RITCHIE BLACKMORE: Why I Quit Deep Purple

The California clime seems to agree with Ritchie Blackmore, a usually unhealthy looking fellow whose complexion runs somewhere between spoiled flour and banana yogurt and one whose temperament carries heavy overtones of the Ubermensch. A resident of the sunny state for some months now, his once jaundiced features have now been replaced with rosy face and skin and though his tongue still burns, the lashings are far-and-few-between. Blackmore has made a musical as well as a geographical move by leaving Deep Purple, a recording-performing unit which drew much of its appeal from his hyper-amplified six-string and the cinematic visions of his on-stage theatrics. Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow is the new band; composed of former members of Elf, it has been in the making for virtually two years.

“I wanted to record ‘Black Sheep Of The Family’ (originally covered by Quatermass) for two years and I asked Deep Purple if they wanted to do it but they didn’t want to do anybody else’s material. So I got together with Ronnie Dio who was with Elf who had toured with Deep Purple in America and we cut the song. It turned out so well we

decided to do an album and that’s when I started thinking about Purple. It was so refreshing to be working with new musicians and to have a rapport of which I didn’t have with Deep Purple... it was just professionalism. Our drummer would be good enough to back anything but not good enough to put his own ideas forward, to make a song. Purple got, myself included, very blase about other people’s ideas. It was a case of, ‘Well, let’s just shove down anything and make a bit of money’... and it was getting to that stage.”

Following the recording of the Rainbow album, Purple was contracted for another tour but it only took three shows for Blackmore to realize he had been spoiled. The shows rubbed like sandpaper and the guitarist gave final notice. “Concerts were getting very hard to do.. .most of the band was turning towards funk and shoeshine music and that’s not what I like. I wanted to get back to rock.”

Stormbringer, Blackmore’s last album with Purple, was an ordeal to put together. Like the live shows, it proved to be a battleground of injured egos and where passivity once rested ferocity snarled.

“A few tracks on Stormbringer were so hard to put together just because a few members of the band wanted to play funk,” he explains while seated in his isolated Oxnard beach house. “It was a real hardship to get across to them, ‘Let’s just put a melody down, we’re not going to have brilliant solos from anybody.’ But it was the old story ...there had to be an organ solo, a guitar solo, the beat had to be pretty

"I have a weakness for Germans, because they tost the war."

good and this detracted from a good song.”

But, he continues, “The main reason I left Deep Purple was I didn’t like the pressure from the record company. We signed a contract saying we’d make three elpees per year but that just became too much for me. I come up with ideas every two months and then I like to lay back...I like to make one good album a year. And that’s what we were doing if you follow Deep Purple; it was In Rock, Fireball was nonsense, it was just thrown together in the studio, Machine Head we had six weeks off so it was a good elpee. Then there was Bum which I thought was a good elpee because we had six months off before that. But the ones that came in-betweert were thrown together and it was being dishonest to ourselves and the public; we were just a product, it wasn’t music anymore. The record company wanted product and the kids bought it because they liked us on stage and they liked our other elpees but in my opinion they got a raw deal—they’d buy a good elpee, then they’d buy a lot of padding. We were becoming a bloody sausage factory.”

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Ritchie’s musical habits have since changed with the new move to Rainbow. “We’ll just put out music now when we feel like it,” he admits, running his fingers through thinking hair. With little of the urgency and tension which marked Ritchie’s final work with Purple, Blabkmore’s Rainbow is, as the 'guitarist humbly concedes, “incredibly brilliant.” His classical and medieval leanings are present (several songs revolve around Bach chord progressions and on one track Electric Light Orchestra cellist Hugh McDowall provides knightly sounds) and the sense of union between material and musician is extraordinary. Communication between Blackmore and vocalist Dio is disturbingly powerful and provides the sync Ritchie has long missed.

“When I played the songs to him, the way he interpreted them was exactly the way I would if I could sing. It was always a hardship for me, not so much vith Dave (Coverdale) and Glenn (Hughes), but with Purple’s earlier vocalists...there was always a barrier between the guitar and the vocals. I could never get across exactly what I wanted, they always interpreted it their own way. And I’d go, ‘Yeah, that’s good,’ and we’d put it down and I’d say it’s ok but it was never, ‘Aaaah, that’s greeeeeat!’ Whereas on the Rainbow album most of the songs turned out exactly the way I wanted them . So for the moment I’m really pleased with the album and to be part of this band.”

He hangs on the word and adding hand gestures drives the point home that this is a “group” affair. The band bears his name but only as an identifying moniker to let people know he has left Deep Purple and as an incentive for listener interest. Jethro Tull’s (his favorite band) War Child is playing in the background, while Blackmore runs down the star image.

“This is not my band,” insists the former Streaming Lord Sutch pupil. “It’s a band I got together with Ronnie. I put my name to the first elpee but I hope to drop that later because I couldn’t handle doing all the interviews and all that bullshit which goes with having your own group. Plus, I didn’t want to have my own group; this group is so good I’m part of it, it’s not me and a group, no way.. It’s definitely anew band like Deep Purple was, it’s not me and a band. Because for a start I don’t consider myself that good to front a band; it’s a case where I’ll always do my flash business on stage which I like doing but I just don’t like being a leader of a band. I like to be a pusher of a band, of course, but nobody can really be a leader of a band if they’re truthful.”

Rainbow’s first tour begins midSeptember^ the long-range vision is to introduce the band via a small hall itinerary (in the fashion of Purple some eight years ago) and build from there. Poly dor Records has signed the band, and group confidence is strong. “Besides,” injects Ritchie, dressed in typical black ensemble, “they’re alk Germans at Polydor and I have a weakness for them because...they lost the war. And their headquarters'is in Hamburg which is a good place to have a headquarters. 1 have one there.

“I’m not worried,” he muses, glancing towards the corner where two Marshall amplifier heads now sit quietly. “I’m making music that I want to make and I think it’s music people want to hear. Actually, it’s a perfect extension from Machine Head.and In Rock because it’s using modes and things in a rock context. There’s a lot of Bach influence and Hendrix influence along the way. I’m extremist...I like either hard rock, medieval music, or ballads. I don’t like this cool, in-between, laidback music most of the Americans are putting out. It’s music to talk over, it doesn’t grab you. I like music that demands your attention and this certainly does; it demands you to say ‘Great’ or ‘Terrible.’