Chuck Burgi Chuck Burgi Logged Years With Meat Loaf and Rainbow Before Landing His 'Dream Job' With Billy Joel How did you wind up joining Rainbow? I'm old friends with Joe Lynn Turner. He called me up and said, "Listen, we have a tour coming and a record to do. Ritchie [Blackmore] is not happy with the present drummer [Bobby Rondinelli]. Would you be interesting doing a jam?" They had already done Straight Between the Eyes and Difficult to Cure. Both albums had big radio hits. I went, "Yeah, I'll show up." I went to a jam out in Long Island. I thought it went really well. Ritchie was in a very, very non-communicative mode that day. When we were done playing, he just unplugged and walked out. I remember looking at Joe and [bassist] Roger [Glover], who really is an affable, sweet man, and going, "Well, I guess that went well." They laughed and went, "Don't worry. That's just him." That was my first experience with Ritchie. He didn't even look at me while we were playing. He just stared down at the stage. Then he didn't even thank me or anything. He just put his guitar down and walked out. As I was packing up, Roger came up to me and said, "I have a solo record I want to do. Would you like to play on it?" We started working on his album Mask. About halfway through that, he said, "I need to go to Copenhagen to produce the next Rainbow record." Ritchie had picked this kid from Long Island to play drums. I don't even know his name, but I wished him well. About two weeks later, I get a call late my time, and probably really early over there. It was drunken Roger and Joe going, "Dude, you have to to get on a plane over here. We've been going two weeks and don't have one take with this guy." So I went and talked to their management the next day, and flew out to Copenhagen without any idea of what I was doing or getting into. I'm sure it was stressful. They had been through so many lineup changes, and they had the great Cozy Powell on drums at one point. [Big laugh.] I thought Bobby was great. Up until that point, I had never worked with a double bass drum. With Brand X, I just threw it up there and did what I could. Bobby was schooled and studied. I thought he was an awesome player. Starting that project was beyond stressful. By the time it was over, I was sure I would never see any of those guys again. Lo and behold, I get a call a couple of weeks later from their manager. "Hey, Ritchie wants to know if you want to go on the road." I was floored. I went, "You've got to be kidding, but sure." It was really one of the best decisions I ever made. I had a blast. We did a really cool recording at Budokan with a 32-piece orchestra. Unfortunately, the band had been off for a couple of months. I felt we could have played even better. But it has some really cool moments. Ritchie was my hero. When "Hush" came out back in the late Sixties, I just thought, "That guy is absurd." And then Machine Head came out. Oh my God. Once I learned Joe was in the band, I went out and got the records that he sang on. Of course, by then, I thought it was the best stuff he'd ever done. I was thrilled to be back in a band, and working with my favorite singer. When the tour started to wind down, did you hear any hints that Deep Purple might be reforming? No. I gotta be honest. We jammed a lot of cool stuff, which ended up going on [Deep Purple's] Perfect Strangers record. I remember jamming on the song "Perfect Strangers." I thought, "Man, when we get in the studio, this is going to kill." Then we got off the road, and I got a call a week later from their manager Bruce [Payne]. He goes, "I got good news, and I got bad news. You're going to be on payroll for a little while longer, but the band is stopping. Ritchie and Roger are putting Deep Purple back together." That's the music biz. Whatever. I spent another couple of wacky years trying to help Joe get his solo record going after this. What was it like to rejoin Rainbow in the late Nineties? I'm sure it felt very different. It felt very different, but it was exceptional. I thought the album was they did [Stranger in Us All] was a little unadventurous drum-wise, but it had really good songs. I was unsure about the way the world was going to greet the band, but it was an incredibly successful tour. I met the bass player, Greg Smith, doing the Red Dawn album. Then we went our separate ways. He was with Alice Cooper. Then he managed to join up with Ritchie while I was in Blue Öyster Cult and they recorded that album. But Ritchie wanted more out of the drums than he was getting at the time. That's all I knew. Greg suggested they called me. I was still with BOC, but I said, "OK, I'm done." How did Doogie White do as a lead singer for Rainbow? He was awesome. He was such a fan, and such a sweet man. I thought the band was exceptional. This was Doogie's first shot at playing hard, melodic rock. He was such a sweetheart. I loved the other guys in the band, and I got along great with Ritchie. I thought he was playing better than when I played with him in 1983. Those sets were pretty cool since you were doing a lot of Deep Purple covers. Yes! We did "Burn." We did "Perfect Strangers." I was like, "Now I know what it's like to play this song for real!" We had messed around with it at soundcheck right before Rainbow broke up. But I had a blast on that tour. We went all over the world, and played really big places. It was nothing but fun. By 1997, Ritchie decided he didn't want to do hard rock anymore, and he went in a very different direction. Yeah. I saw that coming. Fortunately, I had already been offered a whole year of traveling with Enrique Iglesias. That was a big translation. © Rolling Stone - June 10, 2023