Ronnie Romero Reflects On His Time With Rainbow I got the new Ferrymen material sent to me. I keep saying I'm waiting for Ronnie to put something out that's bad but it's yet to happen. I'm very lucky to work with amazing musicians around so that's when you work with that. The quality level of musicians is very easy to make acceptable good work. How does a project like this come across your radar or how do you get involved in it? Well it's all about Frontiers, hats off to them because I don't actually know any other record label who is really supporting music in this way. It's not just signing bands and putting some money on advertising and then let the band manage and deal with everything. They're just actually creating things which is very interesting and it was like this for the last few years. I remember if I'm correct they were there with Magnus project called Allen/Lande, that was Jorn Lande and Russell Allen with Magnus Karlson doing this same kind of music like The Ferrymen and this kind of projects normally they have last like four records more or less for, maybe five records and then they decided to create something new with Magnus and I was just getting in the record label with Lords of Black at that time. I'm telling about 2016, 2017 something like that, so they just offered me to make some songs with Magnus and that's how we made the first Ferrymen album and the rest is history. It was a project that the people and the fans really got into it from the beginning, it was not something like okay you make one record and then the people forget about it. The people was asking for more and more and that's that's how we ended up doing this actually fourth record already. It's a good sign that people want more because it obviously shows that you're doing something of value and interest. Yeah and you know it's just like everybody knows that I do a lot of collaborations and I do a lot of things all the time but I would say that this is probably one of the projects that the people wait for more than any other and that's a good sign. You do a lot of collaborations, do you think in this day and age that you have to do as an artist to make a living in this business now? I really respect musicians that stayed in just one band all their career but since I started to work with Ritchie Blackmore like almost 10 years ago, I decided to become a professional musician and to be involved 24/7 and just doing music because I had my career and I have my degree and I did many other jobs and all stuff but when I decided to do this from my point of view the only way to keep the wheel rolling is to do many things because there is a lot of music out there, a lot of bands out, there is a lot of things around not only music but a lot of ways of entertainment that didn't exist 15 or 20 years ago, record deals as we remember with bands like Guns'n'Roses, Metallica and all stuff, records deals like that doesn't exist anymore, the ways to promote music is totally different, the way how people access music is not the same anymore so if you want to have a living doing this and make money you need to do different things and on the other hand it makes me happy because you know I have 24/7 all year doing music with awesome musicians around all over the world, making a lot of shows all over the world and for me that's a privilege. I'm glad you brought up Mr Blackmore, I do remember when your name was brought up you know as the guy that was going to do this reunion and I was just like why, I haven't never heard of this guy before but you weren't a guy that just came out of nowhere, you were still doing some some things in your native country that I think a lot of people don't realize. Not really, I was just an amateur musician and I was doing music for fun basically. Actually at that moment when Ritchie Blackmore contacted me for the first time I was unemployed and I was playing in a band in Madrid where I was living at the time, just for fun on the weekends, hanging out in the rehearsal room on Sundays, maybe sometimes playing a couple of shows in small clubs but nothing professional, except by Lords of Black because at that time we released our first album already. It was 2014, actually the funny thing is we tried to get a deal with Frontiers on the first record because the first Lords of Black record is self-produced. We tried to get a deal with Frontiers, we didn't get any reply or email [laughs] and then I joined Rainbow and we got a deal, make sense you know. Did you go back to them and say remember me you never got a hold of me. Probably they had me on the radar that time already because of the first record, and probably because also the first record was the most successful album of Lords of Black in terms of selling copies and all this stuff. So probably they had me on the radar and then when I joined Rainbow and we were about to release the second album we got to deal with Frontiers. I watched the Rainbow documentary a few weeks ago and I obviously knew of all the different singers that they had in the band and they never a bad one all they all brought something different to the table. Was there any of that material that you found maybe a little more challenging to cover than anybody else did it, all kind of have its own thing as you were doing it? It was a huge task actually to be in the band, not only as you say because there is a lot of different material for different eras, different singers that you need to cover but especially because the people who they were going to the shows, and I really respect this, they want to hear the songs as close as the original but at the same time they don't want a guy just copying the original singers so it was always a fine line in between where I can actually do my performance. And it's a little bit unfair but I understand that the task, it's like a if I go and I sing for example I sing 'Stargazer' in my pretty own way and people are not going to like it because they remember Ronnie James Dio singing that song, but also I cannot copy exactly how Ronnie James Dio did because the people going to say oh this guy's just coping. So it was complicated but at the same time it was a lot of fun. That was the music that I used to listen to when I grew up, when I was a kid, when I was listening to it with my father, rest in peace, and you know that brings me a lot of memories also from my childhood so it was just awesome. Is there an area of that band that holds a maybe a higher place to you than another, is there one that maybe strikes a cord a little harder for you than others? Yeah especially the first period of the band with the first record "Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow", especially that one because I remember Dio was not much aggressive on his singing. It was way more melodic like he was in his band Elf so that's my favorite era from Ronnie James Dio actually, also the 'Rising' album because you have all those anthems like 'Stargazer' and all the stuff but probably the first record. I know with Frontiers sometimes there's ideas to tour, is this more or less a studio project do you guys plan on doing anything beyond, what are the plans for this this record? We're always open to everything actually like it was like three years ago right before the pandemic three or four years ago with the second album, we wanted to do a couple of shows. We were talking about to do three or four shows especially festivals in the summer but at the end there was a problem with the Mike's scale at that time. I think he was playing with Axel Rudi Pell still, so there was a little conflict with schedules but yeah we're always open to that. I mean basically it's a studio project, we just get together by phone, by calls whatever, by emails, just to work on the songs and then we release the album but at some point somebody comes with a good idea, even the record label are saying we should do like a... I don't know once in a lifetime five shows for this. We will do it for sure. You mentioned conflicts and so, I guess at your level do you handle that yourself, do you have help with that? I thought that I can manage some years ago and then he brought me a really huge conflict with it. Actually it was with Vandenberg and I had an issue with my schedule few years ago and that was the reason why I never toured with Vandenberg. There was a conflict there because they were booking shows without telling me so at that time I thought it was no shows and then I joined Michael Schenker for a tour and then I realized, I think it was by Instagram or something, like that there was a Vandenberg tour and it was in the same period of the Schenker tour so that was the only moment when I realized that I need to have somebody to manage this, so now I have my booking agent and basically for example this year it's the same booking agent than Gus G and we're going to do a tour together so he managed both artist very well and also I have my wife that's very helpful. You mentioned Vandenberg and Michael Schenker, it must be pretty cool for a guy that you were saying in I don't know 2013 2014 was playing in a cover band in Spain now all of a sudden these guys are calling you to do projects. That is one of the reasons I always tell people when they ask me why are you playing so many bands and so many projects, I say you need to put on my shoes for a second. I'm a huge fan of classic rock music since I have memory, since I was a kid probably five or seven years old. I was listening to Foreigner and Boston and all those bands already and then Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, all those bands came after that. Actually I was a weird guy on school because everybody at that time in the 90s were listening to Nirvana, Metallica, Pearl Jam and all that stuff while I was listening to Deep Purple. It was weird for everybody like I was a different guy and then suddenly one day as you say you have a call from Ritchie Blackmore and then a couple of years after get a call from Vandenberg and then a call from Michael Schenker at the same time so how can you say to Michael I'm not gonna do this album with you because I don't want the people to talking about I'm playing in too many bands you know [laughs] that would be that would be crazy, so yeah I'm lucky you know. I mean I'm lucky and I have the skills also to fulfill those positions in those bands, and confidence of my skills but also I'm very lucky because I was in the right moment at the right time when Ritchie Blackmore called me I was doing this Rainbow cover band in Spain and then the rest is history. Everybody knew about me and then everybody wants to work with me... what can I say. Barstools & Bandtalk, Rock Rage Radio - January 24, 2025