In a new interview with Classic Rock magazine, Ian Gillan revealed that Ritchie Blackmore once asked him to join Rainbow, the band he formed after leaving Deep Purple in 1974.
“The reason I had left Deep Purple was that they were moving into a kind of territory [later filled by Rainbow],” he said. “I didn’t want that. I wanted a group with grit, excitement and edge. Also one that had balls. That’s no reflection on Ritchie, who was a fantastic, amazing guitar player – in fact I said: ‘You can come and play in my band if you want’ – but Ritchie has firm ideas about how things should be, and there were things that we disagreed on.”
In the interview, Gillan also dismisses the idea of a rivalry between Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath in the early 1970s.
Back in 2021, Blackmore talked about his time in Deep Purple with Gillan, saying that reuniting with him would be ‘no fun at all.’ However, he revealed that the two were in touch. “The answer to your question is yes, we are in touch. Tensions eased quite a lot after we got hold of our business affairs and sorted everything out,” Blackmore said.
He explained why it wouldn’t be fun to reunite. “We’ve never had any antagonism towards Ritchie. He has his own interpretations, and the rest of us have our interpretations, so it’s really not worth being fired up about it. But I think probably this late in our career, and with things moving along so pleasantly for the band, it would naturally enough – we discussed this years and years ago when it was first talked about – it would be a circus and it would be a distraction to everything we’re doing, to be honest. It would be no fun at all, because we don’t work that way anymore.”
Blackmore didn’t seem too bothered by Gillan’s rejection—he even played with him onstage at a Marquee show in London not long after. The two worked together again when Deep Purple reunited in 1984, but tensions grew worse. Blackmore left for good in 1993.
