On August 26, 2025, Roger Glover has appeared on the satellite radio SiriusXM show Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk. Blabbermouth has some quotes of what he said.

Well, I see a lot of bands doing the farewell tour or the farewell gig — BLACK SABBATH just did it recently, and other people have done it before — but it doesn’t appeal to me, and I don’t think the rest of the band either. To actually put a date on the final [show], now where’s it gonna be? The pressure is too great. I’d much rather just play and play and play, and suddenly we’re not playing. We don’t need to go out with a fanfare — I don’t think, anyway. It’s possible other people disagree with me, but that’s my feeling.

Quite a few years ago now, at the start of ‘The Long Goodbye’, [then-PURPLE guitarist] Steve Morse, he said, ‘Why don’t we finish on a high and name the last tour and we’d make a lot of money because it’s the last tour and then kiss it goodbye?’ And that didn’t go down well with the band, which is why we called it ‘The Long Goodbye’, because we knew it was gonna happen sometime, but, of course, we didn’t know it was gonna go on and on and on. And thankfully so.

This year is a bit of an off year. We’ve been writing and stuff, and there’ll probably be an album next year. And the last — actually, the last two or three years have been so busy. We haven’t stopped touring and working. So it’s good to have a little bit of a breather.

Read more in Blabbermouth.

[Update Sep 25]: Recording of the show has been posted. For one reason or another, it doesn’t work on other sites, so head over directly to YouTube to listen.

Ian Paice was an inaugural guest on the Metal Sticks podcast, hosted by the recently retired from Iron Maiden Nicko McBrain and Modern Drummer CEO David Frangioni. The Made in Japan remix is mentioned as soon-to-be-released, so this must have been recorded some time in early August. Dig into the drummer talk! Continue Reading »

Nic Simper has published the next chapter of his memoir, dealing with the immediate aftermath of his dismissal from Deep Purple and consequent stint with Marsha Hunt.

I had a visit from the Deep Purple road crew, Ian Hansford and Mick Angus, who had come to collect the Jaguar. It was good to see them again and to hear the story of what they had witnessed. According to Ian and Mick, it was decided before the end of the second US tour that a new singer was needed. I knew that the band would have kept this from me as they knew that I would have insisted on Rod being told, as had happened with Bobby Woodman.

It seems that at the time there was no intention of getting rid of me as well. Mick Underwood reinforced this story, saying when Blackmore approached him in a quest to find a new singer, there had been no mention of a bass player. With Episode Six on the verge of collapse, Mick did not hesitate to recommend Gillan. Obviously, he was now very interested, in contrast to the time when I had offered him the job! Mick and Ian continued with the story of how Gillan was to be brought to the recording studio to learn the song, hence my being told not to return until evening when, according to the roadies, I was to be informed that Ian was joining the band.

Continue reading on Nick’s website.

On a slightly related note, borderline on trainspotting, here is an interview with Andy Scott of Sweet fame that keeps weaving in and out of the Purple jungle. Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Nick Simper, Ronnie James Dio, and Graham Bonnet all get a mention. Worth checking out even if you’re not a Sweet fan, as Andy is a fabulous storyteller.

Thanks to Arch on both counts.

Here are a couple of clips with Jon Lord and Ian Paice respectively reviewing in 1970 the contemporary(ish) music. The source of these is the Melody Maker section called Blind Date, where popular musicians were asked to review the singles and records, most of which they never heard before. Continue Reading »

Music Radar has an article about Coverdale joining Deep Purple, with input from the man himself.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but also a daunting challenge – not least because of the fearsome reputation of Purple’s moody guitar hero Ritchie Blackmore.

“I think I was the only singer they auditioned,” Coverdale recalled in an interview with Outlaw magazine.

“First, they asked me to go into the Purple office at 25 Newman Street in London to be grilled by the managers, who of course wanted to know if I had a criminal record, a drug bust or anything that could have caused any potential issues.”

Blackmore was famously difficult to read. Keyboard player Jon Lord, by contrast, was known for his charm, and welcomed Coverdale with open arms.

“Ritchie was standoffish,” Coverdale said. “But Jon was just great. During my audition, Jon calmed me down – and Bell’s whisky also helped.

Read more in Music Radar.

The packaged Rock Legends Tour, featuring Joe Lynn Turner, among others, was supposed to take place in Germany and Austria throughout this October. The tour website now informs that for one reason or another it is not taking place. Some dates have been rebooked for late 2026 (some of those into smaller venues), others cancelled altogether.

In 2026 there will be new dates for “Rock Legends” in Dresden, Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Regensburg, Saarbrücken, Frankfurt, Duisburg, Cologne, Hamburg, Kempten — dates in Stuttgart, Linz, and Nuremberg will follow shortly. For production reasons, there are unfortunately no replacement dates for Augsburg, Rosenheim, Dortmund, Karlsruhe, Bremen, Braunschweig, Halle/Saale, Würzburg & Salzburg.

Tickets already purchased will remain valid or can be returned where they were purchased.

Our calendar has been updated accordingly.

Thanks to Ggg for the heads-up.

Blabbermouth reports that Joe Lynn Turner will be a member of the jury for the Russian song contest Intervision that will take place in Moscow on September 20, 2025.

Intervision 2025 is a Russian state-sponsored music competition, decreed by Russian president Vladimir Putin in February as an alternative to the popular Eurovision Song Contest, which the country was banned from in 2022 after it invaded Ukraine. The contest’s goal is to “develop international cultural and humanitarian cooperation,” per the decree. The Russian foreign ministry is in charge of promoting the contest.

The brand Intervision was used for a song competition during the Cold War as a counterpart to the Eurovision contest held in Czechoslovakia and later Poland for (mostly) Eastern Block countries. It is being revived now by the Russian authorities for seemingly similar purposes.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Music Radar has a short interview with Glenn Hughes, focusing mainly on his bass gear.

How has your bass rig evolved since your days with Trapeze in the early ’70s?

Well, Trapeze was all Hiwatt amps. And I wasn’t using pedals back then. I started using pedals in Deep Purple.

But for me, it was always Hiwatt. I had those amps right before I joined Purple, because, to me, those amps are the greatest.

John Entwistle [of The Who] turned me onto Hiwatts in 1970. Hearing him play through Hiwatts was the game-changer for me.

So for me it was always about the Hiwatts. And in Purple I used a wah-wah pedal on my bass. That was the only pedal I used.

Continue reading in Music Radar.

John McCoy has appeared on the Now Spinning Magazine podcast, talking about the Gillan band. It was an in-depth conversation, at 1 hour and 16 minutes, so we haven’t listened all the way through it yet. But we’re being assured that here John does not sound as bitter as in his other recent interviews. Continue Reading »

The Telegraph has a fluff piece on the worst rock lyrics of all time. Dunno about the worst, but there are some awful stuff in there. Amongst it all, the two tracks are on topic for us. It is Highway Star, and Rainbow’s Man on the Silver Mountain.

Anyone who loves the Ronnie James Dio-era Rainbow will know that the former singer from American rock band Elf (and future replacement for Ozzy in Black Sabbath) can make any old guff sound profound.

And he starts as he means to go on with the opening lines of track one, side one, of debut album Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, the band’s first single. “I’m a wheel, I’m a wheel/ I can roll, I can feel/ And you can’t stop me turning”, he bellows. Never intended to, Ronnie, but hey, roll on, man. Eat your heart out, Tufnel and St Hubbins.

Read more in The Telegraph.

FWIW, of all lyrics presented there, U2’s Get On Your Boots is winning the popular vote as the worst of the time of this writing: 229:14.

Thanks to Georgius Novicianus for the heads-up.