nobody was interested especially Ritchie. We were supposed to be making up new songs for the new album and I think the laziness was because we had a song from Russ Ballard again. A song called 'I Surrender' and that's the only song we had. I said to Roger Glover "What are going to do, we haven't got anything." He said "We have got 'I Surrender', do you want to go in and do the backing harmony?" So I went in and did some backing harmonies which weren't used in the end and that was kind of it. I didn't do a lead vocal on it at all and it wasn't productive at all because Ritchie wasn't coming in and showing us what to do. It was just what the fuck are we doing. We had nothing and time was passing by and the album was supposed to be started recording like yesterday and okay, well we got 'I Surrender'. What else have we got? So we were sitting and looking at each other and Don Airey says "I'm going home". Me, Don and Cozy were very close, we were like the Three Musketeers. Anyway Don said "I'm going, I don't like the new drummer and everything, now Cozy's gone it's not the same and no one was turning up for rehearsal so I'm going home". And I said "Well, if you go home Don, I'll go home too because I'm not finding this very interesting or exciting either, nothing's happening". So I went home and he didn't [laughs] and he stayed. I said later "You bloody bastard, I thought you were going to leave" and anyway he didn't and I got a phonecall from our manager who said "Aren't you coming back?" I said "No, I want to do something else and I thought Don was going to leave". He said "Don's still with the band and we found another singer and if you come in and sing the songs you'd like and let this other singer sing the song you don't like" whatever that means and I said "No, that doesn't work, two singers in Rainbow. I can't see that". So I left the band. I wasn't fired although people like to think I was because I have another haircut or something so that was it for me and I found a guy in L.A called Andy Truman who had a good reputation. He managed Jethro Tull, the Bay City Rollers, a bunch of different people, all different genre and one of my friends introduced me to him and he took over management and so he said "Well Graham, what you should do is get yourself a band together" and that's how Alcatrazz was formed in my garage. That took a while too but that's what I wanted to do, form my own band, that was similar to Rainbow, have the same kind of line-up keyboard, guitar, bass you know, that kind of lineup and that's what happened then. © Backstage Pass - November 8, 2023