“When I played the Purple songs and took it out, some of them – a certain percentage of them – just hated me”: Steve Morse on the challenges of putting his own stamp on Deep Purple’s material

Ritchie Blackmore has previously heaped praise on Steve Morse, but the man who took his place in Deep Purple had a difficult job of impressing the group’s fans as he tried to put his spin on their material.

Morse joined in 1994 after Blackmore stepped away from the band for a second time. He spent 28 years with the band, producing eight studio albums, and even embarking on a tour shortly after breaking his wrist.

But, despite being a valued member of the group, the fusion-minded virtuoso had a harder time reimagining Blackmore’s blues-y licks in the eyes of the fans.

“Now, the fans, when I played the Purple songs and took it out, some of them – a certain percentage of them – just hated me,” he says to MusicRadar. “And pretty much stayed in that position till 28 years later!

“I tried to incorporate my stylistic mixture with respect for what Ritchie did but with some of my own personality, too,” he develops. “And [it was for] the people there that hadn’t heard us yet. They had the old albums, of course – that’s why they came and bought tickets – but they got used to me being me, and that was kind of new.”

Deep Purple were notorious for changing up their songs live, typically expanding sections out into long, virtuosic jams. Morse’s mindset was very much in keeping with that spirit, even if the band’s more conservative fans weren’t bowled over.

Speaking of his predecessors’ legacies, the band’s newest guitarist, Simon McBride, says he’s quickly learned just how different Morse and Blackmore are in terms of style.

“The Steve Morse stuff is very different from the early Ritchie Blackmore stuff,” he states. “Steve had a bit of an injury to his wrist, so he doesn’t play the way he did in Dixie Dregs. If I had to play what he did there, I would give up!

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“And with Ritchie’s style, for example, there’s a solo like Highway Star that I can’t change – [tell that to Morse!]. When you’ve got 65,000 people all singing the solo back at you note-for-note, it’s like, ‘Okay, I am so glad I did not change this at all!’

“But there are other solos, like the one in Smoke on the Water, where I changed it around and put my own flavour on it. There’s no point trying to compete with Steve Morse or Ritchie Blackmore.”

Over the past few years, Morse has been battling arthritis in his wrist. He's invented a hack to help his playing, and has now revealed how his wrist's ever-changing condition dictates how he approaches every show.

Still, that hasn't stopped him from writing a new album with the Steve Morse Band, and Eric Johnson and John Petrucci are along for the ride, too.