DEEP PURPLE FRONTMAN IAN GILLAN SAYS “IF RITCHIE [BLACKMORE] HAD STAYED IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE END OF [THE BAND]
Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan says the band would no longer exist if guitarist Ritchie Blackmore hadn’t quit in 1993 and he added that he has no desire to speak to his former colleague ever again.
Asked recently whether he might consider picking up the phone, in the light of keyboardist Jon Lord’s death last year, Gillan tells Vorterix Rock: “Not in the slightest.”
He continues: “If you want to talk about Ritchie, I guess we have to. Not many people do these days.
The truth of the matter is: the band was dying. If Ritchie had stayed it would have been the end of Deep Purple. The shows were getting shorter and shorter, the audiences were getting smaller and smaller.
We were playing in small halls, they were half-empty, and Ritchie was walking off stage every night. When he left it stopped raining and the sun came out.
Jon Lord, among others, started walking up straight – his personality re-emerged. So did Roger Glover and Ian Paice. They became the people they were originally, instead of cowering in case they upset Ritchie.”
Gillan says the band spent some time rebuilding after Blackmore’s departure. Now, that nearly two decades have gone by, they can live with the events of the past.
“The distance of time is so great that we just remember the good times,” he says. “We remember Ritchie as a great player, great performer, a great writer. I remember him as my roommate – I used to share rooms with him. But something happened with Ritchie.”
Gillan continues, “I have no desire to pick up the phone to Ritchie, or have dinner with him, or meet him “I hope he’s well and I hope he’s happy. And that’s the end of it.”
Listen to the audio below.
Blackmore’s wife and bandmate Candice Night recently said he was a better songwriter now he’d disengaged himself from “inspiration from darker places.”
Deep Purple – who launched 19th studio album Now What?! earlier this year – will release a live DVD shot during their Perfect Strangers Mark II reunion tour on October 14th.
additional source: classicrockmagazine.com
Nothing will change the fact that the albums with Ritchie are absolute classics. Their place is sealed in hard rock history. I just feel that there is too much criticism of Steve Morse. He has his own style and does a great job. To each his own, but if you choose ignore newer DP albums then you are missing out on some great music IMHO. Long live DEEP PURPLE!
Take care.
Ritchie Blackmore is the most overrated guitar player of all time. He’s also incredibly jealous of much better musicians than himself. These days he’s a pussy whipped little fairy running around in tights playing a fucking lute in his wife’s bullshit medevil band or some shit. I’m glad Tony Iomi broke a guitar over his head he deserved it. Joe satriani is a hundred times better than the washed up has been Blackmore.