Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Interview By Ali Blackdiamond
As part of our Tribute To Ritchie Blackmore week, we have invited well known names in the world of rock and metal to share their thoughts about Ritchie.

Next up is a chat with drummer from NWOBHM legends SAXON and all round cool guy Nigel Glockler.

We started the chat by being brought up to date with all things SAXON. Nigel said “We’re just starting festival season and we’ve just announced a European tour for the autumn. We’re writing, everyone’s getting ideas for the next album. We started this because the Motörhead thing got cancelled, so we thought rather than waste time, we’ll get a jump and start writing.”

Discussing Ritchie, Nigel had a few interesting anecdotes to tell:

“I was a big DEEP PURPLE fan from the very first album “Shades Of Deep Purple,” I had them all. The band before I joined them toured with RAINBOW in the UK. In ’82 or ’83 we did some shows with RAINBOW in the States, so that was the first time I’d ever met him. (Ritchie) That was the line-up with Joe Lynn Turner, Bobby Rondinelli, it was the ‘Straight Between The Eyes’ tour.

In actual fact I think they brought out a DVD of some of the shows from that tour and if you look at the beginning, there’s a guy holding a paper and in it, it says ‘supported by Saxon’ if you look very closely at the advert on the paper the guy is reading.

Ritchie was a good guy, from what I remember he was football mad, but SAXON aren’t really footballers! I think our crew played him but we didn’t.”

It obviously had an influence on me because I had “Deep Purple In Rock” and “Machine Head” when I was at school and I was learning my trade. I should think it had an influence on me, whether conciously or subconciously.

When “Deep Purple In Rock”  came out, with Ian’s screaming vocals it was quite a unique thing. In fact, my party piece was singing ‘Child In Time,’ I could get all the screaming notes!”

You can listen to the interview in full on the player below: