Ronnie Romero was a guest on The Rock ‘n’ Blues Experience podcast on the occasion of his second solo album Backbone. Continue Reading »

Music Radar has an interview with Steve Morse, where he talks about various modifications he made to his guitars over the years. Like the rather irreverent but practical grinder mod he has done in 2000 after breaking his wrist right before performing with Deep Purple at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

But speaking to MusicRadar earlier this month, Morse said that the cast really did impede his movement, and it inspired one of the most drastic mods he has ever made to an electric guitar. If you saw him on that 2000 tour, you might not have noticed. His EBMM Steve Morse signature model looked as it always did, with its unorthodox four-pickup configuration. What we didn’t see was the mod he made to allow him to play like he did.

“I broke my wrist, right before a Purple show and I couldn’t reach some of the notes on the neck with the cast on,” he says. “So I got a grinder and cut down the heel of it to help facilitate that [access] – including the steel plate. I took the steel plate off and ground that down and well…”

Read more in Music Radar.

Pro audio magazine Mix publishes online a short interview with SMB drummer and musical director Van Romaine. Everything you needed to know about microphone placement while tracking drums, and then some.

“We thought we might never make another record again because Steve was so committed to his schedule with Deep Purple and I had to be available for Enrique Iglesias, whose musical director and drummer I’ve been for years,” said Romaine. “I saw Steve in 2024 and learned that he had taken a step back from touring globally with Deep Purple. Because he wasn’t traveling as much, we had an opportunity. I smoothed things out with Enrique’s schedule and suggested we do some short runs with the Steve Morse Band.” Once they were touring together, the concept for a new album began to take shape.

Read more in Mix Online.

Louder Sound has a short feature on Whitesnake’s cover of Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City:

It was Marsden who brought the song to the table in the first place. He’d been hanging around at the offices of Anchor Records in Soho’s Wardour Street, when someone gave him a copy of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland’s album Dreamer that the label had been involved in putting out a few years earlier.

Bland had been kicking around the music scene for years – he’d made his first recordings in the 1950s. Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, his album’s opening track, had an undercurrent of soul-deep weariness beneath the relatively upbeat music, that immediately caught Marsden’s attention.

“I knew this would be a great song for David to sing,” Marsden remembered. “He knew about Bobby Bland, but I don’t think he was that familiar with the song. He could see straight away that he could stamp his voice on it.”

Read more in Louder Sound.

Steve Morse spoke to My Global Mind while being on tour in Raleigh, NC, with his band. His interview is now published, and it’s rather interesting. For one, he does not completely rule out a guest appearance with his former band.

MGM: Hopefully you’ll come across the UK and Europe with your solo music. But one question many people will want to know the answer to is whether you can see a time when you’ll perform with Deep Purple again, even if it was just for a one-off performance. Can you see that happening?

Steve: Anything’s possible, but they’re in good hands with Simon. He’s great for them. He’s a wonderful player, and that’s really what I think some of them wanted; having that British sound and validity that he gives them. He’s inventive as well but I think it’s a better fit for them. I think it would just be for the benefit of getting clicks or something if we did do anything. You can imagine the headlines.

Read more in My Global Mind.

Speaking of Steve Morse, Metal Planet Music reviews his latest album Triangulation:

Triangulation isn’t just an album, it’s a clinic. For listeners, it’s a joyride. For musicians, it’s a challenge. Every track is a triangulated point between groove, melody, and technical mastery. And for me, two decades after that Deep Purple gig, it’s a reminder that Steve Morse still speaks every musical language. Fluently. Effortlessly. Style-lessly.

Read more in Metal Planet Music.

Glenn Hughes has played a gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on October 18, 2025, and was joined on stage by Sophie Lloyd for an earth-scorching twin guitar performance of Burn. Continue Reading »

Back in November 2003 Deep Purple played a gig in Basel, Switzerland, about 60 minutes of which was broadcasted on Swiss TV, and became known as the Avo Session (after the name of the programme). Many a moon later, the Avo Session has become known as the Baloise Session, and a few days ago they have posted the complete concert, cleaned up and upscaled to the latest advances. Here it is for your viewing pleasure, with our heroes doing it tonight, a few years younger than they are today.

00:00:00 Highway Star
00:06:40 Strange Kind Of Woman
00:11:37 Silver Tongue
00:17:49 Knocking At Your Back Door
00:23:50 House Of Pain
00:28:02 Lazy
00:34:46 Bananas
00:40:14 Contact Lost
00:43:43 Doin’ It Tonight
00:47:40 Space Truckin’
00:53:30 I Got Your Number
00:59:57 The Well-Dressed Guitar
01:07:10 Keyboard Solo
01:12:24 Perfect Strangers
01:19:00 Smoke On The Water
01:27:40 Hush
01:33:50 Black Night

Music Radar has an interview with Steve Morse, where he speaks about his ongoing struggle with arthritis and how it affects his playing style and career choices.

[…] If the call came in with an offer to join a band, Morse is not sure that he would accept it. He’s not sure his body would hold out.

“I don’t think I could. I’m not rock solid. When I say I’ll do something, I’m used to doing it, and doing it excellent. Right now, I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. When I wake up, am I going to be able move my hand or not? I don’t know. So far I have been able to. So far I have been able to make every gig. But I dunno.

“I think my time of doing the performance grind is closing. That window is closing but my time for writing, and possibly performing with some help, with some other musicians, is very possible. I see a future but I don’t see me being a hired gun because I couldn’t stand up to the level of players you can get now. And guitarists are literally dime a dozen.”

Read more in Music Radar.

And here’s a music video for TexUS from SMB latest album Triangulation, with the behind-the-scene second guitar courtesy of Eric Johnson:

Extra! Extra! Pinball bonanza! All Ian Paice + Purpendicular dates in Germany scheduled for October 2025 have been postponed until next year. The new dates have been rescheduled for the late January — early March timeframe. Please check the venue websites and/or our calendar before heading out. Continue Reading »

Yahoo Entertainment has an interview with the original Wishbone Ash guitarist Ted Turner, where he explains how Ritchie Blackmore gave the band its big break:

Ritchie Blackmore played a significant role in Wishbone Ash’s signing.

“He did! We were supporting Deep Purple at the Dunstable Civic in the real early days, waiting for him to finish his sound check so we could do ours. Ritchie was playing licks; and Andy, on the sidelines, started answering him.

“They had a brief conversation with their guitars, and it was enough to impress Ritchie to speak to his producer Derek Lawrence, who subsequently produced our next three albums. Serendipity.”

The rest of the interview is here, although there’s nothing else even remotely Purple-related.