Ritchie Blackmore Livestream Birthday Interview [Part 3] with questions asked by fans Why did you switch to a Telecaster guitar in the 80s? In the "Can't Let You Go" and "Bad Attitude" music videos. I did notice that. I didn't even remember playing a Telecaster. But you're right. I did have a Telecaster. And if someone had said to me "you played a telecaster", I would have said, "No, I didn't". But I saw some sort of video where I was playing a Telecaster. So, I obviously played a Telecaster. Thank you for taking the time to take a picture with me at Sony Hall in New York City. That was the one that we had an issue with with the cold and the lights and you went to go to the bathroom and they didn't let you back in. I don't remember this. Sony Hall in New York City. The last time we played New York City. Oh, right. And the alarm was going off upstairs. It was very interesting to play Sony Hall. The alarm going off, and I went to the bathroom to come back and the guy wouldn't let me back on stage and said, "Who are you?" I said, "Well, I'm playing on stage." So I had a big argument with him. I don't quite know what that place is all about. Remember the lights were so bright and they never changed them. Yeah. Well the Yeah, exactly. It was like some headlights from the car. We would never go back there. Apart from that it was wonderful. I think we did three songs and walked off. Do you have any recollection about the Blackmore's Night show in the Paradiso in Amsterdam? Yes. I remember the PA was crackling and banging and I said, "I can't work, I can't play here." So, we left. I remember it very well. I don't quite know why the PA was so bad. It was disgusting. And then we left and got a boat. And people were throwing bottles at us, I think. I was throwing the bottles back. I like that. Which of your songs do you find most difficult to play? To be quite honest, the one that was written not by me, by my German friend in the Des Geyers... George, he wrote this really tricky little song called... what was it called? The Welsh song.... Allan Yn n' Fan How do you remember? Alan Yn n' Fan. And that's Welsh. My father was Welsh. I always have a natural kinship with Wales because of him. He was born in Cardiff. I was born in Western Super Mare, which is just across the see. And I remember when I was born I bumped into John Cleese and he said who the hell are you? And I said well I'm not your baby. And he said to me I hope not. And that's how we met and we went on our merry way. John Cleese is one of my favorite all-time people. What did you like about Waldeck? Oh my God Waldeck... I first went there a long time ago, probably in the 1800s, and they only had two rooms. Then they got more rooms. Candy and I went there and in the beginning, it was wonderful because the people that ran the place were fantastic. They allowed us to go into the dungeon, gave us torches, and everything was fantastic. And then the next time we were there, along came some different people that were very argumentative and gave us a hard time. So, we never went back. But I did love Waldeck. One of my favorite memories. And I remember the next day they put up a stage. The next day at 7 in the morning, they decided to knock it down, which woke me up. So I did the normal thing. I opened up the window and threw a few bottles of water at these people, and they didn't like it, but they stopped playing. Someone else says, "I saw you live in Hell." Remember Hell, Norway? I am pretty sure that was the first time you played The Storm Live. Do I remember that correctly? You remember more than us. I just remember we played hell, which was not a good sign that we were playing in hell. And then we played soccer and my violinist decided to kick me in the knee and I was hobbling after that and it was not a good night. I think the sun rose for about 15 minutes. Come back to hell. I'll probably be there when I go on my merry way. Do you have a favorite memory about Lemmy? Yes. I do have a favorite. I was in Wardo Street in a kind of club opposite the pub where most musicians met and he was playing a one-armed bandit, I think. And then I went up and spoke to him and he turned around to me and said, "I know a lot about you, much more than you think." And I went, "Oh." That was the first time I spoke to Lemmy. I didn't quite understand what he meant. But then I found out he was Jimmy Hendrix's Roadie, but I don't quite know what he meant by he knew a lot more about me than I thought. It was almost like he was some private detective for something. What's your opinion on Rory Gallagher? Excellent guitar player, excellent fellow, and the nicest person you could meet. Any recollection about The Perfect Strangers Tour with Leslie West? No (laughs). Do you have a favorite Mountain tune? Yes. A little story about that. Ian Paice and I were gloating about how well we were doing in Germany. We were at number one with Deep Purple In Rock and we're both sitting at the bar, celebrating ourselves how well the the record was doing it. It was at number one and suddenly we heard this song called Mississippi Queen and we both looked at each other and the sound was fantastic. And I said to him, "Who the hell is that?" He said, "I'm going to find out." So he went up to the DJ, he came back and said, "It's a band called Mountain." I said, "I've never heard." But we knew they were trouble because their sound was more chaotic than ours in a way. We had a kind of distorted sound on our record, Deep Purple In Rock. And we were kind of gloating at the time going, "Oh, it's doing so well in Germany. Hey, great." And then Mississippi Queen came up by Mountain and buried us. And we had no clue who that was until he found out. And it was Leslie West. And we toured with Leslie West after that. Nice guy. A little bit scattered, but he was great. He only played with two fingers. That was enough. Do you still have contact with Ian Anderson? Yes. How do you remember Eddie Van Halen? I first met him in the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Hollywood. He came and sat next to me and he asked me about certain songs I played on and I didn't quite know what he meant. He said, "How did you get that sound on Deep Purple In Rock?" And I said, "I don't know what you mean." I did. He said, "Did you use an effect?" I thought I said, "No, I didn't. I had no idea what you mean." And he seemed a little bit kind of confused because I think he thought I was playing with him. And he was a very nice, humble guy. You'd never suspect that he was the next gigantic monster guitar player. He was so humble, too humble, I think, and too sensitive. And then I got to know him. He would often call me when he'd had a few drinks, which I'm not a fan of people that drink all the time. I kind of look down on that. And he would often call me when he was very drunk. Ritch, I'm calling, you know, because I don't like to call you unless I'm drunk. Okay, and we got along fine. Fantastic man. Too sensitive for this business. Wonderful guitar player. He is too sensitive. You have to be a little bit hardened to take the the blows in this business. And someone like Eric Clapton has done it very well. But, you know, Eddie was too sensitive. Did you ever meet Dave Mason? No, I never did. I never met Dave Mason. Very good. Especially when he was with... the band that... who was the player that played with eh.... Traffic Yeah. Traffic. He was great with Traffic. Good songwriter. Misty Blue middle section sounds like a Bach piece. Fantastic melody. Was there an inspiration from Bach when you were creating this song? Bach has been my hero for the last 50 years. I can't believe some of those fuges that he plays. Wonderful man. He's not a good soccer player. Do you think AI will change the music industry? Well, there are a lot of artificial people playing in the business already. Probably not. Chris from near Holloway Road, North London saw Rainbow at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park, 12th of November, 1977. Yes, I used to live on Holloway Road. I actually used to live there because I did the sessions with Joe Meek at the studio on Holloway Road, small wall. I wouldn't like to paint it. Huh? What would you do if Candice sang out of tune? Well, try it. Let's see what happens. I'll drink to it. I'll drink to anything at the moment. What's your favorite meal? Like I said before, it's fried herring. Brat herring with pommes frites in Hamburg because Hamburg has the best northern herring, that's my favorite. But if you were to look at it, when you first look at , Fried Herring, it looks like a museum piece. You performed one single time in Istanbul in 2004. I hope you had good memories there. It was a life-changing experience. Oh, great. Fantastic. We had a good time there. We got in and out. And apparently that's something. It was very good. We had a good time. The Bulgarians treated us very well. We were not a big band, small band. Favorite song from the band Fandango . Oh, now you're talking. That's interesting. How would you know about that? Fandango is their main song, but they had David Allen and they did a song that was their main single. I've forgotten the name of it. It was excellent. And I knew them when I was in Hollywood. Or are they talking about Joe Lynn Turner's men? I don't know. Are you talking about Hollywood's pandemic? I don't know... Your guitar playing is hypnotic. What made you start using so much exotic scales like harmonic minors? I don't think of it technically as harmonic minors. I just drink a lot and go wherever that takes me and it's usually down the wrong path into evilness. But I've always loved middle eastern scales which I would throw in quite often. When did you start scalloping your guitars ? When I was three. No, I started when I was about 17. Do you think technology is making our lives less enjoyable? As long as I can obtain German beer, I'm okay. Do you remember playing Kloster Buch? Rings a bell. Where is that? Germany. What town? I don't know. Yeah, I remember the place. Do you remember something interesting about the band The Trip? Yes, of course. I went to Italy with the Trip and I had to get my father to pay for me to get home. We were living off of one egg, one boiled egg per day and a piece of toast. And it was not a particularly good time, but it was a challenge and it was something I do remember. What was the story behind you playing the Peppa Pig tune on the 2019 tour? We had two children that were obsessed with Peppa Pig and so was I. Peppa Pig was very refreshing. And I think Peppa Pig was showing us the way where we were all going musically downhill. What did you do on your birthday? Not much. I ate a lot of chocolate. We went to dinner. What did I do? We went out to dinner. Oh, yes. We went out for dinner. One of our favorite restaurants in Bayport. And that was nice. We met another table which were very loud. So I told them to shut up and the only reason I told them to shut up was because they were all women and I didn't see any kind of men that would hurt me. And they apologized. That was great. How is your relationship with Jimmy Page? Great. Absolutely great. Pagey is someone I knew from 1962. I knew he was going to be a star then, not only from his playing, but as his style. He was very well aware of himself to be somebody and he was playing with a band called Neil Christian and the Crusaders of which I joined later. I was playing with a very famous band called Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. And he was playing a Gretch Country Gentleman I think at the time. Had a great sound and I could tell he was going places because not only was he a good guitar player but he was very in control of himself. He he was somebody that you knew was going places. Did you ever name your guitars? Well, no. I name my cats. I never name my guitars. No, never. What was your reaction when you first heard Hocus Pocus? Oh, very good record. Good guitar player. Great guitar player. I love that song. Very nice song. And I wish he was better known than he is now. Great guitar player. The recent Rainbow box set, Temple of the King, is great. Will there be more Rainbow box sets in the future ? Oh god. A lot of record companies want to put out box sets to make money. And I'm not a big believer in all that stuff. They did it with Deep Purple. They would put out Deep Purple stuff, put it into a new paper bag and put it out. And I will go, that's not fair to the fans. You're not giving out anything new. You're just giving out a new paper bag. Disgusting. What's your favorite movie? High Noon. Did you really ask Graham not to cut his hair? Yes, I did. I thought at the time the people that would want to see someone who was a little bit more be dragged. He looked a little bit like a kind of a businessman. He looked like a charted accountant. So I thought, you know, Graham, grow your hair and you get a bit a little bit scruffy. That's our type of audience. We're were more scruffy, more into denim. And then he proceeded to say, "Well, I used to have long hair." And that went on quite often. Whatever happens to the original pilgrim hat? I only wore that pilgrim hat because David O'List from The Nice wore a pilgrim hat and I like the way it looked. What pickups do you use on your Strat? You know, I have no idea. I keep changing them and I usually have a roadie that will tell me what pickups I'm using and it sounds terrible, but I don't know. I don't remember what they are. What's the story with your Aiwa real-to-real? And what's your favorite Strat year? Well, most of the time I play a like a 1982 something like that and I don't know what the pickups are if I heard the name I would... And the story with your real to real That was something laying around the house and I had no use for it until I thought, well, I've got to do something with it. And I thought, I wonder what it would be like if I used it as a preamp. And it worked. And funnily enough, although it was the only tape recorder I had in the house that was pretty meaningless. Now a lot of people want that sound and they want that particular brand of tape recorder and it does overload the signal in such a way that it gives a nice bit of distortion without thinning out the sound. It's very important if you're going to have a distorted sound. Not to thin the sound too much. Any stories about Big Jim Sullivan? My idol, I used to go around his house and sit on his doorstep and wait for Jim to answer the door. I go, "Jim, can I come in and can you teach me something?" And one time he answered the door and he was vacuuming the rug. He said, "No, I'm I'm vacuuming at the moment." I went, "Okay, I've got to wait." You know, he was my hero. Fantastic guitar player. We would love to hear another Blackmore's Night cooperation with Ian Anderson. How did the first one come to be? Well, we only did one track. Ian is a very cerebral man and his sense of music usually goes into some really complex time timings, and very awkward arrangements which I'm not very good at. So other than sending Christmas cards I don't do a lot with Ian, you know. I still think he's the best. He's a genius. What's your favorite style of art or favorite artist? Breughel the Elder is my favorite, but I do love all the the the classics from the.... Like the Dutch masters? Thank you. The Dutch masters. The Dutch masters are my favorites, but also Breughel the Elder. Do we still have the haunted clock? Yes, it goes off now and again. What did you think of the band Rare Earth? I don't know much about them. Rare Earth? They open the California Jam I wasn't there. They open it. I thought it was I thought it was the Eagles. Any stories with Dire Straits? No, never came across the Dire Straits. What you were feeling when you were writing Catch The Rainbow. Well, it was just a break for me to play a kind of ballad, but Ronnie didn't like it particularly. Of course, he sang it really well. He was not into ballads like that. It's the same as Rainbow Eyes. He hated that song and I thought it's just something different. Is the spaghetti story with Deep Purple true? Yes. Ian Gillan had put sauce in my food backstage. So when I asked my roadie who did that, he said, "Well, Ian did it." So I went into Ian's dressing room and put it into his face. And I thought, "Oh, we're going to have a big fight." Everybody in the room disappeared. The rest of the band that was in Ian Gillan's room. But Ian was very cordial. He just wiped the spaghetti off of his face. And we basically went to the bathroom together and shook hands. And I said, "Ian, that was very good of you. You did not. I thought you were going to beat the hell out of me." He didn't. Street of Dreams is a great tune. Ever considered doing a more dedicated pop album? No, I'm still trying to compose songs, someone once said to me, "Would you rather be a good guitar player or a good composer?" I had a hard time answering that because part of me wants to be to compose more so than be a clever guitar player. So, I'm still caught in the middle. There are photos of you in a black and white polka dot shirt from the 60s,70s, and 80s. Do you still have that shirt? No, but that was because of Bob Dylan. I was a big fan. He had a polka dot shirt. Did you call Bruce Dickinson and mention that you did not like his trousers? Not that I recall. I didn't like his trousers. I do have a habit of calling people and having a problem with their trousers. No, I didn't. Would you ever come to a smaller concert in a castle like Arenberg or Satzvey? Absolutely. I know Satzvey. And we often tried to get work there and it always went wrong. There was one of thing always messed up. I don't know why. We always wanted to play Satzvey and for some reason of course it had to do with money, no doubt, with the promoters getting together. I wanted to play Satzvey. Didn't happen. What do you like better, big venues or small venues? It depends how big. I mean, I've played the biggest to the smallest and we're thinking about doing a little tour of doing like small theaters. Then it's more intimate and you can have more of a party atmosphere. Did you expect Joe Meek to come to the end that he did? No. Although Joe was pretty erratic, he helped me out a lot. I did a lot of sessions for him and he kind of saved the day for me. I would do three or four sessions a day and that was enough money for me to carry on living where I was living. Would you say that Tielman Susato was an idol like JS Bach is? Yes, definitely on a much simpler scale. At the sign of the crumhorn. He had a shop called At the sign of the crumhorn, Tielman Susato. It annoys me that he wrote such great melodies that to this day still have not got their proper infamy. What do you think of Steve Morse as a guitar player? He's excellent. And I was the one that actually mentioned to Roger Glover. We were driving along and I heard this ridiculously good guitar player. I said, "Oh my god, who's that?" And it was very fast. And I thought no more about it. But then when they got Steve Morse in the band, I went, "Oh, I wonder where they got the idea to get Steve Morse from." I think it was from me, which is great. We connect now and again. Was the song April by Deep Purple inspired by Renaissance music? It sounds very close to Blackmore's Night. No, it was played in A flat. I remember that it was just something I threw together in the spur of the moment and Jon said, "What do you want to call it?" So I said, "I don't know. Let's call it April when I was born." Would you have liked to have Jon Lord in Rainbow? Oh, of course. Jon was very amiable and very easy to get along with. And he knew exactly how to emulate what I was playing. He would often correct me in the days of Rainbow, in the days of Deep Purple and when I would play a riff and then 20 minutes later I'd still be playing what I thought was the same riff. Jon Lord would correct me and say, Ritchie, do you want to play this the way you're playing it now or the way you played it the first time? And that was very important because the way I played it in the first time was the way I really wanted to play it. But when I played something 20 times, I start to change it. But he would notice that I had changed it. So that was very important. Do you still have the fishnetss and suspenders that you wore on the cover of Sounds magazine? Yes, I wear them every day (laughs). That was done for a reaction, when I started doing it, people came and said, "Oh, the Japanese market are not going to like this." I said, "Well, then I'm going to do it, you know." And I put them on just to be a little bit contrary. What is your favorite pie? Shepherd's pie. Which which castle in the world would you recommend for me to visit in my first experience going to one? Depends what country, but if it's Germany, I would say down there. Great view. Do you have a story about Fire, Ice and Dynamite, the movie song you did with Joe Lynn Turner in Deep Purple? It's funny that you should mention that.... No, we did it because... what's his name was in the film. , one of our heroes. He was a James Bond. I can't remember his name... Roger Moore? Roger Moore! Roger Moore was in the film, so we thought we'd do it. And it was Roger, myself, and Joe Lynn Turner. Never heard another note from that particular film. What do you think of the band Carmen? Excellent. Unbelievable. You're a great storyteller. Who is your favorite storyteller? John Cleese. Are you aware of the late Mickey Jones? No. What's that? Somebody who played with a band called The Man. No. Have you ever met Jon Lennon? No, never met Jon Lennon. Met Paul McCartney and we played with George Harrison. Never met Jon Lennon. He did ask for us to play with him at Madison Square Garden with the Yoko Ono and such, but we never did. I never turned up for that. I wasn't sure what to be playing at that point. Did you ever meet Monty Python? Any stories with that? No, No. But John Cleese did wish you a happy Father's Day. Yes. John Cleese wished me a happy Father's Day. John Cleese is an a big idol. What's your favorite book? Book? Well, the one I'm reading at the moment is by Greg Gutfeld. And Greg Gutfeld is a friend and it's about his adventures in England and being an American, he didn't quite understand being in England, certain colloquialisms. So, I often go to sleep reading His Adventures in England because he sent me a book which I don't think is on sale, which should be on sale because it's one of the funniest things I've ever read. I'm going to tell him if he speaks to me anymore. He's probably too famous to do. Did you ever ride a motorcycle? No. I wanted to. I thought I should either take up the guitar or buy a motorbike. So, I decided to buy a guitar. You did Home Again in Greek. Was there a specific inspiration from a Greek song to write Home Again? Greece is a great place. And one of our favorite songs is... what's that girl's name? Oh, Elena Paparizou. You like the hurdy gurdy solo? I love the hurdy gurdy. But Jerry showed me tonight. He said it wasn't a hurdy gurdy. I know it was. Excellent song. Since you like Greg Gutfield, have you ever seen Jim Florentine on his show? Do you think he's funny? I know he's a big fan of yours. No. Jim Florentine? Comedian. Probably have seen him, cuz I watch all Greg's shows. How did the Perfect Strangers riff come about? And what was the inspiration? Perfect Stranger. I wrote that when I was in Rainbow before. So you could say about 1982 I wrote that riff. What do you think about Vivian Campbell? Great guitar player. Where do you get those fantastic shirts? What shirts? Where do I get them from? I just get them anywhere. Did you ever use a Stramp amp from Germany? There's a story about a modified Marshall amp by Peter Struven in 1971. I don't remember that. No. But I might have. What is the story of how you proposed marriage to Candice? We were both swimming in a lake and I was saving her from drowning and I said, "Will you marry me?" And she said, "Yes, if you help if you stop me from drowning." © Igor's Rock Universe, YouTube - April 14, 2026