Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow YouTube channel recently released a series of videos where Blackmore and Candice Night discussed their experiences with Cozy Powell. In one of them, the former Deep Purple guitarist recalled the story of a truce he had with the late drummer.
He first explained that declaring peace was necessary when it came to joking around with his former bandmate by saying:
“Well, Cozy and I were big practical jokers. Trouble was Cozy always went far too far. I would go so far, but if you played a joke on him, look out. He was gonna kill you. So, I had a truce with him. ‘No more jokes. I won’t play a joke on you and…’ That came about via the Chateaux in France.”
Apparently, the guitarist’s mind changed at some point:
“So, now, we go fast forward to one of his interviews that he was doing outside our window when we were in – What was it? Denmark? Sweden. We were doing a Swedish festival. He was playing with Peter Green. And he had the journalists there. He was holding court, telling his story.”
Blackmore went on to reveal how he broke the deal and said:
“Of course, it was right beneath my bedroom window, and that was above him. Our bedroom window. So, I went, ‘Oh, this could be interesting.’ So, I said, ‘Candice, get the video camera, and you go to the other window over there so you’ve got an angle to see Cozy and what I’m doing and what he’s doing.’ She’s like, ‘Okay.'”
Night took over the story from there and added her own perspective as follows:
“So, I’m out the window, videotaping Cozy, not having any idea what was gonna happen. And Ritchie goes out the other window with a giant glass of water and dumps it on Cozy’s head, and disappears. So, I’m videotaping, and Cozy looks up, and I’m the only person who’s left there. He just looked at me anyway. I’m like, ‘Oh, great. Thanks.'”
Beyond the pranks, Powell was a member of Rainbow for five years. He joined the band in 1975 after an audition process, which Ritchie Blackmore could make slightly challenging.
You can listen to Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night’s memories in the video below.