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You were there when Blackmore splintered off to do Rainbow? 
Glenn Hughes: Ritchie and I have spoke about this sense it happened. He told me that he did not like the "shoe shine" music that I brought to the group. That's what he called it! He knew what he was getting into because he saw me with Trapeze. Blackmore is actually quite funky when he wants to be! But the album Stormbringer took a u turn from where he wanted the album to go. The Rainbow album he put together was just pretty much pop rock.Classic Rock Revisited 2000  Is Blackmore as difficult to work with as they say he is?
Glenn Hughes: I never spoke to him after I started playing live with him. He made an imaginary chalk line down the front of the bass drum and said, "If you ever cross this side of the stage I will hit you with my guitar. I did cross it one night and he reached over and and played my bass with his left hand. He told David Coverdale and me not to come near him on stage.Classic Rock Revisited 2000 Do you ever get sick of being compared to Ritchie Blackmore? 
Yngwie Malmsteen: Yes and no. If anybody says that they think I play like Ritchie Blackmore then they must be tone deaf.Classic Rock Revisited 2000 As Jon Lord has just announced his departure from Deep Purple is it undoubtedly interesting to hear Ritchie's opinion about the band today. Because without Lord and Blackmore, the men who formed the band, is there any Deep Purple? 
Ritchie Blackmore: I think people see Ian Gillan as Purple since I left, the band will probably always exist in some form. I also think Steve Morse is a very good good guitarist, so let them do their thing, Ritchie says and continues without me even asking: We are not enemies. As a matter of fact, I talked to Jon the other day, so I still have contact with them. Some of them, at least.Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden, 22 April 2002 The evil one?
Ritchie Blackmore: "They used to call me evil. Now they call me medi-evil". Soundi Rock magazine, Finland, March 2002 How do RB and CN get along in the same band, after all, they live, work, write the songs together?
Ritchie Blackmore: "That's true, we just have sex with other people!" Soundi Rock magazine, Finland, March 2002 Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) handing Tony Iommi an Award. 
Ian Anderson: He's Birmingham finest, he's here to collect this award. He still has got all of his hair, I have lost most of mine and Ritchie Blackmore someone once said is wearing somebody elses. It's Tony "Fingers" Iommi.The Kerrang Awards, London, June 1995 The part of Baal during the recording of "Long Live Rock'n'Roll". 
Ronnie James Dio: We had some seances as we'd some problems in the studio over in France, the studio is called Le Chataux. We had one song, "Gates of Babylon", we just couldn't finish, the tape would break or the machine would stop. We just couldn't finish it. One day we had a seance in the studio and contacted a spirit who said he was Baal. He said "I'm Baal, I live here and I create chaos and you'll never leave here". We weren't afraid and if something happened we said "hi Baal", until he started to do weird things like sending away glasses to the end of the table returning them from under the table back or smashing the glasses against the wall. Or piano playing when nobody was close to it. We went to a local priest and told him to have an exorcism. He threw us out, he said I'm not going to that place, that place is haunted. We had a big cross made and put that up to the wall in the studio. And the next time we had a seance Baal said again "I'm Baal, I create chaos, you never leave here and what is that stupid thing doing on the wall?". And I said "do you believe in Christ?" he actually said "Ha!!! Christ, there's only men, I'm not afraid of anything". We knew we had some troubles here. Finally we were able to finish the song. And when we were leaving we had to go through this big turning stairway from the sleeping areas to the cars to leave Le Chataux. And my wife was in front of me, she had a box of antique china we just bought in her hand. I was perhaps 5 feet away from her, she was 5 feet in front of me, Cozy Powell was behind me. And suddenly she was pitched from the stairs and fell to the bottom of the stairs on top of the china. She turned to me and said "You bastard, why did you pushed me?". And I said "Cozy, did I pushed her?", and he said "You weren't even close to her". Guess who did that? So that was Baal's final party for us. The Northern Light, Stockholm, Sweden, April 2001 Ronnie James Dio talking about stage props in his Rainbow days.
Ronnie James Dio: The only thing I remember was that it was like let's put a rainbow above the stage. A rainbow is a rainbow, and you don't need a lot of imagionation when you called your band Rainbow you put a rainbow up there. The hardest part of that was that at the time it was built we didn't have the technoligy we have today. It was built of cast iron and the very first show we did was in Detroit and during the rehearsal for that show, we were there for three days, the rainbow collapsed and it almost killed a few people of the crew. Every day we were worried, at least I did, that it was gonna fall, but it never did again, I guess they got the bugs out. It was interesting but it never did what it was supposed to do. It did chase the rainbow but it was supposed to spell things out, it was supposed to make tea too (laughs) but it never did. But it was a wonderful prop for that time.The Northern Light, Stockholm, Sweden, April 2001 David Coverdale about the songs "Burn" and "Stormbringer". 
David Coverdale: I actually wrote the "Burn" song and the "Stormbringer" song to please Ritchie because he loves that goofy shit.The Northern Light, Stockholm, Sweden, August 2000  |