Ex-DEEP PURPLE Guitarist STEVE MORSE On His Battle With Arthritis: 'I've Tried Every Treatment I Can Find'

In a new interview with American Musical Supply, acclaimed DEEP PURPLE and THE DIXIE DREGS guitarist Steve Morse spoke about the extent to which his battle with arthritis is affecting his guitar playing. The 71-year-old musician, who revealed in 2024 that there was no cartilage in his right-hand wrist anymore after he "practiced about 10,000 notes a day for decades", was asked if there are any guitar "cheats" or techniques that make his playing easier as he gets older, Morse replied (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Oh, man. This must be so frustrating, if you are a young player and you're still watching this, to hear an older guy who's taking up one of the gigs you could be having, talking about how hard it is to play. But fear not, I'm not taking anybody's place because I'm doing my own thing. But yeah, it's hard to keep playing. And the reason why I wanna keep playing is because it really is a part of me — I mean, it's a big part of me. So, yeah, the arthritis thing is huge. I've tried every treatment I can find. In fact, I've got another trip a thousand miles away to try something else. So, yeah, I changed my technique, changed my picking pattern, changed everything that I can to make it through whatever the challenge is."

Steve continued: "I thought at one point that, 'Dude, you're done.' And I thought, when I was in a kid going to see bands in Atlanta, it was a three-hour drive, a band called HYDRA came out. The bass player, his arm was cut off here. And he was playing the gig and he was getting into it, and it was great. And I remember that bass player from HYDRA. Every time I'm, I'm feeling bad about 'this hurts', 'you gotta figure out a way to play', he played a gig with a nub. And you think about Jeff Healey [being] blind and making his own technique."

Morse added: "Humans adapt. And I've learned a lot from watching things on the farm, watching the ants, for instance, or… I'm like Bill Murray with the groundhogs. The persistence of animals counts, and insects. They keep on and on and on and they find a way. But they never stop. I guess that's one of my big lessons, is don't give up while you've still got a breath."

Last October, Morse told Music Radar that he has to accommodate his physical limitations night after night while on tour with STEVE MORSE BAND. "I have had to come up with new ways of picking — several new ways — because different bones in my joint have different pain levels when I change the angle," he said. "So during the set, you'll see me change. During the show tonight, I'll be changing positions constantly."

"I have to practice those different ways of holding the pick, and the different angles, and whether to bend my arm or pick from the elbow," he explained. "It's a lot. I mean, you have to really, really, really want to play, to deal with the advance of arthritis."

Looking ahead to the future and how his condition might affect his ability to perform, Morse said: "I don't know what's going to happen. When I wake up, am I going to be able to move my hand or not? I don't know. So far, I have been able to, [and] make every gig. I think my time of doing the performance grind is closing. That window is closing. [But] my time for writing, and possibly performing with some help, with some other musicians, is very possible. I see a future, but I don't see me being a hired gun because I couldn't stand up to the level of players you can get now. And guitarists are literally dime a dozen."

Morse started his career in the mid-1970s, playing mind-melting jazz-rock with THE DIXIE DREGS, which earned him multiple Grammy nominations in the process. The following decade, he formed the STEVE MORSE BAND, grabbing an additional Grammy nod, and joined arena heavyweights KANSAS, before being recruited by rock and roll originals DEEP PURPLE in 1994. And despite being in one of the world's biggest bands, he continued to innovate in other projects, such as LIVING LOUD, ANGELFIRE and FLYING COLORS — as well as guitar supergroup G3 — showing the world just how much versatility there was in those magic fingers. He announced his departure from DEEP PURPLE in 2022, choosing to care for his wife, who passed away in 2024, by which point he had become their longest-serving guitarist.