The time of Ritchie Blackmore with Deep Purple was clearly coming to an end.

As the guitar legend shared in a rare interview, he had grown weary of being part of the future British hard rock legends’ ongoing musical exploits and the drama that accompanied them. He openly admits in the conversation below that he recognized he was part of the problem.

A change seemed like the right move to address the disgust he felt within himself, but at the same time, he was frustrated with his bandmates too.

“When I left Deep Purple, I just felt that the band wasn’t pulling [its weight] as a musical venture,” he explains. “It became a committee. It was like if there were some answers to be had, there were five different answers. And I got a little bit tired of the committee meetings.”

A new box set chronicles what came next for Blackmore, with Ronnie James Dio and the new band they assembled, Rainbow. The Temple of the King: 1975-1976 offers a deep dive into the group’s first two albums, 1975’s Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and Rising, which followed in 1976.

Though interviews with Blackmore are scarce these days, he agreed to answer questions, including sharing for the first time why he was replaced on stage for one night in San Antonio on guitar by future soft rock balladeer Christopher Cross.

In the first part of our interview, he detailed his recent health struggles, how he’s feeling now, and his departure from Deep Purple. Today, in the second installment, he discusses (often with humor and sarcasm) how he moved forward with Rainbow and looks back at the Rising album as it turns 50 this week.

From your point of view, how were you further evolving with these first two Rainbow albums? I would imagine that each one represents a memorable chapter for you personally, as far as what was accomplished and at the same time learned.
I don’t believe in evolving. Number one, I don’t really understand the word and I was just uncomfortable. So it was time to move on and do other things. I’d been in Purple, I think, for seven years. And I think I got the feeling that we’d done everything we could do in our type of music. I did notice a lot of egos coming and going, so that was tiring. I just wanted to play music and not have any egos.

The biggest ego of all of them was me, and I was kind of disgusted with myself at the time, so I thought, “I want to move on. I want to be away from myself.” I found that difficult, but David Copperfield helped me out. He said, “I can make you move from yourself and be in the audience at the same time that you’re on stage.” And I said, “Okay, carry on.” So that’s where I went with that. I went to Las Vegas and joined David Copperfield’s crew. He taught me exactly how to be in two places at once, and I paid him handsomely for what he did and that was it.

Listen to Ritchie Blackmore on the ‘UCR Podcast’

How do you think you and Ronnie challenged each other as writers and creatives?
We had a couple of old ceremonial swords, so we went out the back and we fought it out around his house. That’s how we challenged each other. But realistically, challenging never came into the equation. We always got along very easily. It was very easy to write with Ronnie, because he had been a trumpeter in an orchestra. So he was very musical. Sometimes at rehearsals, he would say to me, “What are you hearing in this?”

I would go up to him and as we were all playing as a band, I would kind of hum or whisper in his ear what I thought maybe the idea [could be]. And he instantly got the idea of where I was going and that’s how we made most of our music. He was very quick to write lyrics, although I never really understood some of them. And I would ask him, “What’s ‘Man on the Silver Mountain,’ What’s that?” And he would go, “I don’t really know, [it’s] just something I thought of as a spur of the moment [thing].” Which, you know, I think everybody has their own silver mountain that they can pretend to have so sometimes lyrics don’t have to make perfect sense.

Listen to Rainbow’s ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’

Okay, what did you appreciate about what Ronnie brought to your music?
Working with Ronnie was very easy. When we first put down a couple of songs on a recorder that we had, he wasn’t singing the usual heavy metal song. What he was singing was like renaissance, a 1500 kind of melody to a lot of the ideas I had, which impressed me with his interpretations.

He was obviously a very clever guy and it never took him more than 10 minutes to come up with something regarding melody; although sometimes I would give him a melody which he would use. But he was very quick on the uptake. I think Ronnie, in his own way—it’s kind of strange—because I think he would spend more time watching baseball than actually writing a song. Because he could write a song so quickly that he would write it in 10 minutes and then go back to his baseball, which he loved.

So it was very easy to write with him, and there was so much continuity. Immediately, he seemed to know what page I was on when I was trying to come up with certain ideas; and I hadn’t really had that towards the end with Purple. There was a lot of discontent and scattered thinking; it was very difficult to get everybody together in the same room. So it was such a pleasure just to be able to sit with a guitar play something; and this man knew exactly where I was going with it; and I really didn’t have to do much coaxing or helping him because he basically helped himself. He was a magical guy.

READ MORE: How Ritchie Blackmore Plans to Play Live Again

Overall, what are some moments that really stick with you about recording that first Rainbow album?
Doing the first Rainbow album was tricky in a way because I had hardly anything worked out. I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going. At that time there were many different people involved with management side of things; so everything felt very tricky.

I was just glad that I could put down—I think it was 10 or 11 songs—and while some songs were good others were weak. But I did it in about three weeks without thinking through properly; just played whatever came to mind at that time without knowing what style even wanted to play—that’s why some is very melodic while some is heavy; torn between two styles. If you believe that you’ll believe anything.

Listen to Rainbow’s ‘Stargazer’

It seems like shows played by your band in late 1975 influenced material and ideas for Rising.
Well musically during that period; I became comfortable in my own skin. The second time we approached stuff for Rainbow, I knew more or less where I wanted to go; which leaned heavier but still emphasized melody. Unlike the first record where my direction wasn’t clear; by this second one—I became adamant about what personally wanted especially regarding songs like “Stargazer” and heavier tracks.

Ronnie, during this time began coming into his own regarding tone and thinking because—as mentioned—we both started heavily into light music initially but when Rising came along we transformed into a heavy rock band which suited me perfectly since it’s one style love playing; obviously Ronnie‘s also onboard with this style.

Cozy[Powell] proved himself as heavy hitter making him right for us at this moment; we went our merry way down hard rock road feeling much more comfortable being in studio without being alongside [Deep] Purple—this being my second record made with different members/musicians allowing me greater ease within studio environment compared to beginning stages.

READ MORE: How Rainbow Redefined Heavy Metal With ‘Rising’

The live shows featured in this box set are special; while you’ve done improvisation with Deep Purple looking at variety each night across three shows here feels like stepping onto blank canvas every time.
On stage is my favorite place; love improvisation playing certain songs differently which confuses everyone but keeps things interesting including myself—what drove many nights stemmed from anger felt during performances; expressing through music opened up corridor where audience picked up on shared anger despite loving experience—an escape valve for everyone’s frustrations.

A lot of Rainbow songs relied upon angry interpretations since audience members working nine-to-five jobs shared similar feelings wearing denim jackets—expressing anger through music became mutual experience allowing release every performance—a great outlet for me.

Bearing witness alongside angry Cozy while Ronnie also expressed similar feelings meant three angry musicians pushing forth music often overlooked by radio due its heaviness/loudness/aggressiveness yet enjoyed by packed houses indicating there were plenty out there who resonated with our anger.