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The hatchet was still there
In this video interview to Swedish Metall Magazinet, dated September 1993, Ritchie Blackmore speaks at length about many things, current and not, with his tongue firmly planted in cheek most of the time.
Thanks to Alexander Pronyakin for posting this, and to Uwe for bringing it to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Hello.
The one and only Ritchie Blackmore ! Just a couple of months before the last gig in DP. And you surely know where that was. (Finland 1 – Sweden 0) : )
Thank you very much for the video.
Of course the material has been circulating on YT for years, but I`m not sure if it has been there as a whole?
Anyway, an entertaining piece and the Legendary English Castle Humour is present and flourishing proudly. Yes!
It´s partly soo quiet, but life´s a challenge. And I think this is a true evidence Ritchie being an introvert. The interviewer has been very lucky in getting the chance in making this and he´s doing just fine.
I just watched the first half and going to save the rest of it for a rainy day.
Happy Easter everyone!
Kippis.
March 31st, 2026 at 09:43Tongue in orifice or not, if I had heard that interview in 1993 before the TBRO Tour, I would have been deeply worried and depressed. Blackmore sounds every inch like he’s through with IG. He tries to make light of his disdain of the man, but that is what it is at its core: disdain for Ian and, even more crucially, callousness towards DP as an institution. The writing was on the wall in ALL CAPS NEON LETTERS.
Now if the rejuvenated 90s Doogiebow, the following BN era or Reunionbow had spawned anything of the musical significance of In Rock, Machine Head, Burn or even – Uwe takes deep breath – Rising, one might argue that Ritchie’s conceit was warranted, but that is unfortunately not the case.
Members of the Church of Ritchie will now of course rise from their kneeling positions on the benches, grab their pitch forks and palliate what he said and how he said, but to me Ritchie had – more so than IG with his occasional irresponsible behavior – an attitude problem by 1993 and turned into a real (nasty) piece of work. Bad Attitude alright.
March 31st, 2026 at 12:01The interviewer was astute and a good listener – empathic yet direct. This was like a therapy session for Ritchie.
April 1st, 2026 at 12:27For much of the interview, RB comes off as having grown bored with rock ‘n’ roll. Sounding as jaded when speaking of DP’s early years, at 37:00-ish, as he does when speaking of “The Battle Rages On”-era band.
The fact that a good chunk of TBRO had been made up out of recycled Rainbow riffs had already indicated that he was running out of steam.
Although much of Blackmore’s Night’s music would be compromised by synthesizers and drum machines – a lack of quality control that could have been predicted, given his avowed lack of interest in record production – clearly it was for the best that he switched gears and tried something different.
Didn’t think he seemed particularly vituperative about Gillan. The Swedish friends in an alleyway clip notwithstanding. Over the years he has made no secret of his longstanding annoyance over IG’s declining vocal performances and refusal to cut down on excessive partying. He touches on that only briefly in this video; much of what he does say about IG – some of it favorable – is in response to the interviewer’s repeated prodding.
April 1st, 2026 at 17:40Ritchie butting heads with Big Ian or joking about having him beat up never bothered me as much as that continuous undercurrent of disdain for him; in almost any collaboration he’s had, Ritchie at one point withdraws his respect for people and starts undermining them. That is a horrible habit/character trait.
I don’t think that the accusation of Ian’s vocal decline being predominantly man-made by him holds much water, he certainly wasn’t a choir boy but compared to, say, Steven Tyler’s decades-long heroin and coke addiction or Alice Cooper’s rampant alcoholism (and coke abuse), he was more on the responsible side as rock musicians go.
What Ian had to face is the natural decline of his passagio/falsetto voice over the decades through age and wear, and it is very telling that Ritchie only worked with singers post his final DP-split who were 14 years (Doogie White), 26 years (Candice) or even 36 years (Ronnie Romero) younger than Ian (or Ritchie!). Apparently, the pool of people who can sing Ritchie’s music and are of the same or similar age as him is very limited. And then there is always Coverdale to look at, six years younger than Ian, less self-destructive or irresponsible, no drug issues to speak of, yet he can no longer even sing a note – never underestimate the role of your genes in the aging process.
And as we all know, Ian is not the only one within the DP Family whose performance is impacted by physical decline, Ritchie and Steve as well as also Little Ian have found themselves in similar situations. Even Glenn’s voice isn’t quite what it used to be (though still impressive).
“A lack of quality control” is a very apt way of pinpointing Blackmore’s Night’s core problem, Skippy, the willful cottage industry approach and the cosplaying, I find none of that as grating as the band’s regular forays into Schlagermusik or other baffling arrangement decisions cheapening their product. Fairport Convention, Pentangle or Renaissance they are certainly not.
April 2nd, 2026 at 06:00@ 3 Interviewer is Anders Tegner, long time fan of deep purple and all sorts of (hard) rock. He worked with several magazines and it was a lot of Purple in these mags.
April 2nd, 2026 at 08:04@4 Skippy
> The fact that a good chunk of TBRO had been made up out of recycled Rainbow riffs had already indicated that he was running out of steam.
Nonetheless, Stranger in us All is a fine album for my standards. It is admittedly a bit uneven as it does have its fillers and I do not like all musicianship in it. But there are definitely good heavy rock ideas there: Black Masquerade, Ariel, Wolf to the Moon and Hunting Humans could stand in any rainbow album. Plus, Ritchie proved once again his talent of finding interesting singers
April 2nd, 2026 at 11:04Was Doogie an “interesting” singer, Manic? Meat & potatoes (or Scottish haggis?) more like. Ever since Graham Bonnet left Rainbow, Ritchie’s choice of singers has been spiraling downwards, reaching its nadir with Ronnie Romero. (I’m discounting Candice because she sings in another genre.)
Sure, neither Joe nor Doogie nor Ronnie R were technically bad singers, but charisma?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ-g7jfPCW8
I think after RJD and Graham, Ritchie never wanted again a strong singer personality in Rainbow and acted accordingly. Blackmore never wanted competition in Rainbow which is ironic given that he has always delivered his best work in competetive surroundings, ie in DP where he could not tell people what to do all the time.
April 2nd, 2026 at 17:40@ 8 – “Ritchie never wanted again a strong singer personality in Rainbow and acted accordingly. Blackmore never wanted competition in Rainbow which is ironic given that he has always delivered his best work in competetive surroundings, ie in DP where he could not tell people what to do all the time.” Sounds a little like Ian Gillan with lead guitarists then???????? Also in regard to Doogie and before him the previous lead vocalists in Rainbow, I didn’t see Manic mention the word ‘charisma’ at all Uwe. Are you saying that Graham Bonnet had charisma, please………..spin me another one, it has bells on it. Stranger In Us All has some good songs on it and Doogie got the job done well there and good on him for doing so. I do keep forgetting that you have a ‘thing’ for Bonnet though, that ‘laddish’ thing…………………..Charisma ha ha ha, one of the ‘boys’ eh? Sorry I should say ‘Lads’. Cheers.
April 2nd, 2026 at 22:11Graham Bonnet was an appalling choice for Rainbow, however he did unwillingly help lead the band ‘across that bridge’ so to speak. Ritchie and his ‘idiosyncratic’ ways eh? Plenty of others have made ‘strange’ choices over the years too, humans eh? Cheers.
April 2nd, 2026 at 22:23@2 Bad attitude or not, that conflict gave us some of the finest Purple performances live post-MIJ. I suspect without RB and IG getting at each other we’d have another lacklustre tour ’87 style.
April 3rd, 2026 at 08:02@8 Uwe
yep, I stand for this. Doogie was very good, also live. I believe that if he was a bit older and his passage from Rainbow was, say, in 1980-1983, then in about 1986 he would have made an album with Black Sabbath 😉
April 3rd, 2026 at 08:41By the way, I think Ronnie Romero was also OK for what Ritchie wanted to do in 2015. Not charismatic, but way better than the rest of the band he compiled. I’ve seen them twice Bietigheim-Bissingen and next year O2, he surely stayed on the positive side of the “nostalgia concerts”.
About JLT, hmm. He has said in an interview that when he auditioned he had a cold and happily his vocal teacher had taught him how to sing under such circumstances. I often wonder if this cold had given him a more interesting touch for the audition…
April 3rd, 2026 at 08:46Bonnet was/is a strange bird. But for some reason he seems to be totally unaware of it which gave him freedom to act, he didn’t conform to anything (except maybe the dress code of a country club in Hawaii). But I guess you’re right, it wasn’t so much charisma but that indeed charming laddish attitude. RJD of course oozed charisma.
Was Big Ian afraid of lead guitarists? Maybe, but he certainly had no issues putting a very idiosyncratic and dominant musician such as Colin Towns at the center of both IGB and GILLAN. And lest we forget he joined Sabbath very well knowing who’s the boss there …
April 3rd, 2026 at 10:42I wouldn’t say ‘afraid’ of lead guitarists. Just that big Ian seemed to go through plenty of them, just like Ritchie did with singers. It is ironic of course when we look at all the history as such, hindsight eh? Looking at it, who is the longest ‘surviving’ guitarist with big Ian, probably Steve Morris. But he wasn’t always there all the time, so we then go to Steve Morse. However there we could see something wasn’t quite right after about 2008 ish, perhaps. So does Ritchie then come into the fray? Ha ha ha ha, it doesn’t matter at all, music has its ways of sorting things out in the end, or should that be personalities. The old adage when there is an issue in a band, ‘personality differences’ or ‘musical differences’ are usually the two reasons given when something happens. Cheers.
April 3rd, 2026 at 21:55I’m happy for Romero’s rags to riches career and he can sing, but his obvious inability to understand what he was singing about was hard to stomach at the Reunionbow gigs. Why Ritchie didn’t send him to speech training of the type any Hollywood actor undergoes to prepare for a role is beyond me. Ronnie’s deficiencies in the English language were such that they severely constrained his ability to express himself and give meaning to the Rainbow lyrics.
I agree that Doogie White would have been out of place in a 90s Sabbath line-up.
April 4th, 2026 at 12:43Hello guys,
Maybe this is old news to you, but I just found it at YouTube
https://youtu.be/ZypAarruYdY?is=f1FJPeNlQQ3g20uT
And it strikes me that maybe Ian G wasn’t the root cause of the troubles between him and RB!
April 4th, 2026 at 14:15Ohh man, if this is to be trusted, my favourite guitarist was a bit of a hysterical monster 😁
@16 Uwe….same as with the box sets: why bother? We bought the sh*t anyway, you and me and all the other old geezers, didn’t we? Sending Romero to speech training would have cost time and – god forbid – money. And rehearsels would have too. They sold out the shows anyway and Blackmore knew it. And he knew Reunionbow would not last long enough to make word of mouth about the mediocre quality of the shows an issue. Take the money and run. I never thought I’d have to explain simple business rules to a lawyer.
April 4th, 2026 at 21:28Oops, that should have read “NOT been out of place in a 90s Sabbath line-up”.
April 4th, 2026 at 22:05You’re of course right, Max, but Blackmore’s budget/cheapskate approach to pretty much everything can be disheartening. It devalues his music.
That is something you cannot say about DP since his departure, they tour and perform in style. No undersized PA systems, budget lighting rigs. No cheesy cottage industry recording facilities and a producer figure that no doubt must cost them some money. Most importantly: no drum machines and no synths faking string sections!
April 5th, 2026 at 17:36Sad but true, Uwe. We have to face he doesn’t seem to give a fiddler’s fart. You can only dream of what might have been had Ritchie really cared for ace musicians, producers, errr…sleeve designers, stage production …. we have bands in that genre here in Germany that have less budget but are much more serious about that kind of music. Just ask Thomas Roth…
April 5th, 2026 at 21:52Uwe
> Why Ritchie didn’t send him to speech training of the type any Hollywood actor undergoes to prepare for a role is beyond me.
Sadly, because the whole thing was sloppy… I am not a fan of his style, but Jens Johansson is a very respected keyboard player in the metal genre. Could you imagine someone of such calibre playing Perfect Stranger intro like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkyw5XbpO1o
It does sound like a school band to my ears.
At least Romero did give a bit more than that: a really talented and trained voice, that was miserable in English and mediocre regarding his stage presence.
> I agree that Doogie White would have been out of place in a 90s Sabbath line-up.
…
> Oops, that should have read “NOT been out of place in a 90s Sabbath line-up”.
Heh, the first part I read as a nice dribble to my comment 😛
April 6th, 2026 at 05:54Sending Romero to ‘speech training”?????????? Talk about an insult to someone’s heritage! Unbelievable and insulting and derogatory to say the least.
April 6th, 2026 at 10:01It’s incredible how meek that version of Perfect Strangers sounds, all grandeur is gone. Purple’s road crew could have done a better job.
I think Johansson, certainly an able player, was totally inhibited by the Reunionbow situation. Here he was playing with his hero and obviously wished everything to sound great, yet reality bites and everything sounds like a wet fart. If you’re a musician sharing a stage with Ritchie you don’t want to sound anything but your absolute best.
April 6th, 2026 at 12:13#23: Nothing to do with his heritage. But when you sing with an accent the end result easily becomes karaoke. The biggest problem, however, was Ritchie’s decline on the chops front and the band unable to cover it up.
April 6th, 2026 at 14:14@ 24- still weeping about your money not well spent Uwe. At least the creator of the riff and the guitar subtleties plays it correctly eh? No one else has ever done that since Ritchie was in the band. The ‘once’ mighty Deep Purple that is. Now in the future be very careful how you throw your lucre around old son, at least that way you may be more satisfied with the end result and other people don’t have to repeatedly keep hearing about all the grumpiness. That includes all your support for Blackmore’s Night too. Weep, weep more ole boy, it’s all in vain. Cheers.
April 6th, 2026 at 17:38Rainbow’s lyrics are already nonsensical enough as is, that is not helped if they are sung by someone whose grasp of the Eeengleeesh langwich through no fault of his own is terribly limited. Any Brit actor playing a Midwestern character in an American movie goes to speech and accent training, nothing derogatory about that. If Doogie White sang for Lords of Black in Spanish I would expect him to bring up his Spanish chops via speech training too, it’s part of the job description.
April 6th, 2026 at 19:49famous interview, I had read it avidly in the paper fanzine of the Italian Purple fan club in the 90s… all of Ritchie’s introversion shines through, his self-criticism and his philosophy of life and music, but also the other side of the moon: his being too anchored to his style, looking down on everything from above, not wanting to compromise, but then he compromised with the second part of Rainbow for the American market, and also with Purple and with the last Rainbow album, the latent desire to take risks as he did in the 70s, the desire to change which then resulted in Blackmore’s Night.
an introverted and magnetic man who, especially as a soloist, should have created music in the 80s and 90s to vent his creativity instead of just being satisfied with the safe haven that Purple were in those years
April 6th, 2026 at 22:10@ 27- and the IRONY of this bullshit expectation is that if you took notice and knew the lyrics it wouldn’t matter at all. Humorous indeed. It isn’t something I EVER thought about until you mentioned this a little while ago. Why would I or anyone else think such rubbish. Most people do NOT have a problem with it, you do because you want to put the boot in, again. Anything to justify your rant. Still, in this world of the ‘I expect this to be to my liking’ attitude of so many, there isn’t a surprise at all. Why should it be what you think it should be? One of the biggest problems in this world. A job description, yes, we DO get the picture! Cheers.
April 6th, 2026 at 22:37Looking at Romero and his busy career singing for English speaking musicians. We do wonder if any of those musicians had a ‘problem’ of sorts with Ronnie’s supposed ‘”lack of English pronunciation”. Even the guys from Judas Priest? Hmmmmmmmmmm, mind you, they didn’t fork out a gazillion dollars and attend a ‘Rainbow’ concert or three with incredibly unrealistic expectations! For the record the only slight issue I had with Ronnie Romero’s singing was that he was a little ‘shouty’ at times. Mind you Rainbow had one of those singers back in 1980, so no changes there then. Regarding the ‘pronunciation’, if you know the songs etc, what is the problem? There isn’t a problem, simple really. Baron von Richthofen had no problem mastering the EEEENNNNNGGGGGLISH language in Blackadder. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMx0RH_YXgU&t=62s
April 6th, 2026 at 23:56Well… a bit funny it was to hear someone fronting a band called Rainbow sing ‘Long leave Rock’n’Roll’…. but then again, fun is what Rock’n’Roll is all about, isn’t it.
April 7th, 2026 at 07:00But I think Ronnie Romero really gave it his best shot.
I’m with Uwe.
April 7th, 2026 at 07:55When the Memories in Rock album arrived I was a very proud teenager for beeing in the audience of a live record by my all time favourite guitar player. But listening to it at home, after the excitement of the live situation was gone, I really got down to earth once and for all. And more than the weak performance of the band it is Romeros vocals I can’t get used to. And thats not because of his voice but because he sang after hearing. You just can tell that his englisch wasn’t there at this point. (I’m sure its gotten better over the years of being in the business). But you just can’t perform Stargazer or Catch the Rainbow if you don’t know or feel the meaning of the words. Those lyrics are an Initial part of the magic these songs, and if you just sing something that sounds alike you might as well use vocalises (“na naaa nana nana nana na na”)
In my opinion, Romero is a good cover band singer with an anonymous timbre. Doogie White, besides having an excellent technique, also has a good interpretation, he has various colors, he is not monotonous, and he also performed Child in Time very well, which is not a given.
considering that fewer and fewer hard and heavy singers are being born, Romero is not to be despised, he has found his space in a desolate panorama of zero births in the last 10 years.
Of course Johnny Gioeli was a superior category of metal singer:
April 7th, 2026 at 09:19https://youtu.be/-YPTULOrppM?is=c14JmtUWX6nLywta
It might surprise you, beloved Tasmanian, but good lyrics matter to me. Also their delivery in a coherent and audible way.
It has nothing to do with specifically Rainbow or that particular line-up. As a German I for instance cringe about the lyrics of the Scorpions and Klaus Meine’s Tshörmen äkzent, even Golden Earring is sometimes hard to take though their Dutch-colored English is still lightyears better than what the Scorpions offer.
To your defense, I have often noticed that – surprisingly so – Anglo-American native speakers don’t seem to give a flying flamingo about the English language expertise of singers. Well I do, and I did not expect Ronnie’s Eengleesh to be as bad as it was, matter of fact, I would have been ok with or even preferred it if he had sung the whole set in his native Spanish.
To this day I grin when the two ABBA girls sing their Swenglish “where zey play ze right muzick” in Dancing Queen. But since your appetite for Spaneengleesh seems to be endless, Herr MacGregor, I herewith indulge you:
https://youtu.be/dTvXBAKm_5I
It gives you a good idea how Ronnie sounded with Reunionbow at Lorelei and in Bissingen. 🤗🤣 It really gave those hymns about wizards lacking a valid pilot’s license new glory and expression live.
April 7th, 2026 at 09:30OMG, just because Romero sang vocals on an album that also featured JP guitarist Richie Faulkner, one of those run-of-the-mill – studio projects the good people of Italian Frontiers Music put together about once a week with varying musicians/pizza toppings from their roster to throw it against the wall to – allora! – see what sticks! 😂 So that is the new seal for English language capability then?
https://youtu.be/m1TnzCiUSI0
Mind you, in Heaven the Italians are the cooks and maybe the lovers, but not the English teachers. ☝️🥸
In fairness to Ronnie, since those Reunionbow days his English vocabulary and pronunciation has improved in leaps and bounds, but in 2016 it was still pretty awful and he could have used and I‘m sure also appreciated himself some help.
April 7th, 2026 at 13:27Someone out of nowhere gets invited to a gig or two, does that person say yes or no? What would some of the punters here do, hmmmmmmmmmm, probably say no by the sound of it. Seriously, what would any of you do if in that situation. A chance in a million for Ronnie Romero. He did the job as best as he could, but for some that is obviously not good enough. Good luck to him, it has also helped him with his career, has it not? Although he could have said, ‘no, Ritchie, I couldn’t be bothered actually, plus I feel a little uncomfortable with the fans, well some of them, what will they think’? Don’t ever do what Romero did folks, never go out on a limb and take that chance in life. Much better of sitting at home thinking ‘why didn’t I do that’? Cheers.
April 7th, 2026 at 21:56Question: Can we please have “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie” sung in proper British English too?
Uwe: Of course you can!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5RW_fWAOkg
Ronnie Romero should have taken some lessons with Sophie! For that stiff upper whatever!!😎
PS: Sophie can also do “where they play the right music” proper!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXWGlF2RkQ4
Personally a great fan of Ms Ellis-Bextor, her Murder On The Dancefloor is a bona fide classic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAx6mYeC6pY
April 7th, 2026 at 23:13@35
“Mind you, in Heaven the Italians are the cooks and maybe the lovers…”
No, the Sicilians are… 🥵
April 8th, 2026 at 06:36I have absolutely no issue with Ronnie Romero as a person or a singer, nor with the fact that he took a chance and ran with it. I think he did fine with Michael Schenker, another non-native speaker whose English hasn‘t exactly reached native speaker level in the half century he‘s been living outside of Germany in English-speaking countries. Go figure.
I do blame Ritchiefor not taking Ronnie under his wing and saying: “You’re a great singer and a real talent, but Rainbow fans are used to hearing native speakers sing. You think it might be a good idea if we let you work together with a language and speech instructor in preparation for those gigs a bit? I’d pay for it.”
It’s what I would have done. I would have gotten Ronnie up to speed, you bet. And the rest of the band too while we’re at it.
April 8th, 2026 at 17:24I understand that you are saying what you would do in Ritchie’s shoes. But for RB to do that, he would have had to give a shit, which he apparently didn’t do.
It’s a nice story that he and Candice found him on YouTube but it could just as likely be that someone else decided Rar was the right man for the job, at the right price, maximising revenue for the Blackmore household, including involved relatives.
This reminds me of 20 years ago when I was involved in a lip-synch story with Journey (it’s a long story). Neal Schon, Journey head honcho, when asked about it said, “what would I know, I haven’t had vocals in my monitors the last 20 years”.
April 9th, 2026 at 06:43The Steve Augeri Affair, right? 😂 I remember the rock mags being up in arms about that.
April 9th, 2026 at 09:39@39:
Herr Uwe and his obsession with Romero’s accent! everybody speaks with an accent — you, me, even the late Queen of England. what is this mythical native speaker accent? upstate noo yo’ok? east midlans? joyzee? and don’t even get me started about glaswegian….
accents don’t matter, as long as you make yourself understood. Ronnie obviously made himself understood to the only person that matters, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
April 10th, 2026 at 12:59Having an accent can be an asset if you create something original with it (Klaus Meine, Udo Dirkschneider, ABBA) but when LLRAR becomes “Long Leave Rock and Roll”, as someone else pointed out, it just becomes karaoke. Doesn’t matter if Ritchie approved said karaoke or not. Quality control hasn’t been one of his stronger sides since the mid 90s.
April 10th, 2026 at 20:32His English was as bad as Melania’s still is – and you know it, Nick! ☝️🧐 I don’t mind if you hear where someone is coming from, that is more often than not even charming, but Ronnie’s comprehension of what he was singing was severly hampered by his very limited grasp of English. And I heard his between song banter too – it was bad enough to wish for the return of Joe Lynn Turner. (Yes, that bad.)
“Godness” (not: Goddess) “on a mountain top” alright! 🤣
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LhkyyCvUHk
Learning English Vol. 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-1ASpdT1Y
April 10th, 2026 at 20:50Of course, an accent can add something:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10JDA8SvwX8
Not that the Depeche Mode original was ever bad. I like David Gahan’s voice a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU8UfYdKHvs
April 10th, 2026 at 21:37@43 Daniel
> Having an accent can be an asset if you create something original with it (Klaus Meine, Udo Dirkschneider, ABBA)
I was about to point the same thing, reading Uwe’s mentioning of Klaus Meine. I never liked him singing “Long Tall Sally” in Tokyo Tapes and it is mostly because of the accent. But on their stuff it never bothered me, I even believe the early songs (Uli era) benefit a lot from his German touch.
I am not sure how a native speaker feels about it though, I come from Greece and it is very rare (and mostly funny) to listen to non-greeks singing in greek.
April 11th, 2026 at 06:08