Joining Deep Purple isn’t something that came without some hesitation for Steve Morse.

“I was skeptical at first and they were the same,” the guitarist said.

That was 18 years and four studio albums ago.

“We really came together quick,” Morse said. “We just clicked.”

Morse was speaking in advance of the iconic band’s Canadian tour which began last week in St. John’s, Nfld. The 17-date tour brings the band to Hamilton Place on Monday, Feb. 13, with local rockers Monster Truck.

He said he was undaunted by the fact that he was taking the place of Ritchie Blackmore, or the “banjo player” as the guitarist is referred to these days by singer Ian Gillan. Tensions between Blackmore and the singer led to Gillan’s ouster from Purple on two occasions while Blackmore finally called it quits in 1993. Joe Satriani helped Purple compete tour commitments in 1993 before Morse came into the picture.

“We’re two different people,” Morse said of comparisons by fans to Blackmore and a tense atmosphere surrounding the band. “There are still tensions but they do get resolved. The show is sacred.”

Touring — the Canadian shows are sandwiched into a 24-day period — can be a chore, Morse said, but that all changes once the band takes the stage.

“The onstage stuff is like kids being let out to play,” Morse said.

Morse came to Purple with an extensive musical pedigree, achieving critical acclaim for his work with the Dixie Dregs and later, the Steve Morse Band and a two-album stint with Kansas in the 1980s. He was also named Guitar Player Magazines Best Overall Guitarist for five straight years. That feat landed Morse in the magazine’s Guitar Player Hall of Fame.

Referring to himself as a “tech geek,” Morse’s interests are not only musical. A qualified pilot and longtime fan of the U.S. space program, Morse became friends with Kalpana Chawla, a mission specialist on NASA’s ill-fated Columbia space shuttle mission in 2003. All seven astronauts aboard the shuttle died when the craft disintegrated during re-entry. Chawla had taken a copy of Purple’s Machine Head album, with her on the mission. The album included the track Space Truckin’ which was played as a wake up call for the crew.

The disc, which had been signed by the band, was actually found among the wreckage and made its way back to Morse.

“It was folded over like the wings of an angel,” Morse said. “The frayed edges were burned but you could still see some of the writing.”

In memory of the Columbia crew, Morse composed Contact Lost, a mournful short instrument track which closes out Purple’s 2003 album, Bananas.

“I’m a big fan of what NASA has done,” Morse said. “People don’t realize the research and development strides that have been made, all that technology. We’re recipients of all of that eventually.”

With a wealth of material from the group’s 18 studio albums, song selection can often be a bit of a chore, Morse said.

“The song choices will mostly be Ian’s,” Morse said. “After all, he’s singing songs he first did when he was in his 20s (Gillan is now 66).”

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That being said, the group has approached the decisions in a mathematical sense.

“First there’s the classics, expect to hear a few,” Morse said, adding that songs like Hush and Knockin’ At Your Back Door get rotated in and out of the set. The second group are the album tracks from what Morse called the “classic period” followed by some newer material and solo spots.