![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse.jpg)
From Budokan to RAH
The Norway Rock Magazine features interviews with Roger Glover and Don Airey in their issue #127 (2/2026). The magazine is available for your perusal online, and the interviews in question are even in the original English, yay!
Thanks to our editor emeritus Trond J. Strøm for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Interesting things about this interview:
Roger suggested to the other guys some never-before-performed songs from Purplendicular and Abandon to play live!!!!!
Roger prefers to use the Precision in the studio instead of his signature Vigier that he uses live!
Roger is currently writing his autobiography, so hopefully it will be published in 2027!
Don says Simon is very competitive even if he doesn’t seem like it.
and Don confirmed that Steve Morse “wasn’t quite on the same wavelength, but it was still a fruitful collaboration.”
Gary Moore borrowed an H&H transistor combo from Don to create his sound and never gave it back!
Don says, “As a keyboard player, I just try to hold back a little bit. If it’s slower, you can just hold back and fill in where needed, letting the guitarists do the work, letting the singers do the work, but trying to find some spaces here and there where you can say something touching.”
he admits his difficulty in “holding back”
Don is also continuing to write his book but he is still halfway through.
the first meeting with Ozzy was at a gas station, and Don & Cozy’s tour manager at the time was the ex-tour manager of Cream!
Don says to Ezrin “So what am I going to do next, Bab? He said: “You’re going to write a keyboard concerto”
July 7th, 2026 at 21:51I’ll add that this is exactly what Don did inside Splat! Mission accomplished!
Simon also says that Don is competitive, and if he comes up with a fast picking sequence like in Arrogant Boy, Don has to do it also. It’s funny that Don talks about holding back as that’s not the impression he gives, he’s a pretty busy player, lots of (too many?) notes during his solos.
July 9th, 2026 at 08:03I think the Don interview is amazing, he’s really both a great raconteur and a perceptive observer. Great thanks for posting this. Best thing to come out of Norway since Anni-Frid Lyngstad (with some German genetic input of course!).
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSh2BHsThyFH3KnjQ7rCo5qWrrAQg3QCuPbhHROsXv&s=10
July 9th, 2026 at 20:40And that Gary Moore drooled over Don’s H&H transistor combo
https://themusicbank.co.uk/cdn/shop/files/IMG_9799.heic?v=1763142506
just says it all! Those things (in my first band we all played them, they were fashionable once) sounded horribly synthetic and abrasive, the “overdrive” function reaching new peaks in utter obnoxiousness. Figures that Gary who ruined the G-Force album singlehandedly with his bleedin’ awful pre-amped guitar sound would dig the H&H sonics, anything to catch attention and get yourself heard. 🙄
July 10th, 2026 at 17:35