Ritchie Blackmore was interviewed in The Guardian. At 72 he is still very serious about music and tries shard not to have fun.
I don’t think the world is a fun place. I’m very content in my own mind, in a way, but fun, I’m not too sure about. I don’t quite know what fun is. I don’t know why I should walk around with a perpetual grin on my face, saying everything’s wonderful.
Travel back in time with a 1975 Ritchie Blackmore interview in Modern Guitars Magazine. He talks at length about how Rainbow got started, and yes, there is some Deep Purple in there too:
I never got very much emotion out of Deep Purple music, though I did when I was onstage. Except for Machine Head and In Rock, there wasn’t a lot that moved me about what we did and I could never figure out why. It was just misinterpretation between the guitar and the vocalist most of the time, which wasn’t their fault. I just had a very bad way of explaining myself, of what I wanted put over the top. Plus, it got to the stage where I couldn’t really say, I couldn’t tell a singer what to sing. I didn’t want to. He’s the singer. He should sing whatever he feels. That’s why it’s different in this band. Everybody’s thinking together. Nobody’s got big egos.
Ritchie Blackmore goes soft:
Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore made his name in the hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow, but he's gone in a completely different direction for the past decade or so. Blackmore and his partner Candice Night lead a group called Blackmore's Night that plays mainly acoustic renaissance-influenced music, and they've got a holiday collection out now called Winter Carols. The album features all-new versions of seasonal favorites including "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "Good King Wenceslas," and "We Three Kings."
