As you perhaps know, we at Metal Shock Finland presented a week’s Tribute To Ritchie Blackmore in April 2014. Many big names including artists, musicians, one writer and one photographer joined us and shared their opinion and thoughts on Ritchie Blackmore. The legendary ACCEPT ‘s Wolf Hoffmann was also one of them, who agreed to have a chat with Mohsen Fayyazi. But unfortunately, due to some technical issues we were not able to publish this interview up to now.
Wolf Hoffmann is one of those guitarists who influenced many bands and musicians, ranging from younger talented musicians to the big names such as AMON AMARTH. Check out what Mr Hoffmann shared with us about Ritchie Blackmore:
“Well, I’ve always been a huge fan of Ritchie Blackmore, but especially growing up in my formative teenage years. Me and a lot of other people in Germany growing up were heavily influenced and totally into Deep Purple and especially Ritchie Blackmore. When he had his own band Rainbow, we all worshipped the guy and I think he had a few years of making some incredible albums. And he definitely influenced my style of playing, no doubt.”
Wolf Hoffmann said, when asked what he has learned from Ritchie as a musician:
“Well, what I always liked about him, he was kinda different from all the other guys, not so much a shredder. Actually, I have to say in the mid seventies, nobody was that much into shredding, that came later with Yngwie Malmsteen and all the speed players. He was always very melodic and he was a great songwriter and he always managed to write solos that fit the song. Maybe that’s one of the things I try to use as an inspiration. A solo is more than just a little piece of noodling, it’s really another piece of the song, that gives the song another dimension.”
“Would Rock and Metal music be different today without Ritchie?” Check out Wolf‘s answer:
“Yeah, I mean who can imagine a world without Smoke On The Water? What a monster riff that shaped a whole generation! Like I said earlier, everybody on my friends, particularly in Germany, was into Blackmore then and a lot of ’em still are today. You know, I live in the United States and he’s not that well known here and I don’t think he ever was. But definitely in Germany, people still worship him.”
You can listen to some part of this interview on the Audio Player below:
Andy Sneap who seems always busy and can hardly find time to answer his messages, mentioned Blackmore as one of the major influences. The legendary Wolf Hoffmann told me that he is not afraid to confess that he worships Ritchie and the mighty Pumpkinhead Michael Weikath told me “I could say many things but given his position and history, who am I to say anything?” Simon Johansson went even further as to attribute Ritchie for being “a bit responsible” for his starting to play guitar!”
“I just proofed a coffee table book that I’m doing on Ozzy Osbourne, which is like a timeline with quotes book, like my Iron Maiden coffee table book that just came out. And I’m halfway through a WHITESNAKE book, I’m gonna do a book on a Canadian band called MAX WEBSTER and I just finished up a 400 page book that I’ve got with my layout guy on MEGADETH. So lots going on, and also through another big American publisher I’ve got a coffee table book that’s like an oral history of Hair Metal, so going from about 1980 roughly to about 1991 when NIRVANA came out. Plus working with Banger films, we did the Rush movie Metal Evolution and we did the IRON MAIDEN movie. We got a new series called Rock Icons, it’s half hour episodes on just one person at a time, so I’m in there as a consultant as well, one week on, two weeks off, so I dip that in between everything else.”
“Yes I agree with that, I think DEEP PURPLE’s big contribution is the bringing of a classical element to heavy metal and that’s a combination of Ritchie and Jon Lord. We might have gotten some of that Middle Eastern or Turkish or Morrocan sound too. All of power metal, which is a massive heavy metal genre, owes a lot to bands like DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW, JUDAS PRIEST, and Ritchie is in two of those bands. It got even more power metally when he started RAINBOW, especially with “Rainbow Rising” and “Long Live Rock ‘N Roll.” At that point you have Ronnie James Dio helping him out and they both agree philosophically about subject matter like fantasy, dungeons and dragons, castles and all of that stuff. You’re right, heavy metal would be a very different beast, it might have gone more of that blues or doom route, not this interesting classical route if it wasn’t for Ritchie.”
“That’s an interesting one because Yngwie is almost the guy who picked up where Ritchie left off and just went crazy. RAINBOW was almost like the uber DEEP PURPLE on steroids kind of band, but when you get into Joe Lynn Turner he’s moving into a more American sound. So he went one way and Yngwie is like hmm well if Ritchie kept getting heavier and faster and more crazy and bombastic and more heavy metal and more classical, more and more everything. He’s almost like the guy who did pick up from there. In doing that Yngwie battered us all over the head and came up with a style that’s even more distinct.”
Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 