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Greg Smith A Very Brief But Candid Conversation with Greg Smith Jeff Cramer has done already excellent interviews with Craig Gruber and Joe Lynn Turner. Now another Rainbow member had 'A Very Brief But Candid Conversation' with Jeff. Here are a few snippets of this interview with bassplayer Greg Smith. Click on the link at the bottom of this page to read the full interview. In this candid conversation, we cover all the various acts that Greg has played with. We also discuss the colorful personalities that Greg has provided bass for such as Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and Ritchie Blackmore. 
Jeff Cramer: After Alice Cooper, you would then play with Joe Lynn Turner and then Rainbow.Greg Smith: Actually, I left Alice's band the first time to do Rainbow [laughs]. In between Rainbow, I started playing with Joe Lynn Turner – probably like about '92 or so – I did a bunch of albums with him and we did some touring and that was a whole lot of fun. So, I played with him and then I'd also played with Dave Rosenthal and Chuck Burgi in a band called Red Dawn that was – it's really, just did a release for Japan but it ended up getting a cult following pretty much everywhere on the planet except for the United States. I'd be down in Brazil or Japan or Russia and people would come up to me with the Red Dawn album to sign. So, I played with guys who had been in Rainbow. So when I got into Rainbow, I knew what to expect from Ritchie [laughs]. I'd heard all the stories. I heard all the practical jokes and everything like that. So I was already hip to it and there was no way he was going to get me with anything. Jeff Cramer: So he never played a practical joke? Greg Smith: Oh no, he tried but I never let him see it affect me in any way, so he would just move on to easier prey. Jeff Cramer: While Ritchie put Rainbow back together, I was reading a couple of things like he didn't really want to call it Rainbow and he was already to start thinking about Blackmore's Night. Greg Smith: Well, no. That really wasn't the case. The Blackmore's Night thing didn't take effect until I guess probably about '96 or so. In about '96 is when he fired the management and Candice's mother took on the manager role which then, that was the beginning of the whole Blackmore's Night thing. You know, so that's when Candice wanted to do something and obviously, he wanted to make his wife happy and yeah. So that's – that was the beginning of that. Prior to that, there was no talk of a project with Candy. It was just really Rainbow and what we were going to do and another album, another tour and all that and once her mom took over the management, that's when the focus kind of changed. Read the rest of this interview on Jeff Cramer's Blogspot.  |