Ian Gillan was interviewed by Andy Fox for his Rockshow on the occasion of the Vinyl Collection release. Of course, Andy knows his Purple stuff (he even played Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming on this show), so the interview turned out to be rather entertaining.
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A 1981 vintage interview with Ian Gillan, done by Australian journalist Donnie Sutherland is available on Getty Images. Since they are trying to sell those clips, there appears no possibility to show it here, but you can watch the interview clips for free (albeit watermarked) if you head over there.
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Several Purple related tracks are featured on a new 3CD compilation called Air Guitar Anthems. What distinguishes this particular compilation from the gabazillion of similar ones is that the songs were selected by a distinguished riffmeister Brian May.

Here is what made Dr. May’s cut, from Buddy Holly to The Darkness. (Note: performers are listed as included on the album, not necessarily the original authors):

Queen — Bohemian Rhapsody
Led Zeppelin — Whole Lotta Love
The Rolling Stones — Start Me Up
ZZ Top — Gimme All Your Lovin’
T Rex — 20th Century Boy
Meat Loaf — Bat Out Of Hell
Ram Jam — Black Betty
Deep Purple — Smoke On The Water
Bachman-Turner Overdrive — You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Metallica — Stone Cold Crazy
Alice Cooper — Poison
KISS — Crazy Crazy Nights
Motörhead — Ace of Spades
Thin Lizzy — The Boys Are Back In Town
Whitesnake — Here I Go Again ’87
Derek & The Dominoes feat. Duane Allen — Layla
Rainbow — Since You Been Gone
Boston — More Than A Feeling
Dire Straits — Money For Nothing
Journey — Don’t Stop Believing
Status Quo — Down Down
Bryan Adams — Run to You
Free — All Right Now
The Who — I Can’t Explain
The Kinks — You Really Got Me
Muddy Waters — Mannish Boy
Bad Company — Feel Like Makin’ Love
Billy Idol — White Wedding
George Thorogood & The Destroyers — Bad To The Bone
Survivor — Eye of the Tiger
Cream — Sunshine of Your Love
Chuck Berry — Johnny Be Good
Buddy Holly — That’ll Be The Day
Small Faces — All Or Nothing
Sex Pistols — God Save the Queen
The Animals — The House of the Rising Sun
Brian May & Kerry Ellis — Parisienne Walkways
Def Leppard — Pour Some Sugar On Me
The Police — Message In A Bottle
The Darkness — I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Stiltskin — Inside
The Knack — My Sharona
Toto — Hold The Line
Lynyrd Skynyrd — Sweet Home Alabama
Rush — The Spirit of Radio
Mötley Crüe — Girls Girls Girls
Twisted Sister — I Wanna Rock
Mott The Hoople — All The Young Dudes
Joe Walsh — Rocky Mountain Way
Blue Öyster Cult — (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Dio — Holy Diver
Soundgarden — Black Hole Sun
Robert Palmer — Addicted To Love
Shadows — FBI
The Troggs — Wild Thing
Queen — We Will Rock You

Advertisement for the compilation:

Brian May discusses his selection:

Bonus from THS — Brian May performs cover of Since You Been Gone with Cozy Powell on drums:

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Two more preview tracks from Rainbow Memories in Rock – Live In Germany live album recorded this summer.

Spotlight Kid (Bietigheim-Bissingen, June 18, 2016):

The second one is Man on the Silver Mountain from Loreley, June 17, 2016. You’ll have to got to third party sites to watch this one as Powers That Be™ made it impossible to show it here.

My guess this is it for the previews as the album is out tomorrow, November 18.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Ian Gillan has appeared today on the ROCK FM radio in Moscow. He spoke about his current tour with Don Airey Band, the new Deep Purple album, his charity work in Armenia, religious censorship, the state of his relationship with Ritchie Blackmore, and the English national soccer team.

You can listen to his interview on rockfm.ru (scroll down the page for the little black audio player under the text).

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov (deep-purple.ru) for the info.

August 2016 issue of Japanese magazine Player carried an article detailing equipment used by Steve Morse and Roger Glover on the recent tour of the country (May 2016). The article is pretty technical, so it proved to be too difficult for a full reverse translation. Nevertheless, we are happy to present you with the scans and summary courtesy of our contributor Akemi Ono.

Steve Morse

Guitar 1: Steve Morse Y2D prototype by Music Man. This guitar was developed to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the collaboration between Steve and Music Man. [According to Steve, it was supposed to be released in 2000 and called Y2K, but was delayed, hence Y2D(elayed). — THS] (page 163 left)

Guitar 2: The finished product based on the prototype above. According to Steve’s guitar tech, Steve uses this for the second tune in the show. (page 163 upper right)

Guitar 3: Music Man Y2D, a new color introduced in 2014. Used for the Highway Star and other Blackmore days DP tunes on occasions. (page 163 lower right)

Guitar 4: Music Man Y2D with see-through blue finish. This was on the market before guitar 3 above. (page 164 top)

Guitar 5: Music Man Y2D which stayed at the wings of the stage as a back-up guitar. (page 164 bottom)

Amplifier: Steve Morse Signature 100 (E656) x 2, Invader 100 (E642) x 1, both by ENGL.

Effects: Ernieball VP Jr volume pedal x 3, Keeley compressor, TC Electronic tuner & polytune

Roger Glover

Guitar 1: Vigier signature model, burgundy red, used for the Highway Star. (page 165 left)

Guitar 2: Vigier signature model. Roger mainly used this and the above during the show. (page 165 center)

Guitar 3: Rickenbacker 4001. Old fans may remember that Roger used Rickenbacker in the early 70’s. It was a moving moment when he used this to play Smoke on the Water. (page 165 right)

Amplifier: TC Electronic Blacksmith x 2

The re-release of Jon Lords “Gemini Suite” has been postponed to December 9, 2016

There are a couple of items posted on the official Youtube channel worth your attention (in case you’ve missed it).

Deep Purple Mark 4 live at The Capital Centre, Landover, MD, USA, on January 15, 1976. It was the second date of their mainland US tour.

A very energetic short set performed by Gillan for British TV in 1982:

There is a new book of interest out: The other side of Rainbow by Greg Prato, the author of Tommy Bolin biography. The book appears to be a collection of interviews arranged in chronological order (much like many of Martin Popoff’s books). The list of people interviewed includes David Feinstein, Micky Lee Soule, Wendy Dio, Tony Carey, Graham Bonnett, Mark Clarke, JLT, Bobby Rondinelli, David Rosenthal, David Stone, Chuck Burgi, Doogie White, Greg Smith, Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult), Herman Rarebell (Scorpions), Craig Goldy, Eddie Trunk, and others. As you can see, any input from Blackmore is conspicuously absent. Despite that, the few pages preview that is available on Amazon, made this editor yearn for more. And at $10 for electronic version it won’t break the bank.

The book is available through Amazon as both paperback and Kindle editions.

Thanks to Alex Kononow for the info.

Glenn Hughes spoke to Icon vs. Icon couple of weeks ago promoting Resonate, which resulted in an extended interview published on their website. Never being shy with superlatives, ‘incredible’ must be the most often used word in all of this (no, we didn’t do the math).

You followed that incredible night [RRHoF induction — THS] up with a tour of the United States. How was the trip?

It’s always an honor for me to play anywhere in America because it has been so long since I had done a tour. To play up in the northeast was a great way to start the summer. It is so, so beautiful up there! My god, it’s incredible! It was really hot but the fans turned out and we had great audiences and everyone was very receptive throughout the tour, all the way from the East Coast through the Midwest, all the way up the North and then back into LA. Every place we visited was incredible and the good news is that we’re making plans to tour again in the spring!

And on the issue of BCC reunion:

Earlier this year, it was revealed Black Country Communion will make its return in 2017. How did you guys get back on the same page after the past few years apart?

One thing I want to make clear to everybody across air nation is that Joe Bonamassa and I never fell out. It just happened that after “Afterglow” was recorded and released in the fall of 2012, there was no touring schedule set. Being that there was no touring schedule set, I decided to leave the band simply because I needed to go back to my solo career. There was never falling out. Joe was continuing with his solo career and it just never worked out that we could do a lot of touring. Over the course of the years, we have spoken to each other and we had lunch the spring. We said, “Wouldn’t it be great to make another record? Maybe the time is right to do that.” There’s certain times when people get back together for reunions and if they have their material, they have a good insight. We are actually writing now and we have written half of the album. Joe is coming next week to finish up the songs and we will be headed back into the studio in January.

Read more in Icon vs. Icon.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.