If he`d stopped playing after recording the iconic intro to "Tarot Woman" and the influential solo to "A Light In The Black" on the classic Rainbow album, Rising, Tony Carey`s stature in music would have been assured even if he never recorded another note. Over 40 years and 30 albums later, Carey has just released his latest and most personal album to date. Mick Burgess at Metal Express Radio spoke with Carey about the album, his time in Rainbow, and his plans for a series of new releases over the coming months. Check out an excerpt from the in-depth career-spanning interview below.

Q: Was joining an established band like Rainbow a daunting move for you?

Carey: "Are you kidding me? I kicked Ritchie's ass and made him a better player. I was 20 when I joined Rainbow and I wouldn`t let him get away with anything. Cozy Powell, the cockiest man I ever met, called me cocky. He said that Ritchie fired me because I got too cocky. I didn`t get fired because I left. I left three times and he rehired me three times after he tried literally everybody else in the world. Everybody seemed to be scared of him; sure he could shred but I could shred too. I wasn’t afraid of him. He just didn`t like me. He really hated me and his people skills aren`t what they could be, but he could play and I never saw a showman like Ritchie Blackmore, he was just magic, just an amazing showman. He taught me a lot."

Q: Does it surprise you that over 40 years after you were in Rainbow that people still talk about it?

Carey: "It does. I don`t really take it as a compliment but I respect the fact that people mean it as a compliment. We made Rising in a week. We had Martin Birch keeping the peace. I must have played a total of 3 or 4 hours on that record and we had very little rehearsal. Ritchie told me that he needed to start the record off with something interesting. He said that we should get the new kid to do something as he was going to the pub. I asked Martin Birch what he meant and he said he wanted a keyboard intro so I said OK. We did two takes over an hour. Ritchie came back in and listened to it and said it was interesting and he`d take it. I did another one for 'Stargazer' that never made the album although it might be on the deluxe version now. Then there was 'A Light In The Black'.  He had the grace not to be there and I wasn`t there when he played. I played it in a high shredding Mini Moog sort of way. If Ritchie liked something, he`d say it was OK. Some might be insulted by that but that`s just how he said he liked something and he said my solo was OK."

Read the complete interview here.