Ronnie Romero Ronnie Romero talking Ritchie Blackmore and joining Rainbow Do you remember the day you get up in the morning, you're going about your daily business and all of a sudden you get an email or call from the Rainbow office. Did you actually think at the time that this is a wind-up, somebody's joking here, is it real? Yeah yeah, actually yes, because obviously it was totally unexpected. It's something like you never imagined that could happen to you, obviously it was pretty early in the morning. Normally I'm like an early bird so I wake up like six in the morning every day, and I was checking at that time the socials. They were not like today that you have a like, you are all the time in the socials so that time it was like I was using Twitter. I remember, and I saw that somebody following me, it was Candice Night and it was like this name sounds familiar... and then suddenly I got this message on Twitter and at the same time I got a empty email from Ritchie and then Candice told me on Twitter Ritchie is trying to send you an email but it looks like he cannot do it so I'm gonna tell you what's going on. It was pretty early in the morning and it was very surprising. Actually I thought it was a joke and it was something like maybe it was somebody with a hiding camera for me and my reaction or whatever because it was a perfect scene of a guy who is a huge fan of this band and he's getting the call from the guy himself and with no expectation it was like why me, it was like a.... I don't know.... She describes it, they sat in bed one day and Ritchie's reading a book or he's doing something else and she's in this game of have you seen this guy, we must get in touch. When you realized it was real, I mean this must have been some moment to you... I mean because this isn't just an ordinary band or an ordinary musician, this is one of the legends of the genre... Yeah yeah, I mean it actually took me like two weeks to realize to actually start to think this is real and I was thinking and overthinking at the time. One of the very most funny things is at that time I didn't speak English at all, so I thought at the beginning I spent like a week thinking that maybe I got the message wrong and they were just telling me like they send me some greetings like, saw my videos and they liked it you know or maybe they are asking me to be a backing vocalist in Blackmore's Night or I don't know, I was not sure. And then I started to talk with some friends and they helped me with that and then I got the call from the manager and everything was more clear but yeah it took me I think a couple of weeks until I really started to think this is happening. You said that they liked you and you fit it basically because you were quite a normal guy, you had none of the the rock star baggage with you. You weren't into drugs, you weren't into into alcohol so you were just a perfect fit for the time. I think that was exactly they were looking for. I think Ritchie was and even now at this time he doesn't want to deal with divas anymore and if I'm gonna play this music again, I don't want to have anybody breaking my walls around or be a pain in the ass so it was just yeah he fit really well because they have a very calm and quiet life. And even today I don't consider myself a rock star or a diva star whatever it is. I would consider myself as a very normal guy who just do what I love and I have been lucky to do it and call it a job. What do you remember of the those first rehearsals in New York when you got there and you're actually in the studio. Were there any nerves or did you just glide right on in? No, one of my biggest skills is, and other people tells me the same, I never get nervous. I don't know why and I don't know how and even Candice, she was asking me once, we were out to play at the Sweden Rock which is a festival for 40.000 people, and she was asking me are you nervous? I was like no, I'm not nervous. I don't know why but I feel very confident and I love to do this so for me it's like funny. Anything is not stressful, so it was the same on the first rehearsals. I was a little surprised in the way that obviously as a Rainbow fan I was expecting to go there and to play "Kill The King" and go over rehearsal like very heavy metal and suddenly I found myself in Ritchie's house, in his basement and we were playing acoustically a couple of songs and he was very quiet. At the end it was funny because I realized that he was doing that on purpose. The Classic Rock Show - July 11, 2023