There is a really well-written and lenghty article in the new Classic Rock about him (scheduled unrelated to his death, but now all the more poignant) - the author had been chasing him for years for the interview, RM had become an elusive recluse preferring to transport flowers for his wife who is a wedding and event planner. When the interview finally happened (Hagar: "I doubt that Ronnie will really let himself be interviewed ..."), it was more of a stand-off with an extremely aloof RM delivering revisionist statements and dodging the (very lucid, the guy had done his homework and actually met Montrose in the seventies as a youthful fan) questions of the journalist. A difficult man at the best of times. And that is not just the author saying that, but basically everyone whoever played and recorded with him including Edgar Winter, Sammy Hagar, Bill Church, Denny Carmassi and Ted Templeman (who had already produced him with Van the Man).
I remember two things from an interview he did more than a decade (possibly even two decades) ago:
- That "Bruce Springsteen's music is just as formatted as AC/DC's, he doesn't stray an iota from what his fans expect".
- "My dream band? Deep Purple, Ian Gillan line up, with me taking the place of Ritchie Blackmore."
The Classic Rock interview is also insightful as to how much early VH patterned themselves after Montrose. They wanted Templeman as a producer because of his work with Montrose and Eddie demanded every recording trick of the Montrose debut to be repeated on VH's debut.
