David Coverdale spoke to Rock Classics Radio on Apple Music Hits, and among more recent things, shed the light on his writing in th Purple days:

It’s the old cliché of they’re all your children. One of the questions I was asked at the management meeting for DEEP PURPLE was do I write. And I could honestly say yes, because I’d been encouraged by local musicians. We never announced them as written by me; we’d say, ‘This is a song by STEPPENWOLF.’

So the first thing I had to do was go down to Ritchie Blackmore’s house and see if we connected. And it was mindblowing to work with this guy who was like a Hendrix. I mean, Hendrix was my muse, and Ritchie had all of these elements there. And I was so enthusiastic, I wrote six lyrics for the song ‘Burn’. I actually used one of the lyrics not many years ago on a different song, which wasn’t used a more bluesy song. But that’s how enthusiastic I was. And ‘Stormbringer’ I wrote for him, ’cause he loved that mix of sci-fi. It really didn’t float my boat — I was much more of an emotional, physical theme, relationship scenario, search for direction…

But, yeah, so probably ‘Burn’. And then ‘Mistreated’, which came from me just making words up on the spot. That’s when my muse was just coming straight in. And I think maybe I flushed out a lyric here or there. But in essence, it was just an improvised lyric, and that song still has legs nearly 50 years later.

Apart from the snippets posted here, we have no idea if and how the rest of the interview can be accessed outside the Apple’s walled garden. Please enlighten us if you know.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and transcription.

For all your November caroling needs, Blackmore’s Night have released a lyric video from their upcoming EP. Continue Reading »

Don Airey spoke to the Antihero Magazine about his illustrious career, his itch for the country music, the insecurities of greats, the late Gary Moore and the narrow miss with Still Got the Blues, and his bass parts on Judas Priest’s Painkiller, among other things.

ANTIHERO: Of course, you came into the band following the sad demise of the legendary Jon Lord. Given Jon’s legacy, how did you approach it? Particularly in playing his iconic songs live.

Don Airey: I never seemed to have a problem with that side of things. I never heard anybody shouting for Jon, not even on the first tour I did where I stood in on 24-hours’ notice. Obviously, it’s very difficult. On the first gig I said to myself, “If I try to be like Jon, I’ll come a cropper. I’ve just got to be myself.” I’ve really tried to honour his legacy. The Hammond has become very central again to the Deep Purple sound of late. I mean, he was an incredible person, an incredible player, and somebody I looked up to. I counted him as a friend. I’m glad to be carrying the torch.

ANTIHERO: Your influence on the band has increased with each album that you’ve recorded and it’s particularly prominent on Whoosh! I just wondered are the other band members listening to you more these days, or have they embraced your creative input more compared to when you first started?

Don Airey: It’s a question of when you’re a keyboard player in a rock band, there’s not many of us about and you have to keep quite quiet. These guitar players and these singers, they have massive personalities. I took a cue from Ian Paice, he kind of leads the band from behind. If you know what I mean? You’ve got to be a diplomat and it took me a bit to learn how Deep Purple works. It only works one way and to get in their way of thinking takes time. I think of it that I now provide 20%, my full 20% of the input. 25 on a good day.

Don also mentions that he spends his pandemic downtime working on a book of memoirs that he has to deliver to the publisher at the beginning of January.

Read more in the Antihero Magazine.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Ken Hensley — multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, producer, and founder of Uriah Heep — has passed away on November 4. Glenn Hughes pays him a tribute on social media:

So deeply saddened to hear that my long time friend & Brother, for five decades, Ken Hensley @uriahheepofficial ,has passed. An incredible songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player, and more importantly, – a beautiful kind human being. Your music will live on Ken. Honored to have sung a song called ‘Last Dance’ on your solo album, Blood on the Highway. All my Love …
G

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

The second part of Jon Lord’s feature originally published in New Musical Express on March 13, 1971.

Before then he had been proving the perfect interviewee by just talking, making good points, raising sensible arguments and leading me through his career very carefully. I asked him what method the group adopted when it came to recording, expecting some highly involved answer. But it all sounds remarkably simple.
“One or two people come up with ideas for numbers at rehearsals and we work on them and try to get them into some sort of form to take them on to the studio,” Jon replied. “There’s the usual scene of putting backing tracks down first, then solos, then voices if there are any.
“‘Black Night’ just happened when we were mucking about — the riff came, then the song. We leave the number for a few days and come back to it to see if it sounds as good as it did when we left it.

Studio techniques

“Ian Paice and Roger are getting very interested in studio techniques and they know all about the control boards and such things which I don’t, I haven’t the faintest idea. We like to go down to see the tape to disc transfer because that’s where a lot of tapes get messed up, in the cutting room.
“We don`t like to farm the covers out without having some say in it, but having superimposed our faces on Mount Rushmore for the last album we’re running a bit short of ideas. “We did fall into the trap of making an album that didn’t sound anything like we did on stage but Deep Purple In Rock’ was very much as we are on stage and the next one is going to be an extension of that. I’m quite proud of some of our old albums, you look back at them with affection, but some of them make me cringe.”

Read more in Geir Myklebust’s blog. Part 1 is here.

Paicey reacts to Stormbringer cover by a Russian tribute band Leonid & Friends. Continue Reading »

The second half of Coverdale’s interview to eonmusic starts off with David giving his account of the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony:

I’d like to talk about Deep Purple’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2016; were you disappointed that Ritchie Blackmore didn’t attend?
We’d been talking about it [Ritchie and I]. We’d been nominated before and never got in, and I said; “are you going to go?”, and he said; “nah”. I said; “well, I won’t go then!” [laughing]. But what had happened in 2016, literally, once it had been announced that we were officially being inducted into it, the current Deep Purple refused to go if Ritchie Blackmore was going to be there. And this was like, 72 hours before, when I was ready to fly with my family. And this cost me like $75,000 – $85,000, because you have to pay for all the tables apart from the one you’re on, and I had my daughter fly in from Germany, my son came out of college. It was a family affair.

So you were all set to go, and plans changed?
Suddenly, Glenn Hughes and I were told; “well, we don’t want you singing with us”. Initially, I’d spoken to Ian [Gillan] about coming up and singing the backgrounds of ‘Smoke on the Water’, because originally they were going to close the show. So, that suddenly was pulled, the plug. They tried to stop us doing speeches, and my wife was fucking furious!, apart from the fact she spent a fortune on posh dresses! [laughing] And I said; “fuck it, nobody’s going to keep us off!” I got in touch with Carol, Ritchie’s manager, and I said; “tell him to come with me; nobody’s going to fucking touch him, tell him to come with me!”, and he didn’t want to do it.

You did mention Ritchie quite emphatically in your speech.
The first thing I said when I was up there, was; “none of us would have been standing here without Ritchie Blackmore”, and I made sure of that point. Steve Morse and Don Airey [current Deep Purple members] were more complimentary to Glenn and I than the other guys. We had a blast, we had a fucking great time! I’m very happy that I am who I am, and I just talked to Glenn the other day about it; “what the fuck was up THEIR ass?!” Anyroad, so we didn’t get to jam, which was fine; we were back doing press while they were performing, just having a good old time like the unrighteous brothers always do!

How do you think Ritchie would have behaved, had he been there on the night?
You know, it was an amazing scenario, but I know Ritchie, and he probably would have caused trouble by pulling out a water pistol and squirting everybody! [laughing] But it was absolutely obscene that he wasn’t there, but I made sure, and I got a thank you from him and his wife when they saw a recording of it. But you know, he doesn’t give a shit, and he knows he was responsible for the majority of the music there, and its true; none of us, none of us would have been on that stage without Ritchie Blackmore, none of us.

Continue reading on eonmusic.co.uk.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

David Coverdale spoke to eonmusic about various remixes, remasters and other embellishments of his back catalogue, prospects of Coveradle/Page reissue, and many other things.

You wanted Rory [Gallagher] for Deep Purple, didn’t you, when Ritchie Blackmore left?
I loved him so much that when Ritchie said he was leaving [in 1975], the first guitar player I had on the list was Jeff Beck – who I’m still enamoured with entirely – there was Rory, god rest his soul, and then Tommy Bolin. So, yeah, Rory, I thought would have been something, I did. But Rory did really, really well. When he was making ‘Calling Card’ [1976] in Munich, I spent a lot of time there because that was like my second home. I’d often go down there, and there was just books all over, on Catholicism! [laughing!]

Have you had any albums during your career that for you, have fallen short?
The only frustrating albums I had was ‘Lovehunter’ [1979], because the manager refused to put Ian Paice, once Paicey had joined, I just felt Paicey – and no disrespect to the original drummer [Dave Dowle] – but Paicey is fucking Ian Paice! Him and Neil Murray, dear god, they nailed it, as you can hear on ‘Ready an’ Willing’ [1980], and ‘Come an’ Get It’ [1981], and that is sad to me, because I thought ‘Lovehunter’ had great songs that would have benefitted greatly by having Ian Paice on. The other one was ‘Restless Heart’, because it wasn’t supposed to be a Whitesnake album. So, I don’t really have any regrets.

Read more in eonmusic. There’s supposed to be part 2 of the interview published on November 2.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Geir Myklebust continues doing God’s work with posting a New Musical Express feature on Jon Lord originally published on March 6, 1971.

Here is how Jon describes the pivotal moment in his musical development:

The group changed its name to the Art Woods and Jon bought a Hammond and became influenced by Graham Bond and Jimmy Smith. But there were still problems.
“We were getting fed up with blues, we couldn’t recreate the sound we would have liked to have done. We were all jazzers really but people didn’t want to listen to it a lot, they started to want to dance. We instilled elements of James Brown and the funky American musicians into the music, playing numbers like ‘Celedonia.’ I got fed up copying Jimmy Smith and looked around for something else to do.”
Jon did find that something else, but purely by accident rather than by design. Though he didn’t know it at the time, it was to have a big effect on his music in later years and at one stage almost lead to the break-up of his group.
“We did one number that was five minutes of organ and drums and one night for no reason I just stuck in a Bach fugue that I remembered and it went down a storm,” he stated. “We had a residency at the 100 Club in Oxford Street and got the same audience every week and they always wanted to hear it.
“That was the first time I ever thought of using classical music. Contrary to what a lot of people think, I didn’t get it from Keith Emerson and he didn’t get it from me. He struck on it at the same time. We did a version of ‘Shake’ that started off with a bit of Tchaikovsky — it got to a ludicrous level — but it worked.”

Read the whole thing in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read blog.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Ian Gillan, sitting at home in Lyme Regis, amidst of all the gold records and memorabilia, talking to Nicky Horne of Vintage TV. That was recorded in 2016, back in the time when social distancing was unheard of. Enjoy! Continue Reading »