Months after declaring an upcoming collaboration with Arch Enemy‘s Jeff Loomis, Graham Bonnet engaged in a conversation with VintageRock Pod. Bonnet discussed the past and future of his career, revealing his former bandmate Ritchie Blackmore‘s disinterest in Rainbow’s music.
The singer attributed his decision to leave the band to Blackmore’s and the other band members’ lack of interest in their music by saying:
“Nobody was interested, especially Ritchie. I’m just going to be, you know, making up new songs for the new album. And I think the laziness was because we had a song from Russ Ballard again. A song called ‘I Surrender,’ and that’s the only song we had.
I said to Roger, ‘What are we gonna do? We haven’t got anything.’ He said, ‘Well, we’ve got ‘I Surrender,’ the Russ Ballard tune.’ He said, ‘Do you want to go in and do the backing harmony?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll start there at least.’ So, I went in and did some backing harmonies, which wasn’t used in the end, I don’t think. That was kind of it. I didn’t do a lead vocal on it at all.”
He further explained:
“It was very not – It wasn’t productive at all because Ritchie wasn’t coming in and showing us what to do. Some days, he would, and anyway, it just got to like, ‘What the f–k! What are we doing?’ You know, we have nothing. […] So, I left the band. I wasn’t fired, although people like to think I was because I had another haircut or something. [Laughs]”
Despite the circumstances leading to his exit, Bonnet expressed unhappiness about leaving the band in a previous 2017 interview with MetalTalk. He described the process of departing right after recording the backing vocals and revealed the band’s offer for him to return and record more songs, which he turned down.
Looking back, the vocalist conveyed a sense of regret, stating:
“I just quit, believe it or not. What an idiot… I’m kicking myself now because I should have stayed a bit longer. And I apologized for that to the band. [I regret leaving Rainbow] ‘Cause I was probably a bit too… My ego was taking me somewhere else. I was a bit too cocky. But in the end, it worked out okay.”
It indeed worked out well. Graham Bonnet released an album called ‘Day Out In Nowhere’ with his band in 2022, on which Jeff Loomis made a guest appearance. Now, the singer’s upcoming collaboration with the guitarist is waiting for further updates and a release date.
