TONY CAREY Interview Classic Album Review Does it surprise you that Rising is held in such high esteem. Are you proud of your contribution you made on that record especially 'Tarot Woman' perhaps? I'm not proud of anything. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. I'm grateful that I was in a position where I could do that. AAA teaches us this stuff and I've known it for a long time but no, pride is not a word I'd use. Astonishing how well "Rising" has held up. I mean it's getting more the myth as it's expanding as time goes by. We weren't that big of a band, in Japan commercially it was. We played what was called the Hammersmith Odeon... and was it the Apollo or something. Yeah that's right but whatever that's where we were playing. We played the two thousand seats, sometimes three thousand seats except for Japan and Australia and Ritchie was Ritchie. We played Budokan three nights in a row but that was the exception. So we weren't that big. We were opening for Jethro Tull, we opened for Heart in America. I guess poor Jethro Tull, poor Heart. The myth has grown, rather than diminished which is gratifying and astonishing to me. How did you find opening for Jethro Tull? Brilliant! I'm in a band with Ian Anderson, a project and in fact we're in the studio this week. It's called Mandoki Soulmates and it's Simon Phillips on drums and Ian's on flute, Al Di Meola is on guitar, Randy Brecker on trumpet, I play Hammond and sing, Nick Eede from Cutting Crew sings and we've had Chris Thompson before he retired sang, Bobby Kimball, Chaka Khan, a Spice Girl... A Spice Girl? Yeah, Mel C. She's the sporty one? The sporty spice. That's right yes, she was fantastic, she had such a great sense of humor because we kind of do this outside Jazz Rock Fusion thing where the songs could be really really long. Old school and there's all these 70 year old dinosaurs like myself just having fun. And Mel C took it with a lot of humor in it. I think I danced on stage with her. It was one of the high points. But Heart had I think a problem because we blew the roof off and then.... they were a great band. I mean of course they had put Barracuda out I think at the time. I don't know... I think they probably were a little nervous about following us. We blew the place down. Roger Glover described 'Stargazer' as the pillar of Rainbow's career. Do you agree? When you say Rainbow's career... I have no idea what Rainbow did, other than the stuff that I participated in which was "Rainbow Rising" and "Long Live Rock'n'Roll. I left in the middle of that and I've never heard any of the other albums though I didn't like the poppy singles particularly but I know exactly why Ritchie wanted to do that. That's not my decision to make what a pinnacle is. It's an unusual song, it's the best slight guitar solo I ever heard in my life and Ronnie's like a genius on that song. I know Roger was in the band and produced it and wrote lyrics for the band in a later incarnation. It's funny that he doesn't say 'All Night Long' is the high point of Rainbow's career because that's one he wrote and produced. It's funny, I think amongst Rainbow fans, and I don't profess to speak for all Rainbow fans but I think most of them look at that Dio era as being the most magical of eras for that band... It certainly got the biggest aura around it. The spooky thing with that fabulous cover art, it was made for t-shirts, so yeah. David Coverdale described Ritchie Blackmore as an interesting bunch of guys. What do you think he means by that? [Laughs loud] That's really funny! Coverdale is a funny guy. I don't know. I like to know what he thinks but I was astounded in his transformation. We saw him as we all trooped down to the Long Beach Arena and Tommy Bolin was on guitar, right before he died, and Glenn and David. They all look like a bunch of like beasts and hair onto here and everything and then ten years later David has made this transformation and he looks great. He's got this hot girlfriend and he's doing "In The Heat of the Night" and he's selling millions and millions of records. I respect David, he's one of my favorite singers. I wouldn't try to define Ritchie by anything other than... I tell you what, I really respect him because he's not there for the money, he's there for the music like all the good ones are. He could have cleaned up by either staying with Purple or continuing Rainbow and he could have been playing... you know filling Arenas all around the world. He said in 1975 I want to play the root in a medieval band basically. He used to carry a cello around, he wasn't posing, he meant it and so he hung up the Stratocaster and threw away the Marshalls or put them in the garage and has Blackmore's Night. He's in it for the right reason. He walks the walk and definitely talks the talk. It's hard to figure out what he's up to sometimes but he certainly a musician's musician. If he decided he wanted to do ballet or kids ballads or campfire music whatever, he did it that's the point. He a fan of the Jethro Tull as well. Huge fan yeah. Ian tells me some Ritchie stories. I've to ask for those next time I interview him. Ritchie was a big fan of ABBA as well apparently... Who wasn't? They're fabulous. The whole package, 'Dancing Queen' and the two knock-outs in the front, the songwriting and arranging, one of the first bands to, a 70s bands, really utilize the studio. They'd record everything with... I know this from stories, I know people that know. I know Swedish people that know that. They record everything, have the record ready and then they start all over and the only thing all they would keep would be those vocal tracks. Because that's all they were really after and then they would go at it like one thing at a time and craft these productions. And as I said I really like to make records and I really appreciate it when somebody's that dedicated. That's why 'Dancing Queen' or 'S.O.S', whatever 'Waterloo' any of those.... who doesn't like ABBA, it's like who doesn't like Beyonce. Interestingly in Dio's autobiography he says that Ritchie picked on you more than most and Martin Popoff quotes you as saying "it got nasty, violent and unpredictable". How bad did it get for you in Rainbow? Bad enough that I left. He fired me twice and then couldn't get a replacement so he had to hire me back and I was 21. I mean, I was oblivious to a lot of stuff. it got bad enough that I finally said I've had it and actually left the Honky Chateau outside of Paris where we were doing "Long Live Rock'n'Roll" at like four in the morning with a taxi and went right to the airport and see you later and I haven't seen him since then and this is in 1977. You rejoined for "Long Live Rock'n'Roll". Was that a difficult decision for you? No, I didn't rejoin. As far as I know maybe somebody knows a different version of the story but they just said we're doing an album and I showed up. I was shocked to show up and find out that Jimmy Bain was gone. That's the best rock and roll bassplayer I ever worked with and a really great guy. Like I said Ritchie paid for all of that. It was his risk and he didn't take a lot of money from Polydor. In fact they made their own label, distributed by Polydor but Ritchie was paying that whole thing for that ridiculous 3.000 light bulb state of the art light show and everybody's salaries and everybody's traveling, studio costs. I mean he was like picking up the tab so that's all his business, we was in a band, I wasn't aware that I'd been fired prior to "Long Live Rock'n'Roll". Cause then I'll have to edit my story, I'm inspired, three times I left Rainbow.... Is your story referenced at all in 'L.A Connection'? I've read that and I don't know if there's any truth in that. I have no idea. I've read it too but I don't know. I don't think I've heard the song. I'm not kidding. I don't really listen to any Rainbow music but music in general. I've never heard the one with Graham. I've heard the singles of course. I never heard the ones with Joe except the singles... These are all friends of mine, Joe was a friend of mine, Graham... Doogie's a friend of mine. I never heard that "Stranger In Us All", I've never really like to listen to that so yeah I don't know. I heard 'L.A Connection', I've heard that too. I'm just wondering whether sometimes the contributions that you made to that band. Do you think you should have received more writing credits? Ofcourse because the stuff I wrote... I wrote! But the nature of the business is....I don't even want to go there. I should have and then somebody says assume and here I show up with a countryboy lawyer that usually does divorces and domestic violence cases against Deep Purple Overseas Limited with this staff of 100 and it's just not worth it you know. Did you attended Deep Purple's performance at the California Jam? No no, I watched it on TV. I wasn't in the audience. They broadcast it locally on TV. He smashed a hundred thousand dollar camera. This just wasn't like a guy with an iPhone you know. This is when TV cameras cost 100 Grand and they were this big and he'd apparently warned the guy to stay away from him and hits the guitar through the camera. Then I guess they put too much TNT in his Marshall boxing and blew Ian Paice's glasses off across the stage. I thought that was great entertainment. © Classic Album Review - July 23, 2023