Ritchie Blackmore explained why he couldn’t get inspired by the music Deep Purple was making at the end of his tenure.
He quit while the band was on tour in 1993, and effectively abandoned the rock genre at the same time, focusing instead on Blackmore’s Night, his medieval group featuring wife Candice Night. Despite a brief return to live rock with a new Rainbow lineup in 2016, he’s remained committed to music in the style of the 14th and 15th centuries.
“I’m not really interested in the modern approach with modern instruments,” Blackmore told Long Island Weekly in a recent interview. “We use synthesizers on certain things, but they are there to see how we’re going to progress with the other instruments. It’s all about going back to the basics – simple music.”
He noted that “melody is very important to me. It’s an important thing. That’s why, even in Deep Purple, towards the end, before I left, our music was a bit monophonic. There wasn’t too much melody and if I don’t hear a melody, I can’t be inspired. I find that with a lot of hard rock bands today – not the death metal or whatever – the melody is certainly not there and I can’t relate to that.”
A proposed supergroup from the start, Deep Purple was assembled around the talents of classically trained organ player Jon Lord (late of the Artwoods) and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, a stage and session ace whose resume already included names like Screaming Lord Sutch, the Outlaws and eccentric producer Joe Meek. After dispensing with original percussionist Chris Curtis and the formative band name of Roundabout, the twosome recruited bassist Nick Simper (of the Flower Pot Men) and singer Rod Evans (of the Maze), who brought with him teenage drummer Ian Paice. Deep Purple Mk. I recorded three albums, experienced an immediate U.S. breakthrough with their cover of Joe South’s “Hush,” but then seemed in danger of becoming a one-hit wonder due to mounting business, personal and creative issues — all of which brought them to a premature career crossroads.
