25 Years Later, Richie Blackmore Makes New Confession About Leaving Deep Purple…

25 Years Later, Richie Blackmore Makes New Confession About Leaving Deep Purple… | Society Of Rock Videos

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“I’m Just Glad…”

It’s been 25 years since legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore shocked the world of rock & roll by leaving his band Deep Purple. Both Ritchie and the rest of the band supposedly didn’t depart on the best of terms, and thus Ritchie has not returned to the band since; heck, he hasn’t even returned to rock music in general.

Ritchie infamously left the band after a horrendous show in 1993 where Ritchie wouldn’t join the band on stage until halfway through the set, and even then he didn’t put any effort into what he was playing once he did join the band. After the show, Ritchie and the band got into a heated exchange and soon after, Ritchie left the band. Deep Purple needed to find a replacement ASAP, so they enlisted the talents of legendary guitarist Joe Satriani.

With all of this said, you’d think that Ritchie’s initial feelings towards would be bitter and/or resentful, right? Well, as it turns out he feels the complete opposite. As heard on a recent audio clip on Ritchie’s official YouTube Channel, Ritchie says this…

“I’m just glad they found a guitar player to carry on, because I thought I was going to be shackled to this band for the rest of my life. It was like a ball-and-chain thing, and luckily they said, ‘Well, we found someone.’ ‘Thank God I can get out!'”

Yes, sure, his feelings about actually being in the band haven’t really changed, but we now know that the departure was more of a happy one as Ritchie felt a sense of relief. In fact, Ritchie has gone on record saying that he is open to playing at least one more show with the band. Whether that’ll happen or not is still up in the air. Time will tell…

You can listen to the audio below.

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