Former DEEP PURPLE keyboardist JON LORD's official website has posted a new interview with Russian TV, where he speaks about his thoughts on separating music into different styles, why he left Deep Purple and being called a legend. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Q: Concerning Deep Purple: what was the reason of leaving the band which you yourself had created once?

Lord: "Things take on a different perspective as you grow older. In '67 me and Ritchie Blackmore created Deep Purple. It was a wonderful time and the greatest glory of my whole life, but at the end of '90s I started to feel that there’re some other things I want to do as a musician, and I catastrophically had no time for it. Deep Purple still work at an insane tempo; 70, 90, 100 gigs per year. All in all, I had to choose between what I love and what I also love. In 2002 I made a decision and left the band, it was the hardest decision in my whole life, but after six or seven years I can say that it was right."

Q: I cannot but ask this question: how does the world economical crisis affect rock or music industry in general. Rock has always been a protest thing. Maybe it’s crisis that makes someone create music.

Lord: "I think of course the crisis has affected the music business, though for me myself it wasn’t that bad. My audience almost hasn’t changed in terms of quantity. Sales of the records and paid downloads on the web have reduced, though. I think the music business is changing nowadays, instead of big guys from giant record companies they’re small private sound recording companies. The musicians take this part of the industry under their own control. Rock n' roll has always been the music of protest, but more likely not political protest, it was the protest of the young generation against their parents, against their standards and their rules. That is protest in rock. Though there always will be some authors which use rock on political scene, this is normal. Music has been used as a political weapon for centuries, I’m not a politician, I watch it from the outside, but don’t want to take part in it, that’s why I’m probably not the best person for discussing the economical crisis. Let’s pray it won’t last long, that’s all."

Read the entire interview here.