Rolling Stone magazine has series called Unknown Legends where they interview “[…] veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public.” David Rosenthal was the latest guest on this feature column.
Tell me how you wound up joining Rainbow.
A friend of a friend told me that Ritchie Blackmore was looking for a new keyboard player, so I sent him a cassette. It was my cover band playing a bunch of different rock tunes on one side. And on the other side was my senior classical piano recital where I played all this crazy stuff. I knew he was into classical as well.
He heard that and invited me to audition out on Long Island. It was a cattle call. I went there and they narrowed it down to me and one other guy, and then I got the gig.
Do you recall what you played at the audition?
I don’t remember the exact songs, but it was a lot of jamming. A lot of what Ritchie was looking for was, “Can I connect with him musically? How quick does he learn?” And so there was a lot of jamming. I might have played “Man on the Silver Mountain” and a couple of the other classics. But I honestly don’t remember the specific songs.
It must have been intimidating to be onstage with someone like Ritchie.
Well, to me, it’s not intimidating. I just did what I did. My philosophy has always been to go in there after doings tons and tons of homework where you prepare and prepare. I then go in and do my best. If my best isn’t what they’re looking for, then that’s OK. At least I know I did my best. In this case, it turned out to click.
One moment of the audition I remember very specifically is that Roger Glover was running the auditions. He came over to me and said, “Let’s say that we’re onstage now in front of 20,000 people and Ritchie just broke a string and nothing is happening on the stage. You need to fill space. Go.”
I just played. I just starting playing something on the [Hammond] B3 and then I played some riffs on the Minimoog and jumped over to the clavinet. They were Ritchie’s keyboards that they had there. I had brought my stuff with me. I only had a Fender Rhodes, a Farfisa organ, and a synth. I was a student. I didn’t have any money. So they said, “Play our keyboards. Play this setup.”
I had learned about a lot of these keyboards in theory, but I’d never actually played them. But in any event, I just played a little bit here, and a little bit there. I just played. I didn’t think anything of it.
About a year later, Roger Glover told me that out of all the people they asked that of, I was the only guy that just started playing. He said everyone else had an excuse like, “Oh, don’t worry; I’ll be prepared,” or “I’ll work something up.” Everybody had a story, but I was the only guy that just started playing.
You’re filling the shoes of Don Airey, who’s a pretty incredible player.
Don is a great player. But I had the benefit when I was preparing for the audition of four keyboardists in Rainbow before me. I knew whatever those four players had in common stylistically was what Ritchie liked. I sort of tailored my playing accordingly, knowing what he was looking for, but it was a very natural fit. He and I clicked musically right away. And I was only 20 years old.
Continue reading in Rolling Stone. There’s a lot more interesting tidbits — did you know, for example, that before he got the Rainbow gig David was a student at Berklee College, where he formed a band with another fellow student, a then unknown guitar player by the name of Steve Vai?
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.
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