Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

The first two musicians sharing their thoughts on RAINBOW and “Rising” for this 40th anniversary celebration this week, are Ronnie Romero and Biff Byford. The whole interviews with the two vocalists, also discussing their recent works can be heard on the audio players in the article.

Ronnie Romero

Ronnie Romero:

As every Ritchie Blackmore’s RAINBOW fan must know by now, the Chilean born vocalist Ronnie Romero was announced as the part of the new line-up for the band, back in November 2015. Of course Ronnie also has his own band LORDS OF BLACK, based in Spain and they have recently released their second album “II”.

Very recently, photos have been posted online from the New York rehearsals, ahead of the forthcoming shows this summer. So it seems the band are prepared and ready to face the public with the highly anticipated all new RAINBOW very soon. Back in 1976 when “Rising” was released, a more familiar Ronnie was fronting the classic line-up. The songs recorded by the legendary Ronnie James Dio have the most special place in the hearts of his faithful followers.

Back in February we caught up with Ronnie Romero and discussed all things RAINBOW. Ronnie said about “Rising”, “It’s one of my favourite albums. I think it’s the beginning of contemporary heavy metal and rock. I really love Stargazer.”

Biff Byford:

The origins of what was to become the legends of NWOBHM, SAXON, actually began in the year that “Rising” was released. 21 albums later the band are stronger than ever and reign supreme at the forefront of the heavy metal world today.

SAXON frontman Biff Byford discussed RAINBOW in a recent interview with us, his thoughts on “Rising”, Ritchie Blackmore and a funny story from the road years ago.

Talking about RAINBOW albums, Biff stated, “I liked the Dio ones the best – they were rockier, it was more like Deep Purple. I love Rainbow Rising, it’s a great album.”

“I like Run With The Wolf, that’s my favourite on that album“.