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. For the next in the series we have Mike Sabatini, drummer with New Jersery thrashers, ATTACKER. The band have had a recent addition, bass player Brian Smith and are currently working on new material for their next album which will be the follow up to “Giants Of Canaan.”

You can read some excerpts from the interview below and listen to the chat in full on the player:

Mike expressed his some of thoughts about Ritchie and his career:

“He basically brought Dio into the world – would we have known about Dio if Ritchie hadn’t taken him and other members of ELF and brought them in as his band in RAINBOW?

A lot of the guitar players in the late ’60’s into the ’70’s were blues based. He brought more of that classical thing in. You probably wouldn’t have had an Yngwie without Ritchie Blackmore.

That’s what Ritchie did, I think he brought that neo-classical style into rock music and influenced a lot of people.”