DEEP PURPLE wants nothing to do with Ritchie Blackmore “IAN GILLAN: ‘I Don’t Think RITCHIE BLACKMORE’s Playing Great These Days’

Three members of the classic DEEP PURPLE lineup have shot down the possibility of a reunion with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.

Blackmore is a co-founder of DEEP PURPLE and wrote many of their most memorable riffs, including “Smoke On The Water”, but he has not played with the group since his 1993 departure.

Steve Morse effectively took over Blackmore‘s slot in 1994 and has since been in the group longer than Ritchie.

During yesterday’s (Tuesday, August 29) SiriusXM Town Hall, DEEP PURPLE‘s Ian Gillan (vocals), Ian Paice (drums) and Roger Glover (bass) were asked point blank if they would be open to playing with Blackmore again.

“Me personally, no,” Gillan said. “I mean, I get on great with Ritchie these days, but I don’t think Ritchie‘s playing great these days. And for that reason mostly, I don’t think it would work.”

Gillan clarified that he is only in contact with Blackmore “through our offices, through our connections and everything else” and added that “we have invited each other to dinner a couple of times, but we haven’t been able to make it because I’m in London, he’s in Long Island.” He then reiterated: “But, no, I’d be against [a reunion].”

Paice was equally resistant to the idea, explaining: “I enjoy going on stage every night knowing that I’m [there] with my four friends and they’re all gonna play every night. That wasn’t always the case [while Ritchie was in the band], and I wouldn’t want to go back to that again. It’s just the way the man is. He is a man of great emotions. He works it out in black and white; there’s no gray areas to Ritchie: ‘I will or I won’t,’ ‘I like it or I don’t like it.’ Sometimes your bandmembers can’t suffer from that. And I wanna go on stage and have fun. I don’t wanna go on stage and come off feeling so down and miserable. I’m not prepared to go back on that route again, no.”

Glover, for his part, revealed that he hasn’t spoken to Ritchie in “twenty-odd years,” but insisted that he would “be happy to talk to him.” Attributing their lack of personal interaction to the fact that Ritchie has “made himself very private,” Glover added that “I don’t think he approves of me very much, because of the remixes and the remasters that I did of the older albums. That’s what I’ve heard anyway.”

As for the prospect of PURPLE performing with Blackmore again, Glover said: “You can never say never, but I would doubt it very much.”

Blackmore was recently quoted saying he woud like to play one last show with DEEP PURPLE “for nostalgia reasons.” He also previously suggested that the band’s manager had blocked him from joining them onstage during the 2016 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, and he used that as an excuse for not attending the event.

Despite Blackmore being a no-show at last year’s Rock Hall, he was given several shoutouts during the induction speeches of the DEEP PURPLE members in attendance. In addition, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich, who inducted DEEP PURPLE into the institution, praised “Ritchie fucking Blackmore” for one of the most memorable guitar riffs of all time on “Smoke On The Water”.

Last month, Ritchie Blackmore said that he’d be willing to play one more show with Deep Purple as the band may be contemplating retirement. But in a new interview, former bassist Glenn Hughes revealed that he, David Coverdale and Jon Lord had once tried to reunite the bulk of their Mark III lineup, but Blackmore was unreachable.

The Mark III lineup, which includes drummer Ian Paice, who has been the only constant member of Deep Purple, released two records in 1974, Burn and Stormbringer, before Blackmore’s departure, although Hughes and Coverdale stayed through 1975’s Come Taste the Band. Lord, the group’s founding keyboardist, had retired from the band in 2002. In August 2011, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and passed away on July 16, 2012 after suffering a pulmonary embolism.

As Hughes told Rolling Stone Australia, it had taken place “about two years before Jon was diagnosed, we tried to privately get a reunion together, but we couldn’t somehow, no one could get Ritchie on the phone. And after a while we just said, we gave it our best shot, and of course Jon was diagnosed and we had to let it go.”

The current incarnation of the band, Mark VIII, is currently on the road with Alice Cooper through early September in support of their new record, inFinite. It’s part of what they’re calling the Long Goodbye tour. Although they’ve made no official announcement, the tour’s name, and a mini-stroke suffered by Paice in 2016, have led many to believe they will call it quits when it wraps up in South America this December.

Still, Hughes doesn’t appear to have any regrets that he has not reunited with his former band mates. “I’m not resentful or have bad feelings towards that, the fact is these things happen in life, opportunities come, opportunities go,” he continued. “I’m a firm believer in karma, I’m a firm believer that everything happens the way it happens. The legacy of Deep Purple that David and I left is still intact. I’m really happy with the three albums: Burn, Stormbringer and Come Taste the Band. The current Deep Purple that is touring now is coming to what I would imagine is an end, cos they’re calling it their last; it’s their last goodbye and I only want to wish them all the very best in their final tour.”

Read More: Ritchie Blackmore Reportedly Refused Hughes, Coverdale and Lord Deep Purple Reunion | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ritchie-blackmore-hughes-coverdale-lord-deep-purple-reunion/?trackback=tsmclip