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Doogie White Ritchie Blackmore Sucks You In, Bleeds You Dry & Sets You Free  Ritchie famously didn't like the fact that Graham had short hair. Did Ritchie ever offer you any style, hair or fashion advice? He wanted me to wear white on stage and I said "No". He said "It will be a good contrast between between my black and your white and your name is White, my name is Blackmore. I was like "Well you know, the laundry bills will be massive... you know I'll look like an ice skater spinning around and jumping up and down on the stage". So I just said no and he was like okay then. So that was fine don't overdress so I kind of underdressed the wee bit but he was brilliant to work with. You mentioned Ritchie being great and things like that, I mean obviously he's famously a difficult character to work with sometimes. Did you come across any of that difficulty or is it just a top bloke most of the time? I always got on well with them. It's not my name on the board, it's not me selling the tickets, it's him selling the tickets. I was in a very lucky position, he could have chosen any singer in the world to come and join, but he chose me and I'll be eternally grateful for that because it gave me a springboard to do the things, not so much with Schenker, but with Yngwie and Alcatrazz. It gave me a worldwide audience and I've had a lot of work come from that worldwide audience and because of my collaboration with Ritchie and to some extent Yngwie as well. So I'll always be grateful to him for that. We never really hit any runnings, we used to go to Blockbusters together when there was no football on. I used to go down to his house when we weren't doing anything. We'd sit and watch The Princess Bride or The Appointment, I mean just rubbish movies. The two years walking around going, we're going really well and then one day it just he just went and it was gone as quick as that. We played football the day before the last show in Esjberg in Denmark. We played the show, nothing was wrong and then all within an hour I was coming off stage it was all sort of.... I went home and just phoned him up and just handed in my resignation and it was unless I hear from you in 24 hours I'm not doing this anymore and that was it. I've never spoken to him since but he's always treated me fairly. I did contact him because we had a publishing agreement for the songs that I'd written and I provided his management with the evidence that I was due funds and they wouldn't pay so I just wrote to him directly and said "Look man, you know" and he went okay, there you go, the check was in the post so I've always had a great respect for him for that reason. He's very good at bringing new people in and taking people, not necessarily off the streets, but out of clothing shops or being a coach builder or whatever. And then he sets you free to do what what... he sucks you in, bleeds you dry and then sets you free and you can go off and if you can find your wings you can fly, Some do, some don't. That's one of these great gifts to to the world of rock and roll. It is the amount of people who he has given careers to that you would maybe never have heard of and we've all got to be very grateful for that. I mean David Coverdale could still be selling suits in Redcar, Ronnie Dio could still be trying to get off to do something, Graham Bonnet could still be crooning away in Australia. I could still be sleeping on somebody's a floor in in London but he gave us all this opportunity to go out there and make something of yourself and if you grasped it, you grasped it, if you didn't, you didn't.... If you look back at your career, is there any one standout moment that you can't believe that actually happened? I think it's when Ritchie sort of said "You're in". He asked me what kind of album I would like to make and I said a cross between "Burn" and "Rainbow Rising" and I could just see his eyes lighting up and that's what we did. I suppose it's like your first girlfriend, then you marry somebody who wasn't your first girlfriend. There's just that underlying vibe and feeling that you get and Ritchie played in two of my favorite bands of all time and did some of the greatest music and I learned a lot of my chops from those albums so to be chosen and to be one of only seven guys that have written and recorded with him... you know more men have walked on the moon... © Backstage Pass - February 21, 2024  |