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All hail the harp

Deep Purple have started their 2026 tour in earnest on June 11 in Espoo, Finland. Both already released tracks from Splat! made a live debut. Spoilers ahead: full setlist.

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Favourite part is not singing

Ian Gillan has appeared on the Talkin’ Rock With Meltdown podcast. It is American classic rock radio at its finest, but here it is.

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Zero pressure

Simon Mcbride recently spoke to the Guitar Interactive Magazine, and it wasn’t as much of an interview as a monologue. As the host quipped at one point, “go on, nobody wants to hear me anyway”. Writing for Splat!, gear talk, early influences, plans for the future — it’s all here.

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From black-and-white TV to colour

Yet another rehash of the Classic Rock magazine material as Louder Sound reprints Made in Japan feature penned by Mick Wall that originally appeared in September 2012 issue. Osaka, August 15, 1972. In the Kosei Nenken Kaikan concert hall, Deep Purple are playing their first ever show in Japan. Over the past three years, the […]

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Never comfortable or established

Another Classic Rock magazine rehash: circa 2011 interview with Don Airey reprinted by Louder Sound: You’ve appeared on more than 250 albums between 1976 and 2011. Which are the ones of which you are most proud? Funnily enough, Roger Glover and I were talking about what an incredible time it was making Down To Earth […]

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Rose bushes that need tending to

Don Airey spoke recently to TotalRock, generously dispensing wisdom he has in abundance. Enjoy!

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That’s the route she chose

Apparently a new single Diablo from the upcoming new album Splat! was released on June 5, 2026, without much fanfare. But probably because of the general enshittification of the web, it’s not available everywhere. So we’re posting two different copies in the hope that you can access at least one of them.

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It’s a simple song

Classic Rock magazine rehashes the story we’ve heard a million times by now — how Smoke came to being. This includes an undated quote from Blackmore (that was at some point subjected to a rather poor OCR, and had to be corrected by us): I was jamming with Ian Paice at a soundcheck, because we […]

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Weep for that future

Our recent foray into the trainspotting territory prompted another trip down the memory lane. Better Call Saul is a prequel/offshoot of the hit TV drama series Breaking Bad, and it has run between 2015 and 2020. Somebody in the writers’ pen of the show was obviously a fan.

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Skip­ping stones

There is a new interview with Gillan and Paice in the Uncut magazine, and the two Ians are adamant to continue making music into the foreseeable future. The online version is dated June 1, 2026, so which issue it appears in the printed version — your guess is as good as ours, and probably better. […]

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