Ritchie Blackmore Reveals What Kind of Music Still Passions Him

Ritchie Blackmore (Instagram @therealritchieblackmore)

JAKARTA - Ritchie Blackmore, through his personal YouTube channel, talked about how he maintains his passion for music and what kind of music he listens to.

The former Deep Purple guitarist admitted that he still maintains his passion for listening to Western classical music and the works of his colleagues in Europe.

"I maintain my passion for music by listening to old music from the 1500s and 1400s, listening to some bands that are my friends in Germany, Czech, Finland, and Sweden," said Blackmore, quoting the Ritchie Blackmore Official YouTube channel, Friday, December 6.

"They still play music that really excites me. I'm obsessed with those things. It's very natural. That music attracts my attention," he continued.

Blackmore admitted that he doesn't listen to new songs, which he said are widely played on the radio in the United States.

"I think as generations progress and change, I can't understand what they're going to play on the radio," he said.

"And I don't listen to much rock n' roll anymore. I listen to old rock from the 50s, when it was fresh - Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, James Burton, Ricky Nelson, The Everly Brothers. I love all that stuff. Buddy Holly was my favourite at the time.”

The 79-year-old guitarist describes himself as an old man complaining about the music on the radio.

“I feel like in the 70s, when Eric Clapton was playing Cream and stuff like that, it was music that was meaningful. You’d hear ‘White Room’ or something like that, you didn’t need a chest-pounding drum beat. You didn’t have to hear the same beat. You could actually say, ‘Wow, that’s a great song, ‘White Room’. Fantastic.’ We love Cream. Eric, of course, is great, he started it all,” he says.

“There’s so much music that I like, but I rarely hear it on the radio. I’d rather listen to talk shows on the radio about who the new president is and stuff like that, which people get really bored with.”

Blackmore admits that his assessment may be highly subjective. He just can’t understand how the new generation could possibly like music.

“I don’t hear any good music, from my point of view. It might be good music, but it’s not what I want to hear,” the guitarist says.

“When the whole family gets in the truck and we go on holiday, which might be 20 miles away, because I don’t like to travel, all I hear is probably Taylor Swift or something. I find that hard to understand. But there’s nothing wrong with that, the new generation wants to hear it. It’s probably as great to them as The Beatles and Cream and Jimi Hendrix were to me. So I can’t complain, but I do like to complain, and I will complain. And I think the shit they play on the radio today is terrible.”