Ritchie Blackmore recalls when he had the idea to reunite with Deep Purple

After 33 years, Ritchie Blackmore finally reunited with Deep Purple on stage, making the fans extremely happy to see something they thought would never happen again. With the help of his wife, Candice Night, the musician got in touch with Ian Gillan and asked if he could play with them one last time. In an interview with Now Spinning, the guitarist recalled how the idea came to him.

Ritchie Blackmore recalls when he had the idea to reunite with Deep Purple

“I sat up in bed and thought, ‘What about if I got up on stage?’, as they’re in the area… They’re playing a great place called the Jones Beach Theater. And it’s outside, and the view is over the water. Magnificent place. And I’ve always wanted to play there. But I sat up in bed and I thought, ‘I wonder if…’ (So I asked my wife Candice), ‘How do you feel about me just asking Ian Gillan if it’s all right to play in ‘Smoke On The Water’, then just disappearing?’ And then she thought it was a good idea, so we sent him an e-mail via Candice.”

“I don’t deal with that nonsense. I’ve just learnt how to actually use the telephone, and it’s still difficult for me. And so we sallied forth and infiltrated. Now Candice sent the e-mail and Ian said, ‘Yes, of course. Welcome aboard. All the band is up for it. Come on stage for ‘Smoke’.’ I just wanted to do one song, and I thought that would be the song. It’s big over here (in the USA) — bigger here than it was in Europe. And so we kind of advertised it in a little way. Not much, just enough. And funnily enough, the ticket sales went up, which was nice. Anyway, they thought it was a good idea.”

He continued:

“I came along to their show, and everybody was so helpful. It was almost like overkill. Everybody was incredibly nice. And then we got up on stage. I got up on stage and played it, ‘Smoke On The Water’. I never did a soundcheck, which was a little bit off-putting, putting because I do like to do a soundcheck. But my roadie did that for me, thank goodness. And the sound was good. And I played my three or four minutes of ‘Smoke On The Water’, which seemed to go down like I just invented the cure for cancer.”

“The people went nuts, and half of them were sitting in water. For some reason, the venue kind of gets covered in water at certain points ’cause it is right on the water. So they’re now all sitting in the water, the front three or four rows. And I felt very good about it because it was like playing with old friends. Everybody was super nice and super efficient… Well, it’d been like 35 years since I’d actually played with the band, and nobody had changed.”

Ritchie Blackmore continued:

“Everybody was great. And thank goodness it went off without a hitch, but it could have quite easily have fallen apart, and that would’ve been embarrassing. I felt like I was one of the soldiers that had come back from the Western Front, and everybody thought I was dead. And there I was — I was alive. So it really went down incredibly well. I almost felt like I was a celebrity for the four minutes that I was on stage, and I’m not a celebrity type of person. I just play the guitar — sometimes well, sometimes not so well. But it was well worth doing. It was a good idea that I had, and it came to me very early one morning when I was in bed. I just thought, ‘Why not?’ ‘Cause we never know when we’re going to meet again, which is like a sad note in a way,” Ritchie Blackmore said.

His final complete show with Deep Purple was in Helsinki, Finland back in 1993. He was briefly replaced by Joe Satriani and then by Steve Morse (from 1994 to 2022) and the current guitarist is Simon McBride.

The band is currently promoting their latest album “Splat!”, their 10th, since Ritchie left in 1993. The current line-up has Ian Gillan (Vocals), Ian Paice (Drums), Roger Glover (Bass), Don Airey (Keyboards) and Simon McBride (Guitar).