COZY POWELL BBC Interview 1979 The people who thought we were going a bit over the top last week at Reading interviewing two ex-members of Deep Purple had to eat their words, I think after the performances by Ian Gillan and Whitesnake who really were the highlights of the festival, so excuse us if this week we talk about the other Purple spin-off, which of course is Rainbow and it now includes Ritchie Blackmore and bassist Roger Glover. John Tobler met Rainbow's drummer Cozy Powell this week whilst he was back here in Europe following his other great love that of motor racing. He's now the longest serving member of the band apart from Ritchie and good old John wondered why there had been so many personnel changes. Cuz they're lousy tea makers basically, I think it is they can't seem to make tea at all and you know if they don't get the tea right then they have to go. It's simple as that. We don't stand any messing about when it's tea. I think the reason basically, to be serious for a moment, is the fact that Ritchie and myself have got certain standards that we like to do, if musicians in the band don't give 110% then they get booted out rather sharply and one or two of the musicians we've had in the band have not given 110% consequently are no longer with us. It's a very competitive business being in a rock band such as Rainbow, you've got bands coming up all the time that are trying to blow you off, trying to do this, trying to do that, you have to be on top of the situation all the time and if you're not then you you're just going to fall by the wayside and I think this lineup is going to last for a while. I certainly hope so. Everyone seems very excited about the new Rainbow record and particularly the single which sounds very much like a hit heaven forbid. Is it your intention to have a hit single? I mean would it matter if you had one for your credibility? It wouldn't matter in Europe. No, it would matter no way at all. I don't think because the band has been very successful in England and Europe because basically the kids over here have have helped us kick off the whole career of the thing was done over in Europe. The States is a different market, we have to break the States to be considered a credible worldwide band and the more popular we can get in the States the more money we can spend on the stage show, so it all has its relevance. Now Graham Bonnet seems the most unlikely person to be the lead singer of a band like Rainbow, especially if you remember The Marbles, that was his biggest record before this, about 11 years ago. How did you come across him. Well Ritchie was trying to find something that could clean his room at a hotel and Graham knocked at the door with his room cleaning kit on and sang a few verses of something and Ritchie decided that was good enough for for Rainbow. I think actually what happened, we were all playing having an oldie session at the studio one night and 'Only One Woman' came on and everybody said what's this guy doing, he's got such a tremendous range, we'd like to get him out to see what he sings like these days. And he came out the shadow, we were recording the new album and proceeded to sing 'Mistreated' better than Ronny Dio had done which made everybody sit up and go this guy's a bit good. So we tried him on a few other things and everything he sang was great and he put it across really good. We'd auditioned several, I think maybe 30 or 40 singers, to try and find the right guy and Graham just came along and fitted it in perfectly. Having to follow Ronnie Dio wasn't easy anyway and Graham did it with so much ease. That's why he is in the band. Now you've been playing heavy metal music or thereabouts in a lot of well-known bands for over 10 years now. What do you think's changed about heavy metal? I don't think the actual format of music in heavy metal has changed too much, the same sort of people that were playing heavy metal music 10 years ago are still playing it and still popular by kids that buy records and listen to radio as well. I think the fact of heavy metal is so popular is because it maintains a certain level all the time and has done over 10 years which is why kids will always still buy old tracks from bands that possibly aren't even together now for example Purple. I mean you always get Purple records requested all the time, possibly it's because they maintain such a good standard and I hope that Rainbow over the years can do the same thing that Purple did. Have you ever been a Deep Purple fan? Not a Deep Purple fan, I've been a Deep Purple admirer, I mean I admire all the guys that were in the band, musicians are very rarely fans of other musicians but certainly I admire them because Purple has set a lot of really big standards. You can't knock that sort of success. Are you playing any Deep Purple material? No, we we used to do 'Mistreated' up until this last tour but we figured because of the new line-up it would be a little bit daft to try and do anything that Purple did before, even though Roger Glover has just joined us on bass and he was in Purple obviously. Now we figured that Rainbow can do it on its own, we don't need the help of Deep Purple. It's funny you should mention Roger Glover because... That's your next question right? It was! It's rumored that during the time he was with Deep Purple Ritchie was actually responsible for getting Roger Glover fired from that group. You read your press notes, don't you? I certainly do! It seems that that looks like a a blueprint for yet some more conflict in Rainbow. Yeah, I thought that initially. But however. Ritchie has come to the conclusion that bass players, or the type of bass players that he wants to play with are very hard to find. If you look at the track record of bass players in Rainbow it's why and Roger came along as basically to produce the album and had such good ideas as far as basslines were concerned that Ritchie decided that he would make a good bass player for the band permanently, as opposed to just playing a few tracks on the sessions. So he was asked to join the band which he's done and he's turning out to be very good. He hasn't played on stage for 5 years since Purple broke up and he's sort of like a duck to water again as if he hasn't been away from the stage. He wasn't reluctant to go back to all this? He didn't hesitate for a second, he was straight in like a shot. That's another good thing why I think this band could be well a lot more successful than the old lineup because everybody's so enthusiastic. It's really good to see five guys all united instead of fighting each other for a change. © BBC Radio One - August 1979