Ritchie Blackmore Interview Now Spinning Magazine Obviously starting off with the recent event where he appeared on stage with Deep Purple. I'd love to hear the story of that day with Deep Purple from your perspective, Ritchie, when did the idea of playing with the band first come up? Was it something that you'd thought about for some time or did you just walk in from the kitchen and say to Candice, "I think I'm playing with Deep Purple in a couple of days. What do you reckon?" and I just wonder what the reaction was from Candice and the children of that time when they realized this was actually really going to happen. I sat up, bolt upright in bed, which I don't usually do. Not that I'm aware of. Mind you, I snore and I'm not aware of it. I'm convinced I don't snore, but Candice tells me I snore. I blame it on the cat. We have a cat called Winter. 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 What is it called? The Jones Beach.... The Jones Beach Theater. And it's outside and the view is over the water. Magnificent! And I've always wanted to play there. But I sat up in bed and I thought, I wonder if how do you feel about me just asking Ian if it's all right to play 'Smoke on the Water' and then just disappearing. And then she thought it was a good idea. So, we sent him a an email via Candice. I don't deal with that nonsense. I've just learned how to actually use the telephone. And it's still difficult for me. And so we sallied forth and infiltrated. No, Candice sent the email. 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. I thought that would be the song. It's big over here. Bigger here than it was in Europe. And so we kind of advertised it in a little way. Not much. Just enough. And funny enough, the ticket sales went up. Which was nice. Anyway, they thought it was a good idea. 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 sound check, which was a little bit off-putting putting because I do like to do a sound check. 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. Cuz 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. And it would been like 35 years since I'd actually played with the band. And nobody had changed. Everybody was great. And thank goodness it went off without a hitch. But it could have quite easily have fallen apart. That would have been embarrassing. But I felt like I was one of the soldiers that's 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 4 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 good idea that I had. And it came to me very early one morning when I was in bed. I just thought, "Why not?" You know, cuz we never know when we're going to meet again, which is like a sad note, in a way. Once you'd made the decision to rejoin Deep Purple for this one song Smoke on the Water did you have any doubts at all? The next morning, once you'd agreed to do this did you have any doubts and did you have the full support of your family as well? Candice's reaction was you're being a complete idiot. Why would you want to do that? No, I'm joking. She was up for it. She was the one that was pushing me because the very next day after I thought about doing it, I said to Candy you know what? No, I think it's a silly idea. I don't want to do it. She said no, you should do it. Definitely and she pushed me to actually following through. I was not going to play but I knew that she would bombard me with questions if I didn't so I said yes, I'm going to do it. So I went to the theater and did it and my kids that they were just waiting for me to win so they could go for a hamburger. That's the way they think, you know. What was the journey to the venue like? I mean, were you listening to music? Was there a kind of general chitchat going on? Or was it just silence? I understand you were probably a bit nervous, but I wondered whether those nerves were more apprehension compared with the normal nerves of going on stage with a big concert. Yes, the journey there was quite hectic. The two children were fighting. And our opera singer daughter, Autn Esmeralda, she has four octaves to her range. And she often wears earphones, so we can't really communicate with her. Rory, our athletic boy, he was just watching his iPad on who was winning the score on American football. Which I'm not too keen on. And so it was a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies. Everybody was arguing with everybody else. We got there. And then we parked in such a place that as I got out of the car everybody in the whole stadi theater could see us coming to the venue. Which I thought was a little bit strange. There was no back entrance. So we had to go through the audience. I'm carrying a guitar. And felt a little bit kind of awkward at that point. But it all worked out in the end. It was just absolutely magical. And seeing you and Ian with your arms around each other, smiling from ear to ear was just absolutely wonderful. Afterwards after you met the band backstage at the bar, what what was that, hanging out with the guys again? And what was it like for your children and Candice to be with Deep Purple? The kids just wanted to go home immediately. They had no real interest in what the hell was going on, which I kind of liked in a strange way because it took away from the nervous side of things, speaking to the band, obviously all the band were in great spirits. We're all having fun backstage. I had been promised some Scotch from Ian, which he didn't deliver. So, thank God I took my own. I could never go on stage sober. He is not allowed to drink I think because of his malady of diabetic situation. You know we were all comparing our illnesses. I was talking about my gout, my stents in my heart and stuff like that. Ian was talking about his diabetic situation and Ian Paice had a stroke a couple of years previously and so it was like a lot of old men talking about their illnesses which is okay. That's what happens when you get older and I felt very at home, obviously there was no thought of me rejoining or doing any of that. It was just a oneoff. It was like where you're in a great place that I've always wanted to play at and it was near where I lived and so it was just a oneoff and I got up on stage, played and went back to grumbling afterwards with the band about our illnesses and then I went home and they went on their way. It was a magical night. It was very good. In fact, the band was nicer than they've ever been when I was working with them. So, it was peculiar in a sense. They were like old friends that were really happy to see me and I was happy to see them which was odd in a way but it worked. I was a little bit concerned with not doing a sound check but my roadie had done the sound check and the sound was there so I was glad of that. I didn't know if I was going to walk on stage and have a guitar that wasn't even plugged in. I didn't quite know what was going to happen, but luckily it was plugged in and I had more or less my sound that I usually play with. So everything went fine except for some of the people in the front row were sitting in water because the actual place tends to acquire water that for some reason it overflows and I don't understand what the hell was going on but people were complaining to me that they were sitting in water. So, they didn't seem to mind. Actually, everything went very well. It was very quick and it was over in 4 minutes. At first, I thought it was going to be like having a dental extraction and but it wasn't like that at all. I enjoyed myself and I noticed that Ian Gillan had got taller and I'd become shorter. Because of my back problem, I have four to five herniated discs that are kind of worn out, which as you get older make you shorter. So when you drove home were you talking in the car? And when you got home did you have a pot of tea and go to bed? Or were you literally bouncing off the walls and trying to stay awake from the screens to actually watch any playback? I never personally watch footage of myself. I'm very self-conscious. I prefer not to see myself and not to hear myself talking. So Autumn was back to her headphones listening to Taylor Swift. Rory was talking about his next big match where we should take him. Nobody was really talking about what I just did. Candice, of course being an adult and a fan, said it went very well. So I believed what she said. I had no idea. I just was on and I was off. It was very quick for 4 minutes. And then I think we did our usual which was having a four-way argument about who's listening to what, whether the windows should be up or down. And we were not reveling about the show. We were doing our usual, which is complaining about who's listening to what. Note: To be continued (as this interview is podcasted in 13 weekly parts)..... © Phil Aston, Now Spinning Magazine Podcast - September 2026