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The Latest Breaking News from Ritchie Blackmore

“80 per cent of the people I meet are very boring people.” In 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore named his favourite guitarist, and shared his brutally honest thoughts on the '70s music scene

In a typically forthright 1975 interview, Ritchie Blackmore offered his thoughts on the music business, and his peers

Louder

“We got a bang on the door and it was Eric's security. That was embarrassing – he might have thought it was me making this racket”: That time Ritchie Blackmore disturbed Eric Clapton by cranking Marshalls in a hotel at 3am

Blackmore decided to protest some noisy hotel maintenance with some equally noisy guitar antics. Unfortunately, Slowhand was in the room next door…

Guitar World

"If you wake us up again tomorrow we will bring all our amplification into a room and play at 3 o'clock in the morning": When Ritchie Blackmore had an "embarrassing" encounter with Eric Clapton

"Believe it or not, Eric was in the next room to where we were"

MusicRadar

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"I hear this screaming from behind me: Simon! Simon! Start the bloody song!" How Deep Purple entered their Mk IX era, inspired by the tedious complications of modern life

Deep Purple might never have been fashionable, but with a new guitarist on board and a brand new album, they look likely to be around for some time yet

Louder

“We had collapsed financially – I couldn’t pay the wages. I was on the verge of bankruptcy”: The chaotic story of Ian Gillan’s erratically brilliant solo career

Jazz-funk, solo hits and near-bankruptcy – this is the turbulent story of Ian Gillan’s post-Deep Purple career

Louder

“In the 80s, you ordered a gram of cocaine like you ordered a beer. Doing cocaine was normal in those days”: The high times and crazy life of the Scorpions

Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine and Matthias Jabs look back on the career of Germany’s biggest rock band

Metal Hammer

“There’s no point trying to compete withSteve Morse or Ritchie Blackmore… One of the things that the guys in the band like about me as a player is I do my own thing”: How Simon McBride brought new color to Deep Purple's iconic sound

Stepping into a role once occupied by Ritchie Blackmore and Steve Morse could be intimidating, but when McBride joined Purple, he never thought twice. And yes, he'll play Smoke on the Water his way

Guitar World

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What do the finest blues guitarists of the past 60 years have in common? From B.B. King to Eric Gales, these are the technique secrets behind 30 of the most iconic players

Starting from ’50s electric blues pioneers, we're bending the blues scale into different shapes, with 30 licks taking us up to the present day as the art form continues to evolve and thrive

Guitar World

"A new heavy metal classic for the ages": The song Ronnie James Dio called one of the "proudest things he'd ever done"

Begun by Dio when he was fronting Black Sabbath, it transformed his career and became one of the classic metal tracks of the 80s

Metal Hammer

“The Steve Morse stuff is very different to the early Ritchie Blackmore stuff. Nobody can do it better than them”: Simon McBride on how he’s made the Deep Purple catalog his own – while paying homage to the icons who came before him

McBride was appointed Deep Purple's lead guitarist in 2022, following in the footsteps of some of the most revered players of all time

Guitar World

“Eric Clapton’s roadie brought a Strat with him. I said, ‘Do you want to sell that guitar?’ He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60’”: Ritchie Blackmore on why he switched from the 335 to the Stratocaster – and the one he used to record Smoke on the Water

Deep Purple icon Ritchie Blackmore tells us how a visit from Slowhand’s roadie turned him into a Fender Strat diehard – and why he kept breaking whammy bars

Guitar World

Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan: ‘I’ve seen parties too wild to describe’

The frontman of the heavy rock monsters talks to Mark Beaumont about booze, the sexual wildness of the Sixties, living out Spinal Tap moments, and the band’s new album

The Independent UK

“There's one little lick which annoyed me for a long, long time”: Deep Purple’s Simon McBride on the Ritchie Blackmore lick he found most difficult to learn

McBride has also discussed where he thinks Blackmore's compositional strength lies

Guitar World

The Beethoven-inspired throwaway that become the most famous riff of all time: “We didn’t make a big deal out of it and it wasn’t being considered as a track for the album”

Now Deep Purple return to Montreux... with added smoke

MusicRadar

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Louder

“People talk about Clapton, Beck and Page, but you can’t leave Ritchie Blackmore out of the list”: how Deep Purple changed Zakk Wylde’s life

Zakk Wylde may be Ozzy’s right hand man, but he’s a Deep Purple fan too

Louder

“Ritchie Blackmore went into the pit with a box of tomatoes and started throwing them at the singer”: how Deep Purple changed Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott’s life

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott on his love of Deep Purple – and the deep cut he loves

Louder

“Tony Iommi was calling me a lot. Sabbath are amazing at what they do, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to do’”: an epic interview with Whitesnake’s David Coverdale

From Deep Purple to Whitesnake, via his solo career, a union with Jimmy Page and a near miss with Black Sabbath, this is the life and times of David Coverdale

Guitar World

The Strat turns 70 and the return of the cooler-than-ever Creed – only in the new Guitar World

Featuring new interviews with Ritchie Blackmore, Brian May, Buddy Guy, Alex Lifeson, Adrian Belew, Tom Morello, Yngwie Malmsteen and Mick Mars and a review of the new PRS Mark Tremonti MT 100 amp

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Guitar World

“I bought one of Eric Clapton’s old Strats for £60. That was my initiation into playing a Strat”: How Ritchie Blackmore ended up buying his first-ever Fender Stratocaster from Eric Clapton

Blackmore switched up his ES-335 for a Strat after he was given the chance to buy one of Clapton's own examples – and the rest was history

Louder

“Nothing’s worse than hearing someone say, ‘Deep Purple? They’re just like Black Sabbath, knocking out riffs’”: the birth of Deep Purple Mk II and the transformation that changed rock

How Deep Purple went from one-hit-wonders to become one of the greatest rock bands in history

Guitar World

“I like to have a blast plugging into my Engl amp – even if it's just to wake up the neighbors”: Ritchie Blackmore swapped rock for Renaissance music – but says he’s still not above cranking a tube amp once in awhile

The former Deep Purple guitarist says he's still disenchanted with rock, but not with his Engl amp

Guitar World

These 15 pioneering Fender Stratocaster players made the model their own – and learning their trailblazing approaches shows why the Strat is still one of the most versatile electric guitars

Learn the signature styles of 15 Strat-wielding icons – including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers, H.E.R., Mark Knopfler and more

Metal Hammer

"I insist upon being great. You don’t always reach that pinnacle, but I insist upon it": The A-Z of Ronnie James Dio

In his decades fronting Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and more, the little man with the huge voice made a great many friends – and more than a few enemies

Louder

“He had this mystique to die for. There were rumours of him being nasty and mean. But he could play his ass off”: Steve Vai salutes the genius of Ritchie Blackmore

One guitar legend plays tribute to another

Guitar World

“I’ve never been a shredder. I’m never going to out-do Yngwie Malmsteen. I’m more from the Schenker and Blackmore school”: Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner on the secret to headbanger riffs, and half-nailing, half-blagging the Painkiller solo

Judas Priest's Invincible Shield finds the British metal institution surviving against the odds. Its very own bionic man Richie Faulkner gives us the guitar POV on a venerable work of British steel

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