{"id":324239,"date":"2025-12-19T07:43:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324239\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T07:43:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:43:05","slug":"steve-morse-says-deep-purple-was-happy-to-see-him-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324239\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Morse says Deep Purple was happy to see him leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Steve Morse left Deep Purple<\/a> in 2022, he had logged more time with the group than any other guitar player.<\/p>\n

But perhaps familiarity really does breed contempt: Morse says several members of the band were more than happy to see the back of him.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dixie Dregs founder enjoyed side quests with Kansas and Lynyrd Skynyrd<\/a> before he joined Purple in 1994, just as Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s second spell in the band came to an end. After eight studio albums with the British hard rockers, he departed when his wife fell ill with aggressive Stage 4 cancer.<\/p>\n

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As Morse recently revealed, his time in Deep Purple was marked by frustration over his tendency toward virtuoso fusion playing, which took the group a step away from the blues-meets-classical roots<\/a> they formed with Blackmore. He’s said that 95 percent of the ideas he presented to the group were dismissed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Morse now tells Guitar Interactive Magazine he believes his band mates were glad to see him go and that he can’t imagine performing with them again even for a one-off event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if the band felt differently, I would feel differently,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think that there’s a couple of guys in the band that were really glad for me to be gone, because they were sort of heading back to their roots and wanted just to be a rock band, and \u2018don’t give me any of that fancy crap.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at me as a writer, I definitely give you that fancy crap,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cI can’t help it.<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Deep Purple seems to have found what they want in Morse’s replacement, Irishman Simon McBride<\/a>, who is another blues-centric player, and a fine one at that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think the band’s happier the way they are,\u201d Morse adds, \u201cand it would be kind of a step back for them to wanna do something like that. They’re happier and better off, and I think it\u2019s the same here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Morse on closing the Deep Purple chapter and new instrumental album, Triangulation | Interview – YouTube
\n\"Steve<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Vocalist Ian Gillan said as much last summer.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSimon is a fantastic contributor to the band,\u201d he told Made in Metal last summer (via Blabbermouth<\/a>). \u201cIt’s one of the best things that could have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s changed things quite a lot,\u201d he said in another interview<\/a> two years prior. \u201cHe’s a catalyst; we feel very relaxed with Simon’s style of playing. It’s very compatible with the way we started. It’s very straightforward; the platforms are simple, and the virtuosity is on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deep Purple – Lazy (Live In Wacken) – YouTube
\n\"Deep<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Reading between the lines, it’s easy to see why Morse hints at there being more disharmony during his reign than the fact that he stuck around for 28 years lets on. The comments on McBride\u2019s playing, and of its simplicity, also feel like a veiled dig at Morse\u2019s inability to do likewise.<\/p>\n

Talking of his successor, Blackmore called Morse a \u201cfantastic\u201d guitarist<\/a>, but suggested he played more from the head than the heart, which he felt was to his detriment.<\/p>\n

Morse is back on familiar ground with his namesake trio. He\u2019s got a new album out in Triangulation and is back on the road to celebrate it. This, despite his ongoing struggles with arthritis<\/a>, which means he has to change up his playing style daily. It\u2019s also rendered one of his more virtuoso songs unplayable<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Steve Morse left Deep Purple in 2022, he had logged more time with the group than any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-324239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}