Jimmy Kay from Canada's The Metal Voice recently spoke to legendary vocalist Graham Bonnet about his time with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, the slow disintegration of the band after the making of the bands commercially successful album Down To Earth and the possibility of a  Blackmore reunion. His musical highs and drunken days in The Michael Schenker  Group and exposing his private parts. As well as song writing with Yngwie Malmsteen  vs Steve Vai in Bonnet's own ‘80s band Alcatrtrazz.  Bonnet goes on to tell The Metal Voice about the making of his new EP My Kingdom Come and his thoughts on his recent reunion on stage, with Michael Schenker after 38 years on, in Japan on June 14.

 When asked on why he decided to leave Rainbow at the beginning of rehearsals of Difficult To Cure:

“Cozy Powell left the band.  Cozy , Don Airy and I were very close friends, Don said to me if Cozy leaves the band I’m going to leave.  The rehearsals were going nowhere, every day was unproductive, we never made any melodies, any kind of arrangements. Nothing was happening.  Ritchie didn’t turn up to song writing rehearsals  The interest was gone  because  Cozy left, a lot of the fire was gone cause we were a bunch of friends. Ritchie Blackmore wasn’t fun for some reason. I said well I think I’m gonna go home now. I don’t see anything happening here”

When asked if he would do a reunite with Ritchie Blackmore:

“Absolutely, I’d love to play with Ritchie again it would be fantastic but I don’t see that happening because he has moved on also. If he ever wanted to call me. Absolutely”

On his thoughts on Joe Lynn Turner Rainbow Reunion:

“Joe Lynn Turner spoke about this years ago saying well I think Rainbow should reform and I should be the guy that sings. I said no if anybody should be singing it should be Ronnie Dio when Ronnie was still alive I said that would be the original Rainbow”

How Michael Schenker fired him after his first show in 1982 for being drunk and exposing his penis on stage:

“What you read or heard is absolutely true because I was completely out of it. I’ve been drinking all day and I had a bit of an argument with Michael. And when it came to show time, I had all the lyrics on the stage stuck to and the audience pushed forward and all my lyrics screwed up because the monitors shifted, so I was screwed at that point in the first song or something, my fly broke and out comes my penis because I don’t wear underwear and out it popped, I made it part of the act. Everybody was telling me to fuck off The whole thing was in shambles, I started swearing at the audience and they were swearing back at me. I got off the stage. So I ran to a hotel where next morning I was put on train back to Kings Cross Station and my manager met me there and told me I would be fired from the band. I said I am sorry for what happened it was just a bad day.”

When asked what was it like reuniting with Michael Schenker on stage after 38 years:

“It was amazing. We smiled at each other in a knowing way if you know what I mean. We both looked at each other and said, yeah this is good. There was a broad smile that came across his face; I haven’t seen that smile in a long time. It was magical.”

When asked who he preferred  more to work with  in his Alcatrazz years Yngwie Malmsteen  or Steve Vai:

“Steve Vai because he had the same mindset in music as I did. Vai was a pleasure to work with but at first so was Yngwie but then he got this ego thing going on that was the problem, he wants a band member he was a soloist and he needs to be a soloist Steve Vai was a band member.”