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No short hair wigs allowed
Steve Morse was interviewed for the Metal Mayhem ROC podcast, reflecting on his storied 50+ year career. For the most impatient of us, the Purple bits start at around 43 minutes into more than an hour-long conversation. However, we encourage you to find some time to listen to the whole thing all the way through. It is well worth your time.
Thanks to Mike for the heads-up.
PS. Contact Lost was recently on our trainspotting grapevine as a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-type TV game show in India featured a question along the lines “Which rock band, whose albums Kalpana Chawla had carried on her mission, wrote the song Contact Lost in honour of the Columbia astronauts?” The options were “A. Pink Floyd, B. Black Sabbath, C. Green Day, and D. Deep Purple”. The player didn’t answer correctly.
Speaking of trainspotting, apparently Burn — along with Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills — is among the new Japan PM Sanae Takaichi’s favourite songs.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
This is a relaxed and interesting chat The interviewer is respectful and engaging.,There is no Johnny Rock “Can I call you Stevie?” schtick on display here.
October 13th, 2025 at 02:43Thanks for the Steve More interview, a good one it is. Good to hear his take on the Kansas situation. In regard to the ‘power ballad hit’ that bit wasn’t surprising. Also his comment on the Purpendicular album, everyone being open to everything and anything, no pressure etc. The first compositions of a new lineup of an established group, quite often creates a good strong album. Everything on the table with new energy and the adrenalin is high. That album is a fine example along with Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell. Yes and their 90125 album. The first Kansas album with Steve on board, Power. King Crimson’s Discipline and there are quite a few others that haven’t yet entered my memory bank. Cheers.
October 13th, 2025 at 07:02Great interview. I appreciate how often they got into specific stories rather than just polite generalities.
On the Purple front, when it came time to discussing how the improv sections grew, it sounded like specifically it was the improv before “Smoke on the Water” that was not to everyone in DP’s liking. I assume that means the riff catalogue / famous class rock riff thing that Steve would do before Smoke. What a shame. I’ll admit that I stopped pursuing DP live because I thought the setlist didn’t change enough (I saw them with Steve 4 times), so I guess I missed some great jams.
October 13th, 2025 at 13:30After a while, Roger was apparently no great fan of Steve’s riff medley before SOTW, he felt that it was getting carried away and maybe banalized DP’s signature song. So he had a chat with Steve to cut it down, which Steve dutifully did until eventually it fell away again completely.
I think it was good fun at first but then overstayed its welcome with me.
I remember on the Abandon tour that Steve apparently talked the others into starting the gigs with the chorus of Thin Lizzy’s TBABIT and Ian even sang it. That was jaunty.
October 13th, 2025 at 14:45Uwe, what’s your source on it being Roger objecting to Steve’s riff medley? I just listened to that interview and Steve says “the band”, right?
October 13th, 2025 at 17:48It was a Roger Glover interview where he said that the band thought it was getting too much and he was sent out to tell Steve. Roger is a diplomat and a nice person, but he rolled his eyes a little when he spoke about the intro.
Roger was also the one who once spoke at the behest of the others with Steve that the latter should do less chromatic runs in his solos which they deemed too heavy metal. Same thing happened with Steve’s finger- and chicken-picking too, that was a lot more prominent on the Purpendicular Tour and was then relegated to his solo slots.
October 13th, 2025 at 20:50The other guys in the band telling the guitarist not to play certain things, well well well. I couldn’t imagine that happening with Ritchie. Things do change over time as we know. Cheers.
October 13th, 2025 at 22:52@4 I got bored by it too… but that’s nothing compared to the exhausting Contact lost/Well dressed guitar spot they dragged along for ages. At least it felt like that.
October 13th, 2025 at 23:40Reading things like #4 and #6 makes me wonder if Steve was just a hired gun in Deep Purple all along.A guitarist of his talent being told what he should or shouldn’t play ?? Clearly quite absurd,in my view.
October 14th, 2025 at 13:36So what? Ritchie was told by the others what to play on the Space Truckin’ rhythm part, he at first balked at it, deeming it too conventional, but in the end relented. Why should it be ok for a lead guitarist to tell the bassist or drummer what to play, but not the other way around? Strikes me as odd. Variable as Steve was, I‘m sure he often presented alternative ideas to the others on what to play where and ask for their opinions. That‘s what people do in functioning bands, no big deal about it.
October 14th, 2025 at 20:29It looks like there is still some ‘fire in the Bassment’ after all. Morse playing too much like a metal guitarist, then too much like a country guitarist. Are you taking about Space Truckin’ being created in the ‘studio’ Uwe? A touch different from a live setting on stage. But let’s not split hairs. I almost feel sorry for Glover, being the ‘messenger’ in regard to the Steve Morse ‘predicament’. However, as I said, haven’t things changed. Cheers.
October 15th, 2025 at 16:31It looks like the old school ‘less is more’ approach is evident in those guitar related comments. Steve Morse is a diverse and busy player, like so many of the more modern day guitarists. Especially as we have discussed here before, the instrumental approach and that in itself could probably get in the way at times. Hence the later day Bob Ezrin comment to Morse, ‘keep it for your solo album’ or words to that effect. Blackmore’s sparse and lazy approach to rhythm guitar had left its void. One way to look at it. Cheers.
October 16th, 2025 at 05:45It just in Steve’s nature to embellish his parts as much as possibe – that can be great sometimes … and other times not so much. Ritchie is by nature a sparser, yet dramatic player.
Steve’s main background always was and always will be complex instrumental music where the guitar fulfills all sorts of roles not having to worry about getting in the way of either a singer or – in the case of SMB – a keyboard player. So Steve multitasks pretty much all the time and fills the space the music allows him. But that’s not always what the music from a larger line-up requires and someone like Bob Ezrin has an ear for that.
Of course they sent Roger as the messenger because he was closest with Steve. Don Airey asking anyone to play a bit less would immediately be catcalled with “Look who’s talking!“
October 16th, 2025 at 10:45Steve’s infatuation with John Petrucci is very giving of him, but frankly it escapes me … I remember my stepdaughter dragging me and my wife to a Dream Theater gig and I almost died of boredom there + can honestly say that John P was the worst culprit in the band. His playing does nothing for me emotionally, it’s like a computer program running after you have pressed “mix of guitar sounds”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjahLtBeElE
October 16th, 2025 at 11:09(Dave LaRue and Mike Portnoy also featured, the music is very reminiscent of what Steve does, but even more OTT! 😂)
John Petrucci, yes it makes me wonder too. But Morse is talking technically, not melodically etc, surely. Those two Dream Theatre albums I own from the mid 1990’s, Awake and Falling into Infinity don’t get spun at all these days, they haven’t been since the turn of the century. It was a phase I went through back then, new artists that were sort of ‘treading the boards’, for want of a better description. It is Petrucci and Portnoy who are the two annoying musicians to my ears, too cliched in their approach and delivery, far too mechanical, etc. Technically gifted musicians, there are many. Too many actually. That is the era of saturation and replication. Not a lot of individuality within their playing, so many sound the same, if that is the way to put it. Cheers.
October 16th, 2025 at 21:1214 Uwe:
I last saw Dream Theater on the Octavarium tour, but I’ve seen them about ten times since 1993.
I’d say yes, they’re boring now.
but they weren’t boring at that time.
and Petrucci with them.
Like Guitar Hero, as a solo career I have nothing to complain about, it’s a monster, it makes me yawn and it’s repetitive too, but it’s a monster.
He could be the best guitarist in the world if he stepped out of his comfort zone of super-fast prog metal.
As for Dream Theater, their first 5 albums are cornerstones of the prog metal genre, full of great songs, melodic taste and compositional variety.
this thanks to former keyboardists Moore & Sherinian.
then when Rudress arrived the technical exhibitionism began with Petrucci, and compositionally (apart from the “soft” Octavarium) Dream Theater entered a circle of self-indulgence from which they have never emerged.
Unfortunately, each new Dream song adds nothing new to their discography, the sound is always the same, no evolution in 20 years except for the ballads with Labrie’s voice in the foreground.
and I loved Dream Theater almost as much as Deep in the 90s….
October 16th, 2025 at 21:39The Dream Theater, (American spelling), spell check keeps sending it back to English English as it should. The drumming auditions from many years ago said a lot in regard to the band evolving or more to the point, not evolving. A perfect chance to shake things up we would think, alas they chose a drummer who was known to a band member (La Brie) a local and also rather similar in approach to what they were use to. Progressive or regressive? Easy to say sitting here and all, however we could think that it would have been a good opportunity to change direction of sorts, at least attempt to. Not to worry. @ 16 -yes Fla76, the 1990’s DT is pretty good on the compositional side of things, Images and Words from my memory had some good songs on it too. Come the turn of the century and I had had enough, they outstayed their welcome to my ears. I have often had a listen online to what they were doing occasionally, but yes indeed, it all sounded too similar in many ways. Cheers.
October 16th, 2025 at 22:44