Obtención de los BCP1-Br PDMS-b-PMMA-Br y BCP2-Br PDMS-b-PS-Br mediante ATRP usando al

comforts of home—including

a medieval dungeon.

 Rock II  was culled from live performances by the group in the U.K. in 2017. The DVD included in the set contains interviews and backstage footage, offering a complete chronicle of this latest chapter in Black- more and Rainbow’s history.

Revisiting musical highlights of his long and storied career seems to have put Black- more in a mellow and reflective mood. WhenGuitar World  _{spoke to him from his}

home on Long Island, he was affable, gen- erous and eager to share stories from his many years in rock.

How do you rate this new incarnation of

Rainbow _{, as compared with previous line-}

ups?

I like it, because I think it’s more musi- cal. With Ronnie James Dio, in the begin- ning of Rainbow, everything was fine. He was a great singer. But he didn’t have a lot of patience. So we kind of got on each oth- er’s nerves after two or three years. Which means we weren’t really creating any lon-

ger at that point. And with [ drummer ] Cozy Powell, he was a pretty uptight guy too. And I’m quite domineering. I like to steer the bus. So after a few years, we were argu- ing too much and weren’t as creative. That’s when the first lineup folded. Following that, I wanted to be more accessible and on the radio. So that’s when we started recording stuff like the ballads I wrote with Joe Lynn Turner. He had more of a commercial voice.

I think this new incarnation also has the capability of being quite commercial, if we want to be, with Ronnie Romero’s voice. But at the same time, we can try all the good songs that Rainbow has done in the past. At the moment I’m not looking at this lineup as a recording vehicle—just going out and hav- ing fun playing all the old songs to the fans who would normally not hear it.

What traits or qualities to do you look for in musicians to work with?

Somebody who likes to drink is obviously important. [ laughs ] You can make a joke of it,

but I’ve met people who say, “I don’t drink at all. I stopped drinking five years ago.” And those people I’ve always had problems with. They might not drink, but they do everything else that’s crazy. If someone says, “I don’t drink much; I just like to have a few,” that’s fine. But it’s when they make that big state- ment that I say, “Oh dear, then, what’s your real problem? I might be dealing with the wrong person here.”

Of course, there are other things I look for as well. In a bass player, rhythm is very important. Is he tight with the drums? I don’t like a flashy bass player that runs across the stage waving to the audience half the time. And I’m thinking of one particu- lar person who does that. He’s quite famous actually.

Can we say who?

 You know, I actually can’t remember. What was the name of that band? It was back in the Eighties, Nineties. It wasn’t Foreigner, but something like that.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow perform at London’s O2 Arena on June 17, 2017— (from left) Jens Johansson, Bob Nouveau, Dave Keith, Blackmore and Ronnie Romero

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The songs onMemories in Rock II  _seem

to represent the whole broad sweep of your career. Not only Rainbow but Deep Purple as well. Is it a challenge to find new life in something like “Smoke on the Water,” a song that you must have played thousands of times?

That one’s easy, in a way, because you can improvise so easily on the chords. And the rhythm is just very kind of flow- ing. And I think everyone wants to hear “Smoke on the Water,” although when we did it onstage, we didn’t get the reac- tion from the crowd that I thought we would. There were a few comments that, “Deep Purple does that. Why bother?”

I thought it was cool and interesting that you started with the verse, rather than the big riff.

Well, we’ve played it so many times, you have to find different ways to do it. Just starting with the guitar riff, as it was orig- inally written, can be a bit mundane. But, yeah, I do prefer playing it with the verse first and coming in with the impact of the riff later.

Because then the chorus hits first, and that’s just as iconic as the riff.

That’s right. Although it’s funny, because sometimes people in the audience don’t know what we’re playing when we start out with the verse.

But I never get tired of playing “Smoke on the Water.” Surprisingly enough, I don’t hate it. I was talking to Ian Ander- son, and I said, “Are there any songs you hate playing?” He said, “ ‘Aqualung.’ Because we have to play it every show.” But I haven’t gotten to that stage yet. Maybe because I haven’t played “Smoke on the Water” probably in 20 years, because I’ve been focused on Black- more’s Night. I mean I’ve played it off and on. But I haven’t been in a band that’s playing it every night on tour.

You’ve been playing Stratocasters for the better part of six decades now. But what prompted your initial decision to abandon the Gibson 335 you were play- ing in the early days of Deep Purple and take up the Strat?

I liked the way Hendrix’s Strat looked. A Strat has got that rock kind of look. So the visual thing attracted me first, even though it was an upside-down Strat in Hendrix’s case. I thought, I must try one of those some day.” I knew Eric Clapton’s roadie. He was a friend of ours. And I

think Eric had given him one of his Strats as a present. Probably because Eric didn’t want it. I think it had a slightly bowed neck, which was making the action pretty high. [ The roadie ] said, “I’ll sell it to you for £60.” I bought it from him and I think I used it with a wah wah pedal on Deep Purple’s [  1969 single ] “Emmaretta.” So Eric Clapton’s throw-away Strat came in handy for me.

And when did you start scalloping the fingerboards on your Strats?

That was probably around 1969 or ’70. But I suppose it started back in ’66. I used to play an old classical guitar with a fret- board that was very pitted. And I loved the effect. It suited my fingers; it made sense. And the Strat seemed a little too glossy to me when I first got it. Proba- bly it was because the Fender had thinner frets than Gibsons. So when I would slur a note, I found my finger kind of slipping off the string. So I thought, If I make the fingerboard more concave, I can grip it more. I didn’t know of anybody else who

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Blackmore with one of his classic Seventies Fender Strats; this one sports a Roland synthesizer pickup

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