Steve Morse talks new album & replacing Ritchie Blackmore

Morse was speaking with Music Radar about his role with the English prog-rock titans and how he feels slightly obligied to stick with former guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore's original contributions:

"I feel a certain obligation…to a point. You know when you watch a sitcom on TV and a band is playing a cover song? They could be singing 'Na-na-na-na-na-na-na' – whatever. But then there's that moment when they get to the hook, and they play the hook exactly the way you know the song. That's how I go about it. There's the hooks and melodic parts that Ritchie did that everybody knows by heart. And they're great parts! I have to play those parts, and that's fine. The songs wouldn't be the songs without them. But there's a lot of leeway in and around those sections."

Morse replaced Blackmore in 1993 and has played on four Deep Purple records as well as on several live albums. The ex-Dixie Dregs axe-man states that when he first joined Deep Purple the band insisted 'Don't copy Ritchie', a request that Morse was more than happy to fulfil as he explains in his own words: "I don't want to be him (Ritchie Blackmore) in a Deep Purple cover band."

The upcoming Deep Purple album, which will be the bands 18th and is-still yet to be named, was started at the beginning of last year (2010) but was stalled after the announcement of their 'The Songs That Built Rock' world tour, which features a 38-peice orchestra.

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