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.
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey.jpg)
Ian Gillan has appeared on the Talkin’ Rock With Meltdown podcast. It is American classic rock radio at its finest, but here it is.
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
That interview wasn’t bad at all, I expected much worse! (Not rushing to mention SOTW before the very, very end and then only in connection with how many young guitar players who became later on famous were inspired by it, is perfectly ok in my book.)
So Ian sings from the hymn sheet about Bob and Simon – I don’t have issues with it at all.
June 10th, 2026 at 01:59I always enjoy listening to Ian! He is very kind and I find he is so much interested in other people 😊
And it is very nice that he likes Simon and Bob E so much 😊
June 10th, 2026 at 09:29(I don’t have issues with that either 😄)
Bob Ezrin has turned Purple “a jamming band ‘ into some 3-4 minutes, pop band. give me a fucking break and fuck off Bob! what happened to that stretch and long jams that epitomized the band?
June 16th, 2026 at 15:49Thirty minutes of Mandrake Root was never my most favorite thing about DP! Endless jamming & white noise while poor Roger was changing between a half-bar of E and a half-bar of D, alternating between root and fifth in fearless musical inquisitiveness and the testing of boundaries (mostly in patience)? 😂 Duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh – duh-duh …
Maybe they have grown in stature as musicians too and no longer need THAT long to make an impressive musical statement? I find Don’s and Simon’s short sparring in Diablo entertaining.
Let’s not drag it out like a Cagney death scene, a famous Spanish Archer once said …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jUvL-7F18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8woScnBklo
June 17th, 2026 at 04:18(Death scene commences @00:50 and takes a while.)
Well we shall not forget that those long jams usually happened on stage. Some songs may have been longer on the albums back then but most of them were around the 4 minute mark anyway … I think April and CiT being the longest tracks recorded in the studio. So there’s nothing much different apart from the fact there ain’t even one track to stretch a bit … Plus: I don’t think that Bob Ezrin forced them to cut down. They may well agree. Another thing is that the days of Ben Hur-long guitar solos are over. And live they still stretch a little. I cannot see them as a pop band still, AI.
June 17th, 2026 at 09:32What Max says. Most 70s Purple albums consisted of at least seven songs in an age where optimal album length under vinyl constraints was 38 minutes. They have always had also short and to the point songs on their albums.
That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate Purple improvising or stretching out, even lengthily, and of course a song like Diablo could be extended live. Maybe they still will as the tour progresses.
June 17th, 2026 at 16:28The longer live songs back in the day were also to cover for lack of new material or decent enough new material to perform in concert at that time. Studio albums had lengthy pieces of music by certain bands and God forbid even the occasional drum solo. Let’s not forget the short mind attention span in this day and age. Many people in todays world don’t have the patience to sit through a full song. How long do they last, even with a 3-4 minute song that could easily seem like a 20 minute epic for the poor little dears. Also it is much easier to slap out shorter songs, think about it. There are a few old school artists that have made that into an art form over the decades. Cheers.
June 18th, 2026 at 10:36