Ritchie Blackmore explained why he couldn’t get inspired by the music Deep Purple was making at the end of his tenure.

He quit while the band was on tour in 1993, and effectively abandoned the rock genre at the same time, focusing instead on Blackmore’s Night, his medieval group featuring wife Candice Night. Despite a brief return to live rock with a new Rainbow lineup in 2016, he’s remained committed to music in the style of the 14th and 15th centuries.

“I’m not really interested in the modern approach with modern instruments,” Blackmore told Long Island Weekly in a recent interview. “We use synthesizers on certain things, but they are there to see how we’re going to progress with the other instruments. It’s all about going back to the basics – simple music.”

He noted that "melody is very important to me. It’s an important thing. That’s why, even in Deep Purple, towards the end, before I left, our music was a bit monophonic. There wasn’t too much melody and if I don’t hear a melody, I can’t be inspired. I find that with a lot of hard rock bands today – not the death metal or whatever – the melody is certainly not there and I can’t relate to that."

Blackmore went on to describe himself as a “little bit of a musical snob.” "I’m more of a purist and want to be in the wood myself hearing a piece of music written in the 1500s or 1600s," he said. "There’s only one film we saw – Elizabeth – where they actually played three real Renaissance songs played in the correct manner with the correct instruments. Candy and I were jumping up and down in our seats, at least I know I was. I was thrilled by the fact that they’d taken the chance to play it as it was supposed to be played. But it’s very seldom that you’ll hear these songs or melodies played in the correct manner."

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