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After a couple of teasers, Ultimate Classic Rock has posted, apparently in full, the interview they’ve recently done with Ritchie Blackmore. Release of the Rainbow 75/76 box set was the occasion, so the bulk of the conversation was actually devoted to that time period.
Read more »In a new interview to the Ultimate Classic Rock, Ritchie Blackmore confirms the story that in 1970 Christopher Cross has played a gig with Deep Purple in his place. This episode became a minor controversy in the Purple lore as over the years Cross himself claimed it, with further corroboration by Eric Johnson, who opened […]
Read more »Ian Gillan spoke to the Leona Graham Podcast. This sounds like it was done some time in 2025, but posted only now, in May 2026. They talked about Ian’s collaboration with Urock, his age of discovery, the hardest song he had to sing, and other things.
Read more »During a May 2, 2026, 2. Budesliga football match between Dynamo Dresden and 1. FC Kaiserslautern fans started a chant that suspiciously sounds like The Riff. The game is posted to youtube, but we’re told that it is not available in many countries, so here’s an audio snippet
Read more »The first single from the upcoming new album Splat! is supposed to be landing on May 12, 2026, at 6:00pm BST, and little birdie tells us that it may or may not be Arrogant Boy.
Read more »Along with the squarely analog, old school reel-to-reel tape deck and record player, Revox is also releasing a Deep Purple Splat! branded digital speaker.
Read more »With the new album now announced, let the publicity blitz marathon begin. Ian Gillan has already made a couple of UK radio appearances.
Read more »Simon was slightly off with the timeframe of the new album release — the date is set for July 3, and the album is called Splat!. It will arrive in several formats, and the tour starting with North America in August will re-dress itself as the Splat! World Tour.
Read more »Ultimate Guitar publishes an article by Greg Prato on the “Tommy Bolin dilemma”: When Tommy Bolin stepped into the James Gang, he was replacing Domenic Troiano and, previously, Joe Walsh. When he later joined Deep Purple, he was replacing Ritchie Blackmore. Two wildly different guitarists, two established legacies, and Bolin was expected to fill both […]
Read more »Roppongi Rocks has a short review of the Deep Purple gig in Tokyo Budokan, on April 11, 2026: They opened the Budokan show in style with “Highway Star”. Deep Purple back on stage at Budokan! This is what it is all about. Classics such as “Lazy”, “Space Truckin’” and “Smoke on the Water” were obvious […]
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing