 Jimmy K here, Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to the video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice today on the show. Alan, who do we have? We've got Wendy Deere herself with the much anticipated book, Rainbow in the Dark. We've all been waiting for this autobiography for a long time and I'm glad it's finally out. Wendy, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. So here it is, Rainbow in the Dark. It was released July 27th via permuted press. Is that pronounced properly? Permuted press. It was written by longtime friend and esteemed music writer, Mick Wall. Of course Wendy, you participated in it as well. And of course it was written by Ronnie James Deere himself. Yes, the first question is, and me and Alan were talking about this. How is it put together? I mean, yes, Ronnie wrote it, but then you've had to sort of fix it up, right? Well, okay, so Ronnie wrote up to about almost the end of Rainbow. And then when he was sick, he scribbled a lot of notes, put some stuff on his computer. And I have been talking about putting the book out for many years after he's passed him, but it just wasn't the right time. And then Mick Wall, who was a journalist and a good friend of ours and known Ronnie for a long time, said, come on, Wendy, it's time to get it out. So I said, well, I really would like to continue it in Ronnie's own words. So what we did was we took all the scribbled notes that he had left, and then we went back into the archives and found press cupings of things that Ronnie had said at that particular time. And we kind of put it all together that way. And then I came in with a few things that I remembered that were going on at that time as well. So that's how we completed the book. So Ronnie was writing kind of chronologically and not just anecdotes from his life and memories from all over the place. He wrote all the way through to almost the end of Rainbow. And then after that, when he got sick, that's when he started writing scribbling notes and things like that. Was there also a point where like, sometimes it jumps ahead at the beginning, right? Was that Ronnie writing that or is it just from the interviews that you're integrating in there? Like, did he have a roadmap set when you were building this book? Ronnie wanted the book to start and end in 1986 in Madison Square Garden because he had intended to write another book because his life was so long that there was just too much to be in one book. So he decided that he would, well, when he was in playing Madison Square Garden, someone said to him, a journalist, so how did you get started in the business? And he said, I was going to give the usual answer. And then I thought, well, how did I get started? And he figured that was the right time to start and end a book. So that's what his plan was. And what I found it fascinating is like, as fans of Ronnie, we remember Elf, we remember Rainbow and Black Sabbath, but we really don't hear much about Ronnie and the Red Caps. Ronnie and the Prophets. Ronnie and the Prophets and the Vegas Kings. And we really got to really understand that there's a whole other career of Ronnie prior to all this. Can you speak to that a little bit? Oh yeah, also, you know, it was like Ronnie had, when he was in bed, he would drive down from Portland, upstate New York to New York City and had the pavement trying to get someone to listen to his demos and so on and so forth. And look up and see Madison Square Garden and say, one day my name will be up there in lights. And so that's why that was such an important thing for him to start and end the book there. You know, just reading it, like you said, because of the unfortunate circumstances, how would you respond to some of the people that are saying, like critics are saying, hey, why is it continuing a first person when Ronnie kind of stopped at a certain point? I thought it was a seamless transition. I liked it too. Finding that a little difficult that it wasn't switched over to a kind of mixtape. And before you answer that, I'm going to say that I actually, if I didn't know Ronnie wasn't writing the book completely, I would have never, you know, I would have never known. I thought he was writing all of it. It's seamless. Yeah. The things that were saying in there were Ronnie's own words because we took them from different interviews that he had done. So that way he had said those things. You know, obviously, Mick is an amazing journalist and, you know, and I remember things that were going on. So that's the way we completed. But I wanted it to sound like it was in Ronnie's own words because that's how I wanted it to continue. I didn't want to have the usual, you know, where you interview different people that were in his life and so on and so forth. This is different. This is a book about getting to know Ronnie, the real Ronnie and how he was and how much he struggled. He wasn't an overnight success. You know, he worked so hard to get where he was. And I think that was something that I wanted to get across. And then you met, of course, you met Ronnie at the rainbow and you became a couple slowly over time. When Ronnie was in rainbow, you talk about being lonely at home, you know, like the artist always away. Is that part of the reason why you wanted to get more involved with him as, you know, as a sort of his manager because, you know, you felt like he's on the road and you're at home and you felt no part of it. No, not really. I didn't want to be an manager. He's one of course needs that. Because I had come up from England, uprooted from England, made my home in California. And then when Ronnie was in rainbow, we had to move to Connecticut, which is a lovely place. But we lived on a house that was a big house on five acres. I had no neighbors. I had no one and he was on the road. I had with the dogs. So it was very, very kind of lonely. No, I never wanted to manage money. I mean, he, I always managed business affairs and finances and stuff because Ronnie wasn't good at that. But I never actually wanted to manage him. He's the one who forced me into that after his, his last management episode. Okay. It says in the book, you know, deal with the band came. He wanted to be called deal. He wanted it to become a band. But at any point, did you ever see the other members as a simply Sidemen and not, not, not really a kind of part of a band? Oh, I mean, they were the band, but they were paid employees. I mean, we paid for everything that was out on the road. We paid the hotels, the crew, the buses, the trucks, the hotels. We actually all used our house to, for us to be able to do that. So therefore, you know, they were a band, but they were still employees. They got paid. We have money or not. Ronnie being the top draw, of course, with his experience in his previous band. So. Well, absolutely. He had paid his dues. That's for sure. Wendy, was it the first time that you saw Ronnie? I'm not sure it was a little vague in the book at the Montreal forum. We're in Montreal. Was that the first time you saw Ronnie with rainbow play live? Or is that the first show that they did? No, I probably look. I don't think so because I'm not Ronnie. They had just finished recording the album. And, but they hadn't been on tour yet. He went on tour for about two weeks. And then he called me and asked me to come and join him for a couple of weeks, which I did, but I never went back. So I don't think I was at that show. It was a first show. No. And then, then sort of everything started crumbling with rainbow. Well, I wouldn't say crumbling, but there was a lack of success in the US market. I always thought that they were a bigger band than, but I mean, did Ronnie think that guys were doing well here? Why, why, why did Richie want to change direction, become more mainstream? And what was Ronnie's thinking at the time? Well, a lot of that was the record label talking to Richie and saying, you know, we need to make you more commercial. You need to get a hit. You need to be that. And Richie wanted Ronnie to start writing more commercial songs and more love songs. And Ronnie was just stuck to his guns. That's not what he wanted to do. He's very unhappy. And in the end, they, they basically parted ways. He got fired really. Oh, wow. Okay. Go ahead, Alan. Just, you know, like you said, reading all these old magazines here, here this is from 84, you know, even Ronnie says himself ego doubt pompous, you name it. And I've been called it, but it's all a bum rap. What's the biggest misconception about Ronnie? And you're in your estimation? Well, I don't have a camera who was saying it's cheap. Ronnie was never cheap with anyone or anything ever, ever, ever. So I don't know how many people believe those things. But, you know, and that's why I normally don't do this, but I wanted to put in the book about exactly how much was owned because of the fact that I am sick to death of hearing that Ronnie was cheap and paid him $100 a week. Had to buy a Ferrari and $100 a week. And that's something that Ronnie can't defend himself. And I got really angry about that because a lot of people say, Oh, Roy is cheap. We're running never, ever cheap. We didn't care about money. He's never cheap. Strange enough, Wendy. I'll tell you. In the book, it says, I, Vinnie Vivian, Campbell and, and again, you're addressing this, you know, we did an interview with Vivian and he said, you got paid less than the road crew. And I think actually that was the quote. From the press that he said, but he said that in many interviews, not in one, right? I explained that. All right. So they were retainer, which means they got paid every week, whether they worked or not. We maybe do a six week tour. And the sound, the sound man probably got 2000 a week. And he was getting 1700. So then, yes. Yeah. Yeah. What's the best biggest and I'm on your side here. What's the biggest misconception, I guess, or, or about management. Like everybody thinks that management. And, you know, the, the, the, the deal camp. You know, they don't realize they don't understand. There's mortgages. There's, there's, there's stress. There's money problems. You got to pay everybody. You got to pay the road crew over time, whatever the case may be. What is the miss. Dragons. Is that the right word? Misconception or of management. That artists fail to see. Well, I think they've had to see how much what you actually do. You know, and especially when I was managing the band, it was only really Sharon. I was one of myself with the only two women managers. We had all the women managers. We had all the women managers. And I was one of myself with the only two women managers. We had all these men backing up our seats that telling us, you know, we, that we didn't know what we were doing. And so they could do a much better job than us, which I think we would make very good managers. A lot of women managers now and they take, because they are, they're detailed. They go to detail. They do things. Whereas a man might just say, oh, plus, you know, we, we work really, really hard. And I think the misconception is they think that you just manage to take the money and that's it. But you don't. There's so many things, especially with me. I did, I did business management as well as radio management. You know, I mean, I was the one who would call the bus company, the truck company, the crew, the hotels, everything was run by my office. Every single thing was done from the office. You know, I think they failed to see the money aspect of juggling the money and just trying to get to the gig. So many expenses in a tour. So many expenses. It's like, as I said, you know, you've got your buses, your trucks, you've got all those crew to pay, you've got all the crew you've got, you've got the radios, you've got the hotels. I mean, it's like never ending, never ending money being taken out now, now. I defend the management. I defend the management. Go ahead, Alan. Look, I get it. You know, you know, I'm, you know, I'm 50 something years old, you know, I could see it. Spences and bills and the stress of trying to pay bills. And it's not easy. Not easy. Especially when we started the band because we didn't know what was going to happen with the band at all. You know, and we just moved to our house and went all the way far and did everything. And, you know, it was a success, but it could not. It could have been a disaster. Yeah. Yeah. Alan. One of the revelations for myself was that that deal already had Ronnie already had like a solo contract set up. Well, he was in black Sabbath. So it was a lot easier for him to transition into his own, his own band. That was a, for me, that was a bit of a revelation. That was never something that he was planning to do. It was just something that was offered and we took it was very little money. It was something that was going to do down the road. You never wanted to believe that Sabbath, but what happened was it just became as it does, you know, it's like a family. You get into arguments and different things go on. And it was just time for him to leave. Can you tell me a little about Craig Gruber who was a friend, Craig Gruber was a friend of Ronnie's. You know, he came in the black Sabbath. You know, I guess he was in rainbow. Was in rainbow. First. Yeah. He was in rainbow. The first album. And then when Ronnie needed. So he wasn't actually in the band. He came in to do some stuff in between. I think it was in between when, when Jimmy was fired and before Bob Daisy came in, he was, he was kind of auditioned and then Richie, for some reason decided wasn't right. What? And, you know, we were reading a bio of Craig Gruber and, you know, he mentions Alan, what did say something like he was in black Sabbath for a short, you know, for a short while. And then he, he might've even played on heaven and hell. I think he came in where he saw was having some family problems and he was out of it for a while. And so I think they came down just to, to sort of work with them. So they had someone to play bass. And then he was gone again. I was reading that he actually recorded heaven and hell, then they removed his bass parts and Giza redid the bass. I think that happened. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even they even removed this bass. It was even got worse for him. Because, you know, Giza was. Gone because he had problems. Very major family problems going on. And didn't know what he was coming back, but then he saw the amount and came back. So that was. There's another. Transition. What's never a permanent job. Yeah. There's another female manager, Gloria Butler, right? With Giza. Yeah. Very good. There you go. Two nights ago. Oh, wow. It's great. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Here's a just, there's another book that I got a Ronnie's with the dragon skin cover and all the, is there going to be another edition? I heard rumors of maybe another edition of this coming out. The photograph. The Dio years. Of a black Sabbath book by the same company. Yeah. Friend of ours. Did you bring any. There's been a photographer around for us for a long, long, long, long, long time. He's a great guy. And does a lot of charity stuff for us and everything. And then he sees that the photo book, that Dio book. And now there's a black Sabbath. Book coming out. I don't think it's out yet. It's coming out. I think in the pool. Wow. I'm looking forward to that for sure. Going back on questions. When Ronnie did brought mob rules, a huge success on heaven and hell. Then mob rules comes around. I guess we all kind of know the legend of, you know, how they do it. The whole breakup happened, right? They parted ways, but was the lyrics. I kind of like, as I was reading the book, what was lyrics? You know, geezer want to take over the lyrics. Was that another sort of. Stress point for Ronnie. You know, you know, he wanted to control the lyrics. Did they, did they sort of argue about that back then? I don't think so. There was a lot of drugs going on at that time. I think there were a lot of people getting paranoid about certain things and so on. I don't know. I don't think he's a wanted to write the lyrics. I think he always was. And Ronnie wasn't just a lyricist. He wrote songs too. He wrote a lot of the songs. He wrote also music. So I mean. It was just. Bad. Bad. Bad. So I mean, he just, it was just bad timing. Everybody was like, as I said, the last drugs going on, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of paranoia going on. And it was just, honestly, he was unhappy. You know what I find also amazing that you drove J. Lee audition for a deal, but then you drove him to Sharon Osbourne for, for an audition with Ozzie, I guess. Is that, is that the story? Because, because he was in a band called rough cut, which we have put together. Because Ronnie wanted to manage him. And I said, wait, wait, this is a big step here. Let's see if we can practice on some other guys. So we had a few other bands, rough cut Alcatraz and some others. And J. Lee was in that band and then Ronnie decided he wanted to steal Jake from me. So he had a band for like five minutes, same thing as like Craig Rubin, but it just didn't work out. And I felt really bad for him because what do we do? So I heard that Ozzie was taking auditions. So I drove him and took him over there and he got the job. Wow. That's pretty amazing. What about, so the John Sykes, I know that was a name that was mentioned. Did that not work out either? Well, I guess it didn't work out, but. John's a great player. He's an amazing player. He just wasn't the right player for Ronnie. Okay. No, no, that's it. I just wanted to thank you. It was a great read. Looking forward to the book and then I'm glad it's finally out. I recommend it to everybody. Just a question for you. Just a few quick questions. Was Ronnie more of the man on the silver mountain or Holy Diver? Oh God. Neither. I think he was. There was a big, big person on stage and off stage. He was the husband. The person that liked to watch sports on TV and where he's. Sweats. Tell us, did you see the first cut of the documentary? Any news on that? Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. They did great job. I cried my eyes out. Wow. Oh, from BMGM. My publicist. We were all crying. It was very emotional. They did a very, very good job on it. We moved a few things around added a few things, but I think it's going to be really good. You just saw it like recently. I read that you're going to see it. Yeah. Last week they were in town from New York and we were going over a lot of stuff. And yeah, it's done really well. And I'll tell you, Mick wars is excellent in him and Eddie trunk up excellent. They're both kind of back and forth is kind of the moderators. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's different to the book totally different to the book. But it's so interesting. And so touching. I remember last time I asked you and, you know, you're using super eights and there's a lot of archival footage that, that is being integrated and going back to. To his hometown and. And the rock is in it, I guess, right? And. And. And I guess the last question would be unless I'll ask more, what about part two of the book? Wow. Wow. Wow. Cool. And what about, and I guess the last question would be unless I'll ask more, what about part two of the book or live albums? Are they like, you always have something going on. But obviously if the book does well, which it is doing, it's number 12 on the best list right now for nonfiction number 11. It's coming out in Germany. I think this week it's coming out in Russia, Japan, Scandinavia, a whole bunch of different places it's coming out with. So we're, we're having that if it's wanted, there is a lot more stuff to go on. For a part two, if it's wanted. I'm also working on an illustrative book of lyrics, which I've always wanted to do. Wow. We started years and years and years ago and then put it aside. We've got the event or in next year in March. We've also got a lot of re-releases coming out. I'm in the, I'm in the ball with when Davis, Ronny's old engineer looking through everything, see what unreleased material that's good enough to put out or to add as bonus tracks. There's a lot going on, a lot going on. Obviously, hopefully we get a lot of charity going back again with the ride for him in the ball for him next year, which we haven't been able to do this year, but you know, that's always something going on. You really do a great job preserving the legacy. That's great. I keep growing some music in his session a lot. That's it. All right, there we go. There you go for the 1980s. My original G jacket. Yeah. Well, you know what? I, you know, and to close off. Me and Alan read it and it's just seamless. Again, if you wouldn't, if you didn't tell me Mick, Mick walls wrote or rewrote stuff, you know, of his interviews. I would have thought Ronnie wrote the whole thing. It just. That's exactly how we wanted it to be. I was a little sad when it ended because it ended, right? You want it? You want to read more, right? So I'm away for the second one. That's it. There's a lot going on because, you know, in the nineties, when we go into the nineties now, everything brunch came in and everyone lost their record deal. So now we had to go out and find independence. We had to go back and play small places and build a career back up again. You know, had to know all these things. You've got the Grammy, which was wonderful and terrible illness and sobriety and all those things. I mean, there's a lot more there. A lot more, a lot more. You know, you know what? There's tragedy and triumph in part two. That's why I would find it very interesting. You know, there's a lot of, you know, there's tragedy and then the triumph of, you know, coming back with heaven and hell and touring with the guys. Well, And dehumanizer, that's right. And I am so happy. The happiest thing ever is that we only got to complete that full circle with that Sabbath and nobody was on drugs anymore. Everybody loving each other. Everyone's playing so well. It's like amazing. We've got like, oh, the riff master. You know, he's about the best bass player going in. And then we've got the killer drummer of Vinny and it was so amazing to see them play. And it was so great for me that he was back wearing one. Well, you're doing a great job. Yeah. We were just one last question. We were wondering just before the interview, when Ronnie sings about the country girl, is that you? Jimmy was, Jimmy was running. It is you, isn't it? It's you mystery. Was that you? That dog actually. Sorry, repeat that. Repeat that. Sorry. I think it was that dog actually. Oh, that's a great way to end it. What about mystery? Was that about you? No, he hated that song. That was the beginning of the demise of him and him because it wasn't all just about money. It was about the difference in the writing and stuff because now maybe when you've got more commercial just like Richie wanted to do and that's why the song mystery was on there. Ronnie was like, no, I'm, this is not what I'm going to do. I didn't do it before. I noticed my own bad. I have not been through that. The musical differences are some big, a big thing as well as the money with them. Is there any song out after rainbow that was about you that nobody knows about? I think it often, you know, he wrote rainbow eyes about me because my eyes changed color to blue between days. Yeah. All right. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thanks again. Pleasure, pleasure. And we look forward to speaking to you again when the documentary comes out. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. We couldn't do it without you guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.