Transcript of an interview I recorded with Graham Bonnet of ALCATRAZZ (also RAINBOW, M.S.G. and solo) - 22/05/19 Full article here. MAL-
On the line, Graham Bonnet. Thanks for joining me, Graham. GRAHAM- Oh, it's great. It's nice to speak to you. How are you? MAL- I'm doing very well. Now after many years, you're coming back to Adelaide. How excited are we? GRAHAM- Well, it would be nice to see my friends because I lived in Adelaide for about three years. And I made a lot of friends there because my ex-wife is Adelaidean. And you know, it was really great to play there. I played there quite a few times and it was great playing in Australia. I must say. I'd be good to go back. MAL- It'd be great to welcome you back. Now what we're doing. You're coming back as ALCATRAZZ and you're celebrating 40 years since 'Down to Earth' came out. 40 years. Where's that gone? GRAHAM- Bloody hell. I know. It makes me feel terribly old, which of course I am. And it's amazing that I listen to that album now and still sounds pretty good. It doesn't sound too dated. I think RAINBOW was probably a turning point in my life musically, they really show me a different way to enjoy that kind of music and I'd never been in a band that was so called heavy or rock or whatever. I always had a different you know, the ideal music I was playing the time is like r&b and pop. And I got into the heavy stuff and it was really a change for me. And it was very rewarding in the end, you know? So I thand Richie Blackmore for that. MAL- Yeah, how were you approached to join the band? GRAHAM- I got a phone call from Roger Glover, who was working with some friends of mine. WHITESNAKE and Micky Moody was the guitar player in WHITESNAKE at the time. And he gave Roger Glover my number because he heard that RAINBOW was looking for a new singer and they'd interviewed, auditioned I should say, a lot of singers. I was told 80, which is a lot of people and I was 81 and they gave me a piece to learn, which is a song called 'Mistreated'. And that was my audition piece. I went over and sang it at them and they said, okay, the job is yours, you know? Really? Okay. And that was it. It was very simple and straightforward. No weird story about it was just sing the song. If you like you, you're you're in and that's what I had MAL- Because Micky Moody working with you at the time, wasn't he? GRAHAM- Yeah, he was yeah. Micky was a good friend of mine, as you probably know. And that's the beginning of WHITESNAKE, I think was with him and David Coverdale. It was such a long time ago is, I think Bernie Marsden was involved too. MAL- Yeah, he was. Yeah. GRAHAM- Bernie, Micky, and obviously, David, long time ago, it's hard to remember all these people. MAL- Were you happy with the the Down to Earth product when it came out at the time? GRAHAM- Oh, yeah. I mean, it was hard work making it because we did, I've told the story. So many times. I'm not sure if I told you. We had every song probably four different ways averse, you know, adverse and of course, and a middle eight, something like that. So it's a different verse, a different chorus to one song in four different styles, so to speak and then Ritchie will come in and pick the one that he liked best and then we'll continue to, you know, finish the song off. So it was a long time to get it done. I can't remember how long but it was. It was grueling, really was, hours or days were up till two in the morning sometimes singing, trying my best to sing anyway, and starting, say 12 o'clock in the afternoon. It was very grueling, but it turned out really well. really well. Roger came over when everything was mixed them you know, everything was put in place, he brought over to my place. And I live in in Maida Vale in London at the time. And my girlfriend was there and he played it to us and we both just went, 'Wow, that's pretty good'. I was very pleased with the end product anyway. MAL- You might say you've got a heavy rock pedigree now. You were in MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP after that with the fantastic 'Assault Attack album. How do you look back on that one? GRAHAM- It was a learning process for me because I'd never written words for a whole album before. And with Michael being German, he didn't have a, you know, a real grasp on the English language because I asked him if he would write words to the song he said no, you got to do it. And so I just went, 'What wdo you write about?' you know, I couldn't think of anything. So I picked up a magazine, a newspaper that had an interview with Toni Basil, the dancer, and that became a song called 'Dancer'. I wrote a little piece I put little pieces of the interview into the song so that's where that song sort of began. And it gave me an idea from from there on to look at newspapers and get you know, subjects to write about and you know, real life not fantasy swords and dragons and stuff like that, and men on mountains like Ronnie wrote, that's his thing you know, he sort of fantasy fairy tale. So I wanted to write about the real world you know, and that's what I've continued to do ever since. MAL- Now you've been performing with Michael lately with the MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST. How's that? That looks like a lot of fun. GRAHAM- It is. It's very tiring though. It's a three hour show. And there are four singers and we all have our parts in the show, you know, the songs the run the albums, each individual single made with Michael and we all join in for backing vocals, etc. And it's a hell of a tour we just did. I've been on the road for five weeks approximately tired as hell and I'm not making sense when I interviews I shouldn't be doing because I'm not making any sense. It's hard for me to put a sentence together sometimes. So we got home like two days ago and I have bus lag not jet lag but bus lag. We've been all over America. and hours and hours of on the bus. It was terribly grueling but the show itself I think was pretty good. You know, I think very good in fact. MAL- It would seem from afar that you're very busy these days now. ALCATRAZZ touring, where are you taking this? And who else is in the band these days? GRAHAM- Okay. Well, we have Mark Benquechea. There's a name for you, Mark Benquechea. He's playing drums. We have Joe Stump on guitar. We have Beth-Ami Heavenstone playing bass and Jimmy Waldo from the old ALCATRAZZ on keyboards. So Jimmy and I are the original members of ALCATRAZZ. And that's why we're changing the name, because we're basically ALCATRAZZ, almost ALCATRAZZ. But now this this new version of ALCATRAZZ i think is better than the old one. MAL- So where are you taking this apart from? You know, coming to Australia, obviously, which we thank you for. Where else are we going with ALCATRAZZ and how busy are you? GRAHAM- Oh, very. Japan. We go to Japan first. Then we come to Australia. And then there's tours coming up in Europe, England, you know, everywhere and it's been a very busy year so far, we had no time to really think about the new album, which we're trying to record right now. I'm trying to write some songs as well as doing this thing with Michael, which took up a lot of time. But the new album will be put together pretty soon we should start recording very soon. I've got about five songs ready to go. So it's gonna be cool. MAL- You've been reading the newspaper to get your lyrics lately? GRAHAM- Oh no, I just watch TV. But just you know experiences in life you know? Every day there's something happens it's kind of heavy and weird. So that those are my songs I'm bit sarcastic sometimes and I've got a sense of humor in them as well. As well as talking about real life. You know, I mean, Hiroshima Mon Amour is a song ALCATRAZZ recorded, and it's a very serious subject. And I saw the movie of Hiroshima Mon Amour was where I got the title from and that's serious stuff. If that ain't heavy nothing is. MAL- What else are you involved in these days, Graham? GRAHAM- Basically, this and sometimes the Michael Schenker thing, but mainly ALCATRAZZ, and getting this new record together, and getting this new record together basically is a lot of work and a lot of time being spent rehearsing at the moment. MAL- When were you last in Australia, Graham? Was that was that the Countdown thing? GRAHAM- It was, which is how many years ago? 10-12 years ago? 12 years ago? Yes. And that was another grueling tour. I tell you, I was really sick on that tour. I had bronchitis that you wouldn't believe. I got through it somehow. But it was not a good time for me really felt ill. Now I'm finding that my voice is better than ever. I'm singing the songs that we recorded with ALCATRAZZ with no problems really, you know, and some of those songs are really up there and a lot of power. That's what I give it. I haven't lost what I used to have. I'm 71 years old now. But that voice is still the same. I'm glad to say. MAL- We have an ALCATRAZZ tour Thursday, June the 6th in Adelaide, June 7 - Melbourne, June 8 - Sydney. And according to the paperwork I have you're doing 'Down To Earth' in it's entirety? GRAHAM- Absolutely. Yeah. It's something I've never done with RAINBOW because RAINBOW we didn't do the song from down to earth. We did a lot of old ones that they did with Ronnie. So there are is every track from 'Down To Earth'. So it's going to be very different. It'd be very interesting. It's gonna be good. irreversibly. Sounds great. I mean, of course, the vocals are fantastic, but the band, the band sounds great. No bronchitis in this, I promise you. MAL- Graham, absolutely great talking to you. Thanks for your time. And we'll see you early June here in Adelaide. And thanks again for your time. Stay well. GRAHAM- All right. You're very welcome. Thank you. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |