With RITCHIE BLACKMORE firmly ensconced in BLACKMORE'S NIGHT, chances of seeing a RAINBOW reunion have been almost nil... until now. Former vocalist JOE LYNN TURNER has put together a reunion of sorts under a new banner called OVER THE RAINBOW.

The band will feature ex-members of Rainbow from various incarnations. They include drummer Bobby Rondinelli, keyboardist Tony Carey and bassist Greg Smith. Filling the guitarist slot is Ritchie’s son Jurgen “J.R.” who has been quietly forging a career in his native Germany. One listen to any of his songs and one can recognize the signature Blackmore sound.

antiMusic’s Morley Seaver spoke with Joe recently about the band as well as Joe’s many other projects. Here’s an excerpt of the conversation:

Morley: There’s a lot I want to talk to you about, but I guess the first thing, obviously, is the Rainbow reunion of sorts. How did this all come about?

Joe: "Well, I’ll tell you, quite honestly, I was sitting in Russia after a tour with a few promoters and what not and they were like: “You know, it would be great to have a Rainbow reunion. Huh? Do you think that’ll ever happen?” I went, “Well you know, you’re not going to get Ritchie, you know what I mean? He’s really happy doing what he’s doing and so on.” And so they said, “Well who would you get?” And I said: ‘It wouldn’t work”. And they said, “Well, it’s got to work.” And I said, “Well, you know, it’s not a matter of all the other guys. It’s the guitarist.” So then it hit me. And I swear, all of a sudden they went, “What, What?” And I said, “I think I have an idea.” And they said, “What is it?” and I said, “Blackmore’s got a son.” And they went, “You’re kidding. Really?” Nobody knows that.

Not many anyway. You know, because he’s German, half German. And his name is Jurgen Richard Blackmore. And he’s been playing guitar for like 30 years, and he’s great. So I was in Germany, and I started to get this bug about it, and I called Jurgen and said, “Look, can we meet for dinner?” Because I knew him when he was like 16, 17 and he would come to the shows and what have you. He was a kid and I’d probably be like his big brother or something you know, Anyway I called and we had dinner and he loved the idea. So I said, now once I got Jurgen in place here, I got Blackmore on guitar, now I can start lining up the other guys, and of course I wanted to try to represent the incarnations of Rainbow as best we could. I’m not going to get into any names in particular but we certainly don’t want any people who are using drugs or abusing alcohol to a GREAT degree…you know what I mean by that. (laughs) Okay if you want to have a few drinks, but you can’t be drunk and stand around all the time. And that eliminated quite a few people." (laughs)

You can read the whole interview here.