IAN GILLAN Has No Desire To Reconnect With RITCHIE BLACKMORE

DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan was interviewed earlier this year on the Buenos Aires, Argentina radio station Vorterix Rock 103.1. You can now listen to a clip from the chat in the YouTube clip below.

Asked if he ever felt the desire to reconnect with former DEEP PURPLE guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, especially in the wake of the passing of DEEP PURPLE keyboardist Jon Lord in 2012, Gillan replied: "Not in the slightest. Yes, we were very much in close touch with Jon; I had dinner with him in Tokyo, I had dinner with him in Paris, we were always sending e-mails to each other, and, of course, the relationship was fantastic. Jon left the band over ten years ago, but he was still very much our personal friend and, of course, the godfather of DEEP PURPLE. As far as Ritchie was concerned, that's a different story altogether. I think we cut the thing…

"The band was dying."

He continued: "If you want to talk about Ritchie, I guess we have to; not many people do these days. But the truth of the matter is, from a historical point of view, the band was dying. If Ritchie had stayed in the band, it would have been the end of DEEP PURPLE. The shows were getting shorter and shorter, the audiences were getting smaller and smaller. We were playing in small halls, and they weren't even full — they were half empty — and Ritchie was walking off stage every night. And so, when he left 20 years ago, it stopped raining and the sun came out, and Jon Lord, amongst others, started walking up straight; his personality re-emerged. So did Roger Glover and Ian Paice; they became they were people originally, instead of fending and cowering in case they upset Ritchie. And so this situation ended, and we're all glad it ended, and we had to rebuild. And, of course, now the distance of time is so great that we just remember the good times. And we remember Ritchie as a great player, a great performer, a great writer, and I remember him as my roommate; I used to share rooms with him. But something happened with Ritchie, and that's the end of that. So we remember the past as it was; it was completely and totally different to Jon Lord.

"And so, no, I have no desire to pick up the phone to Ritchie, or have dinner with him, or meet him in Paris or Tokyo. I hope he's well, and I hope he's happy. And that's the end of it."