Rose bushes that need tending to
Don Airey spoke recently to TotalRock, generously dispensing wisdom he has in abundance. Enjoy!
Thanks to Mike, Fla76, and Merlijn for the heads-up.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride4.jpg)
Don Airey spoke recently to TotalRock, generously dispensing wisdom he has in abundance. Enjoy!
Thanks to Mike, Fla76, and Merlijn for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Sounds like they are planning something different for London…
Fingers crossed they film it
June 6th, 2026 at 20:58That was a very nice interview with the meanwhile established and uncontested musical director of Deep Purple. Don, you sure have come a long way. “I’m just a bloody keyboard player!” my ass.
Love the leopard print lady’s nasal accent and somewhat insistent (as well as not at all “podcasty”) tone of voice! 😂 For some reason she reminds me of a serious version of the irresistible Ms Philomena Cunk! 😎
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWS-qfR6K3w
Commemorating the Concerto at the coming RAH gig? Nice touch!
June 6th, 2026 at 23:05I’ve been around Don a few times, but really only spoke with him once. He is what he is in these videos: a very kind, down-to-earth, easy-going guy who plays a little keyboard on the side.
June 7th, 2026 at 00:16A new book from Don!
Purple make relevant music because they’re more alive than a lot of people half their age 🙏🏼
June 7th, 2026 at 05:07Not sure what we should make of the “Go out with a bang” comment re the RAH gig. Sounds rather ominous despite the talk of more albums and the concerts lined up for the end of the year.
June 7th, 2026 at 09:25When the band had to select a guitarist after the departure of Joe Satriani each band member had to write a list of name for a replacement and Steve Morse’s name appeared on each list. Now after nearly 30 years of service at DP it’s very disrespectful to start to be critical of his guitar playing style and say he wasn’t a natural fit for the band and you get an unknown guitar player joining DP and you make him the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.
June 7th, 2026 at 09:29Have some respect to Steve Morse please.
Peace ✌️
“The settlers erected a deity monument for Reverend Steve and circled their wagons around it to protect his memory for evermore while the Indian hordes savagely attacked again and again …”
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQa5rtKS0e7M3anVSaWLwnhNyhiac2t9vgxR9lREcAK4Qxt_Ig_cvgNkIdv&s=10
What is so unfathomable about parts of the band outgrowing Steve’s style and habits after almost 30 years? Ritchie would grow tired of people he had handpicked within a few years, sometimes even months. No one has ever accused him of showing disrespect to the many band member fatalities he left behind. Ritchie was allowed to have nearly yearly purges for his art, DP are unkind if after decades they might be longing for a more gritty guitar player.
Steve might have been the best choice for DP until he just wasn’t anymore without changing an iota of himself or bearing any blame. That happens all the time, in bands, at work, in marriages.
And btw: Steve was never on Don’s list and I doubt that he would have jotted his name down either. Don developed as a musician alongside established guitar heroes such as Ritchie, Randy and Gary, Steve would have always been too little “leading the charge” for him. For all his own technical competence, Don is someone who prefers an archetype like Slash to a guitar scientist like, say, Steve Howe (possibly because Don thinks he needs someone more ballsy to play off with his own more cerebral style). You decide for yourself where you might want place Steve M on a guitar hero meter ranging between the aforementioned two.
I have yet to hear a bad word from the remaining DP members about Steve’s character. That his guitar playing had lost some its luster after nearly three decades and that they were beginning to perhaps crave for someone wearing – figuratively speaking – leather pants after all is only too human and no reason to fall into collective despair.
Steve’s contributions to Mk VII and VIII were vast and his inner band conduct exemplary. But neither gave the others in DP a life sentence without parole of having to play with him . Life is about moving on. Purple always has.
June 7th, 2026 at 14:45I – III More Black Than Purple
June 7th, 2026 at 16:37IV – More High Than Purple
VI – More Instrumental Than Purple
VII – VIII More Prog/Musical/Deep(?) Than Purple
Purple were at all times a little PROG, Mk III-V maybe excepted. It is what set them apart from bands like, say, Grand Funk Railroad, Foghat, Nazareth, Bad Company, Thin Lizzy or 70s Status Quo. And it is why even real Prog fans in the 70s reluctantly admitted that Deep Purple can at least play. while still accusing them of selling themselves short via a dumbed down music for mass appeal. I have never met anyone who has claimed that Ritchie, Jon and Little Ian couldn’t play. Jon’s keyboard solo in Burn found grudging respect even among ELP, Genesis and YES fans. Most other hard rock bands were – rightly or wrongly – accused of playing to the limited extent of their abilities, not so DP.
I never minded Steve’s and Don’s Prog influence on later Purple’s sound, it is just how they play and where they come from.
June 7th, 2026 at 17:24#8 Mark:
VIII More Prog/Musical/Deep Boredom Than Purple
June 7th, 2026 at 23:15@ 7- what a lot of rot you do talk at times Uwe. What planet have you been living on these last six decades? “Ritchie would grow tired of people he had handpicked within a few years, sometimes even months. No one has ever accused him of showing disrespect to the many band member fatalities he left behind.” Fair dinkum, the things some people say to sadly attempt a basis for a convoluted story. Zillions of people have called out Ritchie over the decades, past band members and all and sundry at times. Even yourself. Is your memory ok? Or is it ‘selective’ memory just to suit your narrative? Cheers.
June 8th, 2026 at 00:56@ 9 – yes I know what you mean Uwe in regard to the technical prowess of Blackmore, Lord and Paice. We will throw in Ian Gillan too, (even if to only appease the lady of the north, he he he). Some progressive rock music aficionados I knew also admired the Purple guys ability with the more articulate and clever playing style etc. However they also enjoyed really simplistic songs and playing too. You accidentally left out Black Sabbath in your list there. These people or some of them that I am taking about, liked Sabbath much more than Purple and Zeppelin. They enjoyed a more simplistic style of song, however they were also into some of the progressive bands at times, but not necessarily the really busy side of the progressive bands, more the shorter compositions and songs. In Germany and Holland the progressive movement would have been a lot stronger no doubt, than out here in no man’s land. Regarding that singer of Deep Purple, (he is still hanging around that band) whose name escapes me at present. Many people I knew really enjoyed his singing and some of the DP songs, as long as he wasn’t screaming. That put them off a lot, many women I have known said that too. Good singer, shame about all the screaming, was a familiar comment to hear. A lot of the falsetto rock singers from that era fell out of favour with certain music admirers over that style of ‘singing’. Cheers.
June 8th, 2026 at 01:30I always think Don played his best when ‘fighting’ with Steve on record and on stage, even if it’s right that Steve might not the preferred choice of a guitarist of Don if he wanted to build a band, considering his history of playing with more-rockin’ guitarists.
Start from Bananas album up until Whoosh, the interplay, the dialogue between them is obvious to see, great! Don’s tendency to play as many notes in his solo blended perfectly with Steve guitar style as we knew it, and both come as the main attacking outlet of Deep Purple in their progressive era (read: Mark 8).
The pinnacle of their collaboration to me is “Nothing at All”. It’s like they planned their notes since many years ago, from the 1st second until the last, perfectly written! I think I’ve heard of it more than 100 times already
June 8th, 2026 at 02:28I am sick to death of Don flagging off Steve …and just because Simon is his mate , it’s pathetic!
If it wasn’t for Steve, I doubt we’d have a Purple now ! Steve is waaay better then Simon and bursting with great ideas and as for all this prog and heavy business …just look at Abandon and Infinite ! …Perpendicular…one of the best Purple albums …period !
All this twiddly dee rubbish started with Don and is still there now …did Don come from a Prog background?? Enough said .
The man needs to learn some respect…we don’t hear Steve flagging him off !
June 8th, 2026 at 13:34It’s putting me right off ” Robot Don ” needs to spend his time learning some different solos for the live shows , instead of churning out the same old dross night after night for the past 20 years .
Steve is one of the most loved and respected musicians on the planet.
Not true, you Tasmanian troll, Ritchie’s disciples religiously defend his Stalinist line-up policies as a necessary side effect of the man’s drive for musical invention and also as a chance for new, unknown talent to be discovered by him. Those left behind are regularly viewed as thankless moaners not in full appreciation of having had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of playing with the great Ritchie Blackmore, however short their stint with him may have been.
This forum seems to be split between people who think that everything Steve did in nearly 30 years with Purple was boring crap and those who view his forced departure from the band as the vilest betrayal since Judas gave Jesus a smooch.
If we can be less dramatic for a minute? 😂 I just listened to Whoosh! yesterday several times over and was struck by the poised beauty of that album and Steve’s playing. It’s great music. Yet by the same token: People sometimes leave bands – or are asked to leave – even after they have done excellent work, it happens all the time. Something in the rest of the band might have been growing, spawning a desire for someone with a different outlook to play guitar. Steve was a consummate musician, but like anyone he had a certain way of going about things. That served DP well for a very long time until it didn’t anymore.
In DP’s long and tumultuous history, I have no issues letting every line-up stand in true catholic (not: Catholic!) fashion, they all had their strengths and they all offered something special. I neither long for the past nor do I have to denigrate it to elevate the present.
Was Steve a more individual, sophisticated, layered and technically proficient player than Simon? Yes. Is Simon more rock’n’roll? Also yes.
June 8th, 2026 at 13:56Fla76, but I‘m happy that Mk VIII had its musical emphasis elsewhere than Mk II! Let‘s not turn DP into Iron Maiden where you always have to look at the catalog number because neither the sleeve art nor the music contained are of any help in telling their albums apart. 🤣
I’ve just endeared myself to the Maiden denim hordes. Endearing myself to others is one of my more pronounced qualities. ☝️🥸
June 8th, 2026 at 17:50Don is Don. Imploring him to play less notes is a bit like asking John McLaughlin to sound more like BB King. It will fall on deaf ears.
Don was never sparse as a player and in my opinion he doesn’t have to be, the world is filled with sparse keyboard players no one notices. I love for instance how his keyboard ideas are all over the Turning To Crime lollapalooza, he really let rip there (on every track). Blackmore once said about him around the time of DTE: “You give Don the scantiest idea and he will immediately bustle with ten ways how to play and embellish variations of it. Very useful to have someone like that in the band.” The other side of the coin is what Gary Moore once said about Neil Carter: “Neil is nowhere near as good a keyboarder as Don, but he doesn’t clutter everything up either.”
Personally, Don’s hyperactive style always draws a smile to my face. He sounds like he has fun playing like he does and it gave/gives DP Mk VIII and IX a playful edge – I actually think that he was/is the guy playing with the greatest abandon in those two line-ups. Yes, there was more primal might in the way Jon approached the Hammond, but he’s not coming back anytime soon. 😑
June 8th, 2026 at 20:17#16 Uwe:
I’m also happy with what Purple did with Steve, if it weren’t for the fact that from Bananas onwards it was a constant decline in creativity, decline in hard rock, decline in riffs….I would have preferred unplugged stuff rather than most of the pseudo+prog songs of the last 20 years.
then I repeat, Steve is not only guilty, just as it is not only Don’s..
June 9th, 2026 at 21:41Whatever reason is or whatever happened behind, saying in PUBLIC about Steve does not really understand about Deep Purple is total disrespect, shameful really, consider he played for 28 years with Purple. And given they basically dismissed him when he was in one lowest point of his life, it hurts to hear this old man Airey talked trash like that
How about the old saying about sometimes to “keep your opinion to yourself” instead of disrespecting like that?
Purple fans know from many Steve interviews, when he first asked to join the band, he asked something about “What do you expect from me”, then the answer was “Just be yourself”. And that’s what simply he did, like it or not. If what Airey said was true, they should have not accepted him in the 1st place
June 11th, 2026 at 02:03I repeat: Airey wasn’t around, when Steve was accepted. Had he been, he might possibly have said a word or two given on what his experiences and preferences with guitar gods were.
Don is not a nasty person, but he doesn’t mince words either, he’s matter of fact. He is on record for fearlessly saying that he doesn’t consider Ritchie as much a natural talent as – shock, gasp, horror! – Gary Moore, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker and Uli Roth, stating that Ritchie’s “overthinking” gets in his own way. I might not agree with that, but I hold that Don’s contributions enrich the conversation. He has closely worked with an inordinate amount of excellent guitarists, add John Sykes, Tony Iommi, Jake E. Lee, Brad Gillis and Glenn Tipton to the above (and of course Steve himself with who Don shares a longer band playing experience than Jon did) . He KNOWS what he is talking about.
No one from DP is character-assassinating Steve, all they are saying is that towards the end, after nearly 30 years his personal style as a musician wasn’t quite what they were collectively longing for anymore then. And we’re not allowed to hear and talk about that?
There is an easy explanation why Steve might have been the best choice for DP in 1994 and no longer an optimal fit in 2o22, it’s a four letter word too: L – I – F – E. It goes on while you might have had other plans.
June 11th, 2026 at 15:18#19 Andre:
Don does what everyone does: after years you see everything from a broader perspective and that’s what makes you say “he wasn’t the musician for us”, “he wasn’t the wife for me”, “he wasn’t the life for me”, “he wasn’t the city for me” or “at first he was the right person but then things changed and he wasn’t right anymore”.
I wouldn’t make a big deal out of what people say years after things have happened, because it’s precisely what they say years later that, with the broader vision, is more truthful.
not to mention that Purple have always been discreet in managing their domestic affairs (apart from Ritchie’s showy shows) and have never spoken out about their inner dynamics except on rare occasions like this posthumous interview.
June 12th, 2026 at 13:33