Ex-Rainbow frontman Graham Bonnet has spoken out against his former bandmates in Alcatrazz, claiming that they're "doing anything to try to destroy me."
Speaking on the Stairway To Rock podcast, Bonnet responds to praise for his recent live performances by bringing up his frosty relationship with Alcatrazz, whom he left in 2020 following disagreements with the band's management.
"They call themselves Alcatrazz," says Bonnet, who announced he was forming Graham Bonnet's Alcatrazz in the immediate wake of the split. "The manager of the band is singing. It's fucking incredible. And they're saying I lip sync and all that kind of thing. And they're doing anything to try to destroy me.
"You can see by this video [a recent clip of Bonnet performing Rainbow's All Night Long, taken from the live album Lost In Hollywood Again, recorded at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles in 2024] there's nothing there. I am live, I am singing. I can't fool people with that anymore.
"That's something you do when you are on Top Of The Pops or something, on a TV show. But live, you have to sing live, and that's what I do. And people are saying to me, 'How can you do this when you're 77 years old? You sound the same as you did when you were 30!'"
Bonnet then turns the tables on Alcatrazz, claiming that the current lineup are actually guilty of the kind of subterfuge they've accused him of.
"I mean, we had some great players, but not what they are doing right now," says Bonnet. "A keyboard player who can't play. He presses the button. He doesn't play all [the notes]. He pretends to play it. It's all pre-recorded. And I'm saying this because it's true.
"And they're telling the public that I don't sing! Come on! If they're saying that, I can say this: that the keyboard player can't play and that the manager of the band can't sing. It sounds ridiculous. Anyway, that's my bit. And Alcatrazz is dead, it's dead – long dead – and the name now embarrasses me."
Alcatrazz accused Bonnet of lip-synching before his split from the band in a statement released in early 2024. "Graham has been lip-synching to pre-recorded vocals since January 2017," the band said. "His well-publicised challenges with alcohol and painkiller abuse, as well as considerable vocal issues, made this an unworkable situation for us as a band."
The Graham Bonnet Band's Lost In Hollywood Again (Live) is out now.
