Ian Gillan gave an interview to Chilean Radio Futuro that apparently went down the newswire and created a small stir worldwide. Despite the fact that he has not said there what he had not said before.

Whatever I say about that is gonna sound wrong. But who the hell wants to be in an institution? The Hall Of Fame thing, it’s an American thing. We don’t have that in England or Germany or Australia or Russia or anywhere in the world apart from America. And it’s an institution. What’s that got to do with rock and roll? Also, it’s run by these old guys who thought that The Monkees were America’s answer to The Beatles. And they called Deep Purple [Laughs]… I don’t think they quite understand what we are… They called us one-hit wonders. So I don’t know what they were talking about… whether it was ‘Hush’ or ‘Black Night’ or ‘Strange Kind Of Woman’, ‘Smoke On The Water’, ‘Child In Time’, ‘Knocking At Your Back Door’ or one of those one-hit wonders that we were… ‘Highway Star’… I just don’t know. And I guess the fans don’t really understand it except in America. It’s no big deal.

After being on the shortlist for the last two years only to be passed over come the actual induction, Deep Purple was skipped from the 2015 list alltogether.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Jeb Wright from Classic Rock Revisited recently spoke to Ian Paice about Jon Lord, the celebration concert this April, and the recording of it that came out last month.

Jeb: I have always separated classical Jon from rock Jon, but I have to ask did he bring that influence into Deep Purple? Not so much the music, but rather the knowledge of how music works?

Ian: Exactly, that is it. Most of the guys who play rock and roll and popular music, from jazz to pop music, from my generation, from my country, were self-taught. The knowledge for what we need is limited. For those who play piano, it is different. The nature of the instrument means they have to learn it properly and they have to learn the unorthodox classical fashion. Their knowledge about the infrastructure of music and the way it works is far superior.

What Jon would quite often do, back in the early days, when Ritchie [Blackmore] and Roger [Glover] would be jamming riffs, would be to say, “I think if we changed the inversion of that chord then I think it would work much better.” He would then demonstrate what he meant and, nine times out of ten, he was right. He would take something that was sort of obvious and make it into something that was not quite so obvious.

The difference between us and chimpanzees is two percent. It is just a little tiny bit, but that two percent is really important. Jon didn’t do that all the time, as sometimes things were perfect as they were. Sometimes there was something missing. You could see his brain kick into gear and he would go into his database of knowledge and come up with something to try and that was sometimes very important to us.

Jeb: You have done a wonderful job with different packages of his concert. There are many levels fans can purchase.

Ian: Some people are in love with Jon’s classical side, and if that is all they want, they just can buy that CD… and if they want just the rock portion, then they can buy that CD. If they want the whole kit and caboodle then they can buy the box set and experience the whole wonderful night. Whoever buys whatever, let them be assured that the deal that Jacky struck with the record company is very generous towards the charity. Every dollar, every pound, every Swiss franc, every Yen we get goes straight into Jacky’s fund and this time it is going to try to help beat the cancer that took Jon from us.

We don’t have a big organization here. It is Jacky, a secretary, my kids and occasionally one other helper and we run it from a room in my house. There is no big overhead and nobody is driving a car, staying in hotels or flying first class… it is our homegrown thing. Every dollar that people want to put in our coffers we thank them greatly.

Read more in Classic Rock Revisited.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

The record company has posted Uncommon Man from Celebrating Jon Lord, which sold so well, that it hit #1 in a number of European countries.

Thanks to Classic Rock for the info.

The newly released dvd of the Celebrating Jon Lord concert at the Albert Hall, London from April 2014 has hit the #1 slot on the dvd music charts in its first week of release in the UK, Germany, Sweden and Austria.

Recorded on 4th April the dvd and blu-ray feature the two halves of the concert and a documentary of the event and the lead up to the day.

A new show at Luna Park goes on sale tonight (Thursday 2nd October) for a show on 18th November.
Again not confirmed by management, but on sale here

Thanks to Juan for the info

Two Candian bands, Public Animal and Mokomokai, has released a split 7″ with one Deep Purple each.

The songs can be streamed online and bought as downloads but there is also an actual vinyl single released by Squirtgun Records, in purple vinyl of course! If I understand things correctly, the vinyl only seems to be available through the Toronto record store Rotate This.

Thanks to Nigel Young.

On Monday night in London there was a release party for the DVD and CD from the Royal Albert Hall Jon Lord tribute show. Many of the people who was part of the show was at the event. What Brian Johnson did there is still a mystery. More details are avaialble at metaltalk.net.

Thanks to Mark Taylor.

Those of you interested in the (audio) technical side of a Deep Purple tour should check out an article from the US tour in the online mag Pro Sound News.

The band’s both sound engineers are interviewed and the article is mainly focusing on the engineers’ approach to the sound and the equipment they use. Depending on your interests, the article might be totally confusing. For the sound engineers among us, it is very interesting.

Thanks to Nigel Young.

According to some online ticket agencies it now looks like it’s the turn of Italy to spend this year for enjoyment next year.
Tour dates posted on therockblog.net show the following dates:

30/10/2015, Palafabris di Padova
31/10/2015, Mediolanum Forum di Assago (Milano)
05/11/2015, Mandela Forum di Firenze
06/11/2015, Palalottomatica di Roma

these dates, along with the other shows in Germany and France remain unconfirmed, however may be on sale through local agencies.

thanks to Lutz Reinert for the info

The Deep Purple Community on Facebook conducted an interview with Don Airey in August 2014….

“The success of NOW What?! was overwhelming, the album is still in the TOP50 of Amazon Germany’s music charts, sitting at #2 in the Hard Rock charts right today. [the questions to the Don were sent in August 2014]. Did it came as a big surprise for you? Are you expecting the same, or, probably even better reception for a follow up next year? Fans are joking that Deep Purple returned in mainstream fashion for the third time with NW?!

The success of Now What was a real big surprise in every way, and one of the nicest too! When you make a record you don’t actually expect anything. Just hope you can get it finished, mixed, mastered, and delivered somewhere near the deadline. So at the moment we are entertaining no hopes of the ambitious kind for the next record, if and when we get it finished, but obviously our fingers are crossed. ”

You can read the full interview here

thanks to Georgi Kikonishvilli