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Stealing Deep Purple
A new book about the 1980 bogus Purple debacle is available from a print-on-demand house Lulu Press. It is also said to be going out to regular retailer channels at the end of September.
In 1980, greed was good and you could get away with stealing just about anything, even a band name.
At the end of the 1970s, Rod Evans, the little known original singer of Deep Purple decided to relaunch the classic rock band for a continental American tour.
The only problem was that Evans reformed the group with no other original members and he had a very dubious legal claim to the band name.
What ensued was a tour plagued with bad performances, crowd riots, on-stage fighting and court cases.
The tour has become something of a legend among the fans of the band.
Using over 200 newspaper, book and magazine sources plus dozens of filmed interviews and brand new testimonies from people who were actually there, Steve McLean attempts to find out what actually happened.
“They all had something down their spandex pants. We couldn’t tell if it was vegetable or plastic…. Every time I watch that scene in Spinal Tap, I think of Deep Purple in 1980.” – Llory McDonald, Support Act.
What: Stealing Deep Purple: The Unbelievably True Story of the Most Audacious Stunt in Rock & Roll
Author: Steve McLean
When: July 9, 2025
Where: Lulu Press
ISBN: 9781300131847
Format: A5 (5.83 × 8.27 in / 148 × 210 mm) paperback, 373 pages
Price: € 18.10 + shipping
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Has anyone read it?
July 17th, 2025 at 02:53And what a lovely looking band they were. So real too, I cannot imagine why that didn’t take off. Cheers.
July 17th, 2025 at 03:15Cut poor Rod some slack, I guess he just found it Hard To Be Without … Deep Purple!
https://youtu.be/MHYkzB5ZIzI
July 17th, 2025 at 04:45“Print-on-demand”!
So the publisher doesn’t dare to print a lot of copies beforehand 😄
July 17th, 2025 at 05:32I’ve read the book and really enjoyed. I didn’t know much about the events beforehand and it really grabbed my attention and reeled me in. It’s incredibly well researched as well with lots of first hand accounts.
July 17th, 2025 at 10:05I still wish Rod would come out of hiding; in 2025 it would be nice to hear what he’s been up to for the last 45 years. The Mk1 albums sound very dated compared to what Purple did after, but they still hold up well for me, not so much the last self-titled album, but I still listen to Shades and Book of Taliesyn a lot.
July 17th, 2025 at 10:29I witnessed this show in 1980 in Quebec City. I have the ticket stub stashed away somewhere and left a review here in these hallowed pages a few years ago. The only redeeming value I take away from this and to requote myself; I saw the 1st singer from Deep Purple. Other than that not sure what Mr Evans was thinking when he put this thing together.
July 17th, 2025 at 11:14I might be mistaken, but I think the author had/has an online site where he had indeed amassed an impressive amount of info on the whole operation. So he is now turning that into a book and why not.
I could have forgiven Rod attempting to steal the name if he had at least ensured a semblance of quality control – he didn‘t, those guys not only sounded bad, they sounded shambolic & terrible + plain lazy and unmusical.
July 17th, 2025 at 12:50I’ve always been fascinated by the 1980 fake Deep Purple scam. There must be an exhaustive amount of detailed information in it considering it’s almost 400 pages long. I hope it covers the disappearance of Rod (and his possible whereabouts) as well.
July 17th, 2025 at 13:47He didn’t steal the name deep purple. He was an original member and as in the early, 80’s deep purple didn’t exist, to my mind he didn’t anything wrong, it was people’s expectations that let deep purple fans down. They wanted to hear mk2 deep purple but they got mk1 . He didn’t do anything wrong in my book
July 17th, 2025 at 14:05With all due respect, Stephen, Rod did EVERYTHING wrong, including not the hell knowing where to place the third verse of SOTW @04:41 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYuLwQMB7h4&list=RDyYuLwQMB7h4&start_radio=1
The ham-fisted drummer was especially horrible and come to think of it the bassist too – who couldn’t even ape Roger’s original bass line that makes the riff sound as great as it is. It’s all so awful you don’t know where to start.
Being an original member, didn’t give Rod rights to the name. In fact no individual DP member had rights to the name “Deep Purple”. Rod wasn’t any more credible touring as “Deep Purple” as Pete Best would have been touring as “The Beatles”. 😂
July 17th, 2025 at 21:54@ 11- while I am NOT advocating in any way what Rod Evans did Uwe. Regarding the comparison of Pete Best with Rod Evans. Where is Pete in the Beatles catalogue. Cheers.
July 18th, 2025 at 00:32You’ll have to forgive Stephen Uwe; he still thinks that Blackmore and Lord are still in the band lol. The bogus Deep Purple were playing songs from the Mk2 and 3 eras, Rod was not limiting himself to the Purple songs that he sang and yes, his backing band was terrible.
July 18th, 2025 at 02:22Well Deep Purple existed in 1980 in so far as there were still Deep Purple albums being sold and still a brand that the members would have cared about preserving. They weren’t active touring or recording, but they had every right to care about one former member using the name and potentially hurting all their royalties.
July 18th, 2025 at 02:27@11 Thanks for the link Uwe! I didn’t think there was pro-shot footage of that disaster so I never even searched for it. It’s a dream – no, make this: a nightmare come true to be able to listen to that, well, line up butchering SOTW.
July 18th, 2025 at 06:49Gerade Bestellt. I’m excited.
July 18th, 2025 at 09:04Pete is here, Herr MacGregor,
https://youtu.be/8KNedjsgnwY
and here
https://youtu.be/3axU2rOAcms
Are you now trying to write your fellow instrumentalist out of Beatles history? 😱
July 18th, 2025 at 14:26Although I agree with Uwe’s comments it actually starts off okay. First two verses passable (for an amateur cover band – although I think my band could do better!). The organ solo starts off okay trying to emulate the great Jon Lord but then just flounders after a few bars with lack of ideas or where to go next. Perhaps he just forgot what he did in the rehearsals (If they did any). He doesnt have the musicanship to adlib. I reckon that the band then just lost their way and instead of recovering (e.g. organ plays the riff until the band are all in sync) it just goes AWOL and Rod just starts singing the third verse. I turned off at that point.
July 18th, 2025 at 16:43To quote Uriah Heep, Rod was Stealin when I should have been buyin.
July 18th, 2025 at 20:14@ 17- comparing Rod Evans to Pete Best. Three Deep Purple albums from Rod, the debut album and the hit song Hush getting DP onto the radio and beyond. Pete, hmmmmmmmmmm, we don’t see anything that propelled The Beatles into the limelight do we? Definitely NO albums and no touring either. It is an absurd comparison. I rest my case. Cheers.
July 18th, 2025 at 23:20Huh? Don’t let Beatles buffs hear that. Early Beatles were local heroes/almost famous for Pete Best during their stint in Hamburg (back then they didn’t “tour”, they were a house band in various clubs which was deemed as more profitable). Pete was a ladies’ man, a practical joker and showman on stage plus had his own fans – what he wasn’t according to some people: accurate enough in the studio where The Beatles saw their future.
The Pete Best line-up was good enough to attract the attention of Bert Kaempfert
https://youtu.be/uHI5mZUt6ow
who produced their first demo and tried to get them a record deal which to his eternal chagrin did not work out.
Outside of DP fan quarters I have never met anyone who was aware that the original Hush was not sung by Ian Gillan, but by Rod. To casual listeners, Mk I doesn’t really exist and they attribute Rod’s vocals to the picture in their mind of the Mk II line-up.
That is not putting Rod down, I really like what he did with Captain Beyond and look benevolently at his time with DP. But Mk I were strictly an American phenomenon and hardly known in mainland Europe. Occupation of Germany through DP only began in earnest in the second half of 1969 through the then new Mk II line-up.
July 19th, 2025 at 11:59@ 11 – Thanks for the Youtube link. For a split second when the voiceover started I thought it sounded pretty good, but then I realized that it was the studio version of Highway Star!
I’m not sure which sounded worse – these guys, or Mark IV on their worst days!
July 19th, 2025 at 12:40John, you deserve to be spanked for that comment! I will reluctantly administer the disciplinary measures myself. 😂
Even when Mk IV had an off-night, they were bad in decadent, jaded splendor – Rod’s hired hands were just hapless.
July 19th, 2025 at 14:50@ 21- you know what I mean Uwe, the USA etc, touring, getting it on main stream television etc etc. Poor old Pete, couldn’t you come up with a more profound comparison. Even though we know what you meant by that. Anyway, regarding certain DP aficionados not knowing who was the singer on Hush. Well, maybe I was from another planet or something (Australia is a long way out of the way), but I knew plenty of people, older than myself of course, who knew exactly what the different lineups of DP were back then. Hush was a hit song out here too, a popular hit at least, not sure about chart positions, but who cares about that. Deep Purple MKI were known to many older (younger then) hippies etc out here. Many who didn’t follow the next lineup at all, too much screaming and too loud and heavy, is what they told me at different times throughout the 1970’s. Cheers.
July 19th, 2025 at 23:12the amazing thing is how one of the many DP tribute bands I’ve heard with my own ears since I was 15 years old until today, sounds better than Rod Evans’ pizza makers!
July 19th, 2025 at 23:22Mk I never gained any traction in Germany while it was active. Hush was not even a minor hit when originally released in Germany (most likely because another artist’s version of it had already charted in 1967) and I’m not really sure they ever toured here, it can’t have been more than a handful of gigs, but I only remember a solitary gig in Switzerland as closest to Germany.
That all changed in late 1969/early 1970 when Ian Gillan put the x in SEX into DP, Mk II had a freak success with the Concerto (which gnawed at the German Top Twenty) and Purple began to crisscross Germany as a spectacularly improvisational live act not in frilly shirts and bouffant hair, but as really cool underground hippies with an edge.
Mk II’s success then went through the roof in Germany with In Rock (nowhere as successful as in Germany where seemingly every household with a record player had a copy) and in its tracks Mk I became interesting too, with Hush and April becoming radio staples AFTER 1970.
July 20th, 2025 at 13:43@ 26 And April/Deep Purple (the album) going gold in Germany..
July 20th, 2025 at 21:25Yes, in the wake of increased radio airplay of the ‘April’ single and the Achtungserfolg of the likewise classically inspired Concerto, the ‘April’ album became the one Mk I album people wanted to have for the full length ‘title’ track which you couldn’t get anywhere else, all samplers only featuring the abridged single version.
Of course, a lot of people held the mistaken belief that ‘April’ was an Mk II song due to a dadaistic 1970 German TV special of Deep Purple in
Rockthe Quarry with Mk II miming it.https://youtu.be/AowJAOPGG5s
Alles mit unseren Fernsehgebühren …
It’s a shame that Purple never played it live in its day and never resurrected it either. These guys however did:
https://youtu.be/iKOjmTzAFA4
July 21st, 2025 at 04:00LOL! 🤣
July 21st, 2025 at 11:59I saw the fake DP in at the swing auditorium in san bernadino,ca. with my brother in 1980. We stayed for a half hour and then left when it became obvious the band was bogus. In hindsight I wish I had taken some pictures, just to document this fraud.
July 27th, 2025 at 11:50Just finished reading it and it’s very good. Very well written (a rarity for Deep Purple books) well researched with lots of context and the text of the full court case judgement in full. I remember reading about it back in 1980 in Darker Than Blue and always thought it was just one gig. The book reveals that they played at least 35-odd gigs and it may have been up to 70.
August 3rd, 2025 at 13:13@9. It doesn’t really.
August 3rd, 2025 at 14:41@10. The judge (according to the book and the written judgement contained) said that it was a fraudulent use of the name Deep Purple- stolen is as good a word as any
August 3rd, 2025 at 14:44@30 I’ve finished it too. I’ve read the court case online before but what I liked was the explainer of what the judgement’s meant. You can tell he’s either an expert or spoked to an expert in law to help the regular reader understand.
I also loved all of the comparisons to other similar cases. I guess since the people being the scam aren’t really talking he’s had to find out other ways what went on…
The book has left me absolutely convinced that all of the bookers and agents and venues who claimed ignorance all knew about it but didn’t care. Such a good read.
August 5th, 2025 at 22:58