On October 24 at the Soundedit’15 festival in Poland Roger Glover will receive The Man with a Golden Ear award for his work as a producer. On this occasion the festival published an interview with the man:

Why at some point in your career did you decide to take music production? You wanted to have a bigger impact on the sound bands with which you worked?

I didn’t decide to become a record producer, it just happened, almost without me noticing. In 1972, I’d first tried my hand at it with my friend Rupert Hine’s Pick Up A Bone album. Then Nazareth, with whom we’d been touring, asked me to produce them, I don’t know why. I had no idea about how other producers worked but just went with my instincts. In 1973 I was back on the road with DP when I was forced to leave the band, I arrived back home is a sorry state, very depressed. Two days later, I picked up the music papers and saw that Nazareth were number four in the Top Twenty with Broken Down Angel. My spirits lifted. I found myself with a new career.

Read the interview on the festival’s website.

Steve Morse was a featured guest on the latest episode of Guit Cast. The interview opens with promoting the recent Flying Colors’ live DVD Second Flight: Live at the Z7. Then, this being a guitar podcast, conversation shifted to Steve’s gear (which part would probably only be of interest to those our readers who can tell a tune-o-matic bridge from a lipstick pickup). It wraps up with Steve’s announcement that Purple are going back to the studio in the middle of January to work on a new album with Bob Ezrin once again at the helm.

The interview segment starts at 40:45 mark into the podcast and continues till 1:10:45. Listen here or head over to GuitCast.com if this does not work for any reason:

Thanks to Shawn and Andres for the info.

Darker Than Blue has an article with recollections of one Rob Munton. In the 60s he was a guitar player in a semi-pro English band called Force Five, and in 1966 they happened to open for Neil Christian and the Crusaders. At the time, Ritchie Blackmore was the Crusaders’ guitar player:

The guitarist sounded pretty good as well. They did a second run through number, an instrumental, which was pretty unusual in the mid ‘60’s. The Shadows were definitely not cool any more, but this Dude was playing a piece I recognised as Rimsky Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee. Ritchie had the 335 feed-backing on high gain and he played the whole piece with left hand only, using hammer-ons and pull-offs. His technique was awe inspiring, the fastest playing I had ever seen, and note perfect. I remember feeling very deflated when we went on a few minutes later to do our sound check.

Read more in Darker Than Blue.

Polish AntyRadio has posted a new an interview with Don Airey. Some of his answers are available as the original audio, while the transcribed bits are in reverse translation and as so are only meant to convey the gist of what he said.

Why did you decide to record performances in Wacken and Japan?

Why there was an 8 year gap between the last two studio albums?

Are Deep Purple already working on a new album?

(Yes. It should be out next year.)

What do you think about Jon Lord’s style?

(Jon had a big influence on me, but not as much as Keith Emerson or Jimmy Smith, when it comes to Hammond. As for synthesizers, my greates influences were Jan Hammer from Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Chick Corea’s “Return To Forever” album.)

How did you start playing rock music? Are you attracted to classical or jazz?

What do you think is the greatest masterpiece you’ve ever done?

Would you ever compose a movie soundtrack?

(I wrote for television and documentaries, but no one ever asked me to write music for a feature film. If could pick from films of the past, for which I would have happily composed something, it would be any movie with Clint Eastwood, or the “Interview” with Gene Hackman.)

Modern pop music is using a lot of keyboards. What’s your attitude to this?

Thanks to Marcin Zalewski for the info.

Video recording of the Glenn Hughes’ Q&A ‘storyteller’ session in April 2013 in Australia. Prepare yourself for an hour plus of stories about booze, drugs, more drugs, then even more drugs, and, occasionally, music.

Thanks to Official Deep Purple channel for the videos.

Glenn Hughes gave an interview to Metal Shock Finland:

I’ve got a lovely story to tell you – I’ve been coming from Black Country to California Breed and saying to myself earlier this year with my new management company, okay what do we do now? Do we form another band, do we make a record, do we film a documentary or do we go solo? My manager said ‘I think we should go solo’, then within a week we had so many offers coming in around the globe that we are now (which I haven’t really spoke to anyone about it yet), we’re now extending my tour through all of next year. I mean, I haven’t done a cycle of touring like this since Deep Purple. I think for me, if I had my choice right now to make a record or continue touring, I have to say that the appeal for me at this moment in time in my life, working with the people I’m working with, behind the scenes and on stage, is the appropriate time for me to sing and play my music live.

Among other things, he revealed that he’ll be going back to Indonesia to heal the past:

I haven’t spoken about this so I’ll tell you – December 4th 1975 my bodyguard was killed in Jakarta, Indonesia. It’s a well known fact, they’re making a film about it actually. So, on December the 4th this year, forty years after his death, I’m going to play in that city again.

Listen to the interview:

or download it (mp3, 6.1MB).

Thanks to Metal Shock Finland and BraveWords for the info.

Billy Joe Royal, the original performer of Deep Purple’s first hit single — Hush — has passed away. He unexpectedly died in his sleep yesterday, October 6, at his home in North Carolina. He was 73 years old.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info.

Glenn Hughes has announced a 16 date tour of the United States in March 2016. Just like in the other parts of the world recently, he will be performing in a power trio format with Doug Aldrich on guitar and Pontus Engborg on drums. Supporting him on this tour will be Joanne Shaw Taylor and (once again) Jared James Nichols.

Full details in out calendar.

Demon’s Eye have posted a making of promo video for their new album Under the Neon:

Thanks to Andree Schneider for the info.

A new promo clip from the upcoming Flying Colors’ Second Flight: Live At The Z7 DVD. This one is in fabulous 2160p resolution (a.k.a. 4K). You’ll have to toggle it fullscreen to see the difference (if you have the equipment to see the difference, that is).

Mask Machine:

Second Flight: Live At The Z7 is due out on November 13, 2015.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.