Ritchie Blackmore Interview: Above the Autumn Sky

Matt Warnack of Guitar International recently conducted an interview with legendary guitar magican Ritchie Blackmore. They talked about the album Blackmore´s Night "Autumn Sky". Read excerpts below:

Matt Warnock: The new album, "Autumn Sky", features a mixture of Renaissance and contemporary songs and arrangements. When you were choosing and arranging the songs, were you conscious about maintaining that mixture throughout the record, or were these just the songs and arrangements that spoke to you the most?

Ritchie Blackmore: We have an array of ideas that I keep on audio tape to refer to when we’re going to record a CD. I don’t consciously choose one Renaissance themed song, one original, one instrumental and so on. I just review the songs that I’ve put on tape and sometimes a track will catch my attention from a CD of Renaissance songs, or perhaps I’ll hear something to cover while out playing acoustic instruments at our gatherings. The whole process is really just a “feel” type of thing.

Actually, one of our main dilemmas is that we’re sometimes unsure how organic to make a song while recording it. I happen to love the traditional and purist sounds. Sometimes we slip down the middle between people that love Renaissance music, because we don’t make it Renaissance enough, and people who don’t like that type of music.

At the end of the day you just have to do what’s right for you. One of the most freeing aspects about being in this band is that we can play any type of music and genre and not be trapped in a box of one musical style. It’s a great exercise.

Read the entire interview on Guitar International.