"Not in the slightest," said Gillan. "Yes, we were very much in close touch with Jon; I had dinner with him in Tokyo, I had dinner with him in Paris, we were always sending e-mails to each other, and, of course, the relationship was fantastic. Jon left the band over ten years ago, but he was still very much our personal friend and, of course, the godfather of Deep Purple. As far as Ritchie was concerned, that's a different story altogether. I think we cut the thing�the band was dying."

"If you want to talk about Ritchie, I guess we have to; not many people do these days," he continued. "But the truth of the matter is, from a historical point of view, the band was dying. If Ritchie had stayed in the band, it would have been the end of Deep Purple.

"The shows were getting shorter and shorter, the audiences were getting smaller and smaller. We were playing in small halls, and they weren't even full � they were half empty � and Ritchie was walking off stage every night. And so, when he left 20 years ago, it stopped raining and the sun came out, and Jon Lord, amongst others, started walking up straight again; his personality re-emerged. So did Roger Glover and Ian Paice; they became the people they were originally, instead of fending and cowering in case they upset Ritchie. And so this situation ended, and we're all glad it ended, [and] we had to rebuild."