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Ritchie Blackmore, Interviews
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Introduction Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 |
Are chere solos you played with Deep
Purple that stand out in your mind? The solo on "Highway Star" [Machine Head] was worked out; it's just arpeggios based on Bach. On Machine Head as a whole, in fact, there was some good stuff. The guitar solo on "Pictures Of Home" was good. But when I hear that compared to what I'm doing now, there's a big difference to me. It's much better now; I didn't have the control then I do now. I think the solo on "Gates Of Babylon" [Long Live Rock 'N Roll] is the best solo I've ever done. It is the best because it's the most intricate solo, yet at the same time it's not clinical. I was well pleased with that one. Was that a spontaneous solo? Yeah, that was spontaneous. And also it wasn't just 24 bars of just playing on E. There were so many weird chords involved that I could go back to my old way of playing, which is just to have the chords in front of me and play the solo, whereas now every time I go into the studio to play I know exactly what the song consists of. Usually it's just two chords and I'm stale by the time I get in there. But we threw those chords around. and in fact David Stone, our keyboardist, helped a lot with that. They were strange chords – diminished, augmented – it was great. Because I love musical theory and I was well into that, I didn't have any problems with that side of it. I love playing a few augmented and diminished runs and not just the usual blues licks. What did you think of the album Deep Purple did with the orchestra? 
I didn't like it. I like proper classical,
purist classical. That album was just a compromise;
the orchestra was never playing at
its best and the best was certainly out of
its depth. I like chamber music basically,
medieval music moreso than big orchestrations.What did you think of Deep Purple's two live albums, Made In Europe and Made In Japan? I never listen to them; they're old, dead, and buried. I think both of them as live LPs are rubbish, but compared to all the live albums that are put out hy other bands. I think they were brilliant. What about Rainbow's live album On Stage? That was dire when we did it: i've had to have someone come in and salvage the tapes and get a better sound. They sounded awful. I don't. know, there's something about being live that doesn't come across. I've got cassettes of us playing really well. As soon as the red light is on and we're recording, everything gets compressed and there's no way to get around it. There was some good playing on Burn. Yeah, that's because we had about a year off and I had the excitement to start again. Just before that I was ready to kind of leave myself. We were just working and flogging ourselves to death. I was sick all the time. Luckily we changcd two members and there was new blood. Then again, Burn was great, and Stormbringer hecame a bit funky, soully, smooth. "Mistreated" on Burn was a good song. Yeah. That was influenced by "Heartbreaker" [Heartbreaker, Island 9217] by Free. I get inspired by other people's songs and write something vaguely similar. In fact wasn't Paul Rodgers, Free's vocalist, supposed ro join Deep Purple? Yeah, that's right, he was for about a week. I think somebody was going to chop his legs off if he did leave, so he didn't. I think he was into a different type of singing and he didn't want to follow lan Gillan and all that screaming. Rodgers wasn't into that, he was more into blues. It seems that Ian Paice really pushed you as a player. Yeah, I used to have to look around at him some nights to get some sort of enthusiasm. How is it different playing with drummer Cozy Powell as opposed to Ian Paice? Ian plays more of a stright beat; Cozy always plays in front of the beat and he's pushing all the time. You use a rosewood-fingerboard Stratocaster? Yeah, I break the maple necks because they're so badly made. They should be broken. Now they're so badly made it's disgusting. What year is the Stratocaster you're using? I think it's about two years old. It's one of about ten that has a narrow neck. What do you do to a guirar when you get it? I do this carving-out business. I'll usually cover the Fender frets with tape or put in Gibson frets, and I'll sandpaper the wood down so it's concave so I can get my finger underneath. I have the action on my guitar fairly high so there's more control, but it's within reason. I mean, jazz players have it so high and it's musical snobbery really. The Gibson frets have a wider profile than Fender's? Yeah, they do. I do like big frets, but I've noticed in the last two years I've kept it to Fender frets. Do you use Fender tuning heads? No, I use Schallers. It's funny, I never saw anybody do it before I was doing it and I did it years ago. Now everybody does it. I wonder why that is? Do you change the nut? No, because that's only good for sustaining a note open. Once you hit a note on the first fret you depend on the first fret and not the nut. Although [drummer] Buddy Miles used to tell me Hendrix used a brass nut. [page 2] [page 4] |
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