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Blackmore interview on Fender.com
Promoting his band’s US tour, Blackmore gave to Fender one of his rare interviews. He talked about his writing process these days, castles and ghosts (what else!), why he started to play guitar and not trumpet, ticket prices, and many other things:
FN: Could you talk about your evolution as a guitar player, from those early classical lessons to Deep Purple and Rainbow bassist and producer Roger Glover helping you to recognize that while playing with speed can look flashy, that slowing down and holding a note is also a true art?
RB: I realized when I first started playing the guitar I wanted to be very fast. Then I realized, when that wore off, that playing slower and with more feeling and emoting was much harder. It took me a few years to get used to playing slowly. Now I find it harder to play fast.
Read the interview at Fender.com.
On a related note, still photography is now officially permitted at Blackmore’s Night gigs during the first 2 songs, but not video or audio recording. At least that’s what what announced from stage before the start of Chicago show this weekend.
Thanks to Kevin Dixon for bringing the interview to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Very good interview I have to say. And I really liked Ritchie’s approach towards his fans.
October 21st, 2009 at 08:07right or wrong I would like to see Blackmore playing very fast and hard with an electric guitar doing symphonic hard rock!
October 21st, 2009 at 11:55Nice interview and helps gear me up for the show on November 1st. Sure hope he does an After Show show in a small pub this time….would love to be there for that. A new Album half finished. Almost one per year. Candice is truly crackin’ the whip……Purple needs her.
Cheers
October 21st, 2009 at 15:10This is one of the pieces sent to me by the fan-club, the new album was half finished before ‘SV’ was even released.
I’m doing my best to try and get BN out to the northwest but it doesn’t look as if it will ever happen. (I didn’t say never, lol!)
October 22nd, 2009 at 00:56i am sure RB is not hurting financially–so it was nice to read he understands the average joe and ticket prices–very nice to hear from one of the greats.
October 22nd, 2009 at 14:13The interviewer was busting at the seams to ask a Purple-related question. You could tell. He did manage to get one in about the creation of “Smoke on the Water”. Good interview and slightly amusing for the aforementioned reason.
October 22nd, 2009 at 16:41@6
Yes, probably, but of course true when you’ve sued your former manager who services your former band, twice now. The second time likely boosted his financial interests, at least it should or what would be the point in suing?
October 23rd, 2009 at 19:23A really interesting interview with Ritchie calm down as usually. Top class.
October 24th, 2009 at 18:56I Have a Question. I read on Wikipedia that Ritchie used a Gibson ES-335 on Smoke On The Water from Machine Head. This can’t be true right. You can clearly hear it’s a strat. According to a friend of mine the only way it could be a Gibson is if Ritchie used a Coil Tap which makes it sound like a Strat. Does anybody know anything about this. Here’s the link to wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_on_the_Water
November 15th, 2009 at 20:38Roger Glover says: “He played it on a Strat.”
November 16th, 2009 at 16:50He did play the lead on CHILD IN TIME on the Gibson IN ROCK
November 19th, 2009 at 08:00The Machine head album was played with a Strat, you could never get the fluidity of the ‘Lazy’ solos with a Gibson. ‘In Rock’ was played with the ES and you can really hear that Gibson whine on the album. Both sound great…just different.
March 28th, 2010 at 15:38Blackmore is a true master of technique. In my humble opinion, maybe the best ever.