![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover5.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride3.jpg)
Unpretentious and clear-eyed
Steve Morse dispenses wisdom to younger players on the virtual pages of the Guitar Player magazine.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced shifting from Kansas to Deep Purple?
My first encounter with Deep Purple was a really good jam session, and my first encounter with Kansas was a writing session. Those were different things, but they were the things that I connected on with each band. With Kansas, it was more about writing, but with Purple, it was about the feel of everybody improvising, listening and reading each other’s minds. With Purple, that connection grew very organically.
Did you need a whole new setup to cover Ritchie Blackmore’s parts?
I eventually changed the amplifiers four times before I ended up going with Engl. When I first started with Purple, I was using a 5150 setup. I used that through the [1996] Purpendicular album. That setup worked fine, but the gear needed to be turned up in order for the type of distortion I needed to convey the notes. The search began to find a rounder tone with more impact. That led me to the Marshall Jubilee to the Marshall 2000 series to Engl.
What made Engl Amps perfect for Deep Purple?
At the time, I liked some of the characteristics, but I really wanted to make some changes. Luckily, the designer started bringing prototypes to the shows with breakout boards attached to the amps that let me adjust the tone centers of the tone controls. It was awesome. That begat my signature amp.
Read more in Guitar Player.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Great, insightful interview with a very humble man who actually has little reason to be humble – he’s Steve Morse after all!
[Minor point: But is Bill Nelson (ex-Be-Bop Deluxe) really more popular than Steve? 🤣 I was baffled that the quoted Joe Bonamassa even knew about him, not that Bill is undeserving of more recognition. But I have yet to meet someone who knows about Bill Nelson and BBD who was not a teenager or older when the band released their only six (five studio, one live) albums in the mid to late 70s.
https://youtu.be/gT1HAo53224
https://youtu.be/k7tvUaIQPkI
https://youtu.be/egU2n262vgg
Fantastic, totally idiosyncratic band, but at the time hardly anyone “got them” and Bill Nelson lost interest in the rock star tour life after a few years already, preferring to work at an incessant flow of new music from his home studio, becoming a reclusive new wave Mike Oldfield of sorts.
That said, years ago for the 40th anniversary of Machine Head, he gave that album – though hardly ever a Purple fan – a glowing guest review in Classic Rock, lauding how “clever”and “well-played” it was. Coming from someone as cerebral as him (and as excellent a guitarist) that is tantamount to Albert Einstein telling you that your ideas on quantum physics are “interesting and forward-pointing”. 😂]
January 16th, 2025 at 03:50What a diff between Morse and Blackmore!
January 16th, 2025 at 07:19Steve seems so friendly, kind and humble ☺️
And he’s a really good guitarist too 😊
That’s the problem with Steve, most Purple fans are gluttons for punishment and want to be, uhum, MISTREATED by Ritchie.
January 16th, 2025 at 20:07@2 Blackmore is friendly and kind the last many years, Karin – just to set the record straight. He grew up. Candice helped him in that regard. Ritchie’s a peach of a person now by most accounts. A good example would be the difference between the days of yore when he would stand off on the side of the stage and didn’t want anyone to go near him. In the last many years – the Rainbow “reunion” gigs and Blackmore’s Night – he doesn’t mind going over to the other side of the stage or even if some of the other musicians stand in front of him and upstage him. A totally relaxed dude. Yes, it’s too bad that wasn’t the case in the early years but good to see now.
January 17th, 2025 at 02:54#2 – Yes! I met Steve at a guitar masterclass last summer, and he couldn’t have been more friendly, kind and humble! For more than 42 years I had hoped to meet him someday, and he definitely did not disappoint!
There’s no way I could imagine Blackmore doing the same masterclass, giving each aspiring guitar player some one-on-one time, without him being a jerk about it.
January 17th, 2025 at 14:01Uwe a question I hope you will be able to answer.
January 18th, 2025 at 01:38Why does Morse and I think the 2 times I’ve seen Purple with Simon, they put their speaker cabs on the side not straight up. What is the reason behind that? Thanks!
@4
Hello James 👋🏼
Well, I am really happy to hear the brilliant guitar player has grown and become more mature!
If only he had gone through that development earlier, we wouldn’t be discussing whether Steve Morse or Simon McB is better or worse than Ritchie!
Instead we could go on dwelling into the magnificent Mark ll 🥰
But it is what it is! I am just happy Purple still are making lovely music and are bringing joy to us 🤩
Amazing what the right woman behind her man can do of magic ☺️
January 18th, 2025 at 18:15@5
John I’ve never met him, but he sure seems like a great guy 😊
Please take a look at #4, it seems like Ritchie has moved on, apparently thanks to Candice (or maybe he is exhausted beyond repair because of the two young children they have got 😃☺️)
January 18th, 2025 at 18:19Blackmore wouldn’t do something like that, a ‘masterclass’, a lot of people wouldn’t. The diversity of different people and some. Strange that, no not really. Different strokes for different folks, one of many sayings that relate to the different roles we humans relate to. Cheers.
January 18th, 2025 at 21:40@ 7- yes but Karin as we all know, if Ritchie wasn’t Ritchie, well none of us would be here at THS or anywhere else in regards to Deep Purple. Easy for us to comment of course as we haven’t been involved with the band at all while Blackers was there, but still most of us would be content with how things have panned out, sort of. Cheers.
January 19th, 2025 at 05:42@10
“but Karin as we all know, if Ritchie wasn’t Ritchie, well none of us would be here at THS or anywhere else in regards to Deep Purple.”
MacGregor, are you serious?
January 19th, 2025 at 10:46I am not here to trash the former banjo player of Purple!
I am here because I love the music Purple are making, and I would indeed be happy and content if the guys could agree to make beautiful music together! 😊☺️ – well all of them!
@6 sidroman
January 19th, 2025 at 10:57He said it in the interview and I think I heard him say one or two times in interviews on YouTube that laying the cabinets on the side spreads the sound just a little wider in the room, since the upper speakers are slightly tilted. 🙂
Ritchie hasn’t really changed his leopard spots, he’s just become old age-mild and a bit toothless. We all undergo that development. Add to that how his life is these days a far cry from the touring/recording/performing stress of the 70s so he is under less pressure to lash out. I have yet to hear from him deep regrets about how he treated people in the past.
Good or bad, his role for DP was pivotal. But great art does not make a great person, most great artists are selfish and ruthless by everyday standards. It’s a fan projection that someone whose music you like must also somehow be a person with positive traits, we want our objects of adulation to be saintly. In that way Blackmore devotees aren’t any different to Swifties.
I just see artists as people with flaws and bad characteristics like all of us. Ritchie still sucks people out and leaves them by the wayside unless they have given birth to his children. (Let’s not even talk of his treatment of his first son Jürgen or his first wife who is on welfare.) Handing out free beers from stage to fans at BN gigs in period garb doesn’t change that.
Elon Musk has done much for electric cars, but I don’t see that in any way anointing other things he does and says.
I love Salvador Dalí’s art, but the man was an unrepentant supporter of Spanish fascism all his life. I don’t try to reconcile the two. And I haven’t burned my Ted Nugent collection either. I just settle for the fact that the man is an absolute idiot who plays very good guitar.
Sidroman: Placing the speakers to the side messes up the audience front sound less and also gives the other musicians in the band the chance to hear not just the guitar’s monitor signal – not everyone likes that. Also, you can move around on stage more (as Simon does) and still hear yourself.
January 19th, 2025 at 11:17@ 13 -“It’s a fan projection that someone whose music you like must also somehow be a person with positive traits, we want our objects of adulation to be saintly.” Who are ‘we’ and most aficionados I have ever met don’t give a toss about a musician or artists personality etc Uwe. I think it would be fair to say, some people may like their favourite musician(s) to be that way. The ‘soap opera’ rubbish is for the journalists isn’t it, well some of them & for people who crave social drama etc. The art may survive, the personality doesn’t in many instances. Cheers.
January 19th, 2025 at 21:03@13
January 20th, 2025 at 13:03“And I haven’t burned my Ted Nugent collection either.”
What about mr. Nugent Uwe?😊
The Ted Nugent scenario is a good point in regards to his attitude and personality. Back in the day I had no idea about his habits, outlook on life etc. But I didn’t like his music at all, I heard plenty of it from other peoples music collections at that time. It was many decades later that his personality etc came to my knowledge. So the music was first & what came later had no bearing on my tastes in his music at all. That may have changed though if I did own & enjoy some of his music, I don’t know. Do I avoid an artist because of their reputation? Hmmmmmmmm, yes I probably do in some instances, it depends on what and who that may be. It was the same with Dali & his art. I didn’t stop looking at it & admiring some of it when I became aware of who he actually was and of course some of it did change in appearance after that. I have viewed a few documentaries on Dali, I don’t admire him at all with his belligerent ways. Cheers.
January 20th, 2025 at 21:36What about him? He’s a reactionary, hypocritical, inane, gun-toting buffoon and bigot who insults people on a regular basis. Just the right phenotype to gain massive popularity in the US of A if you know what I mean.
January 20th, 2025 at 22:21@16 & 17
Thanks gentlemen 🤗🤗
I didn’t know that about Ted N!
Sometimes a lot of info goes under the radar here ☺️
January 21st, 2025 at 07:27