Before the concert in Gävle on August 10, Steve Morse spoke to the Swedish national radio and got a language lesson in the process:

Thanks to Joel Peterson for the info.

Martin Popoff did an interview with Bob Ezrin for BraveWords:

I didn’t come into this thinking that I had a mission. I came into this a little bit reluctantly, thinking that they were looking to me to make a contemporary rock album with Deep Purple, which I didn’t feel was appropriate, or could be done in an honest way. But when I met with the guys, after seeing their live show, and seeing especially the big jam that they do in the middle of the show, which was just masterful, virtuosic… after seeing that, and meeting with the guys, I realized that there was that original essence of Deep Purple that people hadn’t heard on record in a long time, and that if they wanted to do that sort of thing, I was really into doing it with them. And I think it was Roger who actually used the phrase, ‘put the deep back in Deep Purple,’ which was music to my ears, if you’ll forgive the pun. So once we figured that that would be the mission, then I was interested. I was interested in doing an album that didn’t have to tick all those boxes that modern records have to tick, that didn’t have to have the big single, that didn’t have songs that were four minutes or four minutes and 20 seconds and no longer. That didn’t have to restrict the length of solos, that didn’t have to watch what it talked about, and try to conform to current trends and fashion. So you know, they said they didn’t want to do that either, and so there we were, on the same page, and ready to rock.

Read more on BraveWords.

On May 22 Bob Ezrin received another honour when he was named the Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory in Canada.

Undoubtedly riding on the success of the 2012 Freeze Yer Ass Canadian tour, the band will commence 2014 touring in February in Scandinavia. 3 4 dates have surfaced so far: February 4 in Oslo, 5th in Bergen, 6th in Stavanger (very unconfirmed), and 11th in Copenhagen. Tickets for Oslo, Bergen and Copenhagen will go on sale August 16 at 10:00. There are indications that the gigs will be all reserved seating. If this is the case, interested parties would be wise to book early to secure good seats. Ticket links are in our calendar.

Warning: these dates have not been confirmed by Purple management, so the usual disclaimers apply.

Thanks to Bjørn Sund for the info.

The Classic Rock Awards polls are now open and our boys are in the running in two categories that you can vote for:

• Now what?! is shortlisted for Album of the Year
• Machine Head 40th anniversary is shortlisted for Reissue of the Year

As far as we can tell, any red blooded creature of 16 years of age with an email address is eligible to vote. Results will be announced on November 14 at the Roundhouse in London when Black Sabbath will receive their Living Legends award.

Cast your vote now.

Born Again has turned 30, and black-sabbath.com is celebrating the anniversary with an extended article, which includes the cover art story straight from its author Steve Joule, among many other things:

OK let’s put this baby to rest once and for all. The Black Sabbath ‘Born Again’ album sleeve was designed under extraordinary circumstances; basically what had happened was that Sharon and Ozzy had split very acrimoniously from her fathers (Don Arden) management and record label. He subsequently decided that he would wreak his revenge by making Black Sabbath (whom he managed) the best heavy metal band in the world, which, of course they are but back then in the early ’80′s they weren’t quite the International megastars that they had been in the ’70′s. His plans included recruiting Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, getting Bill Ward back in on drums and stealing as many of Sharon and Ozzy’s team as possible and as I was designing Ozzys sleeves at the time I of course got asked to submit some rough designs. As I didn’t want to lose my gig with the Osbourne’s I thought the best thing to do would be to put some ridiculous and obvious designs down on paper, submit them and then get the beers in with the rejection fee, but oh no, life ain’t that easy. In all I think there were four rough ideas that were given to the management and band to peruse (unfortunately I no longer have the roughs as I would love to see just how bad the other three were as sadly my booze and drug addled brain no longer remembers that far back), anyway one of the ideas was of course the baby and the first image of a baby that I found was from the front cover of a 1968 magazine called ‘Mind Alive’ that my parents has bought me as a child in order to further my education, so in reality I say blame my parents for the whole sorry mess. I then took some black and white photocopies of the image (the picture is credited to ‘Rizzoli Press’) that I overexposed, stuck the horns, nails, fangs into the equation, used the most outrageous colour combination that acid could buy, bastardised a bit of the Olde English typeface and sat back, shook my head and chuckled. The story goes that at the meeting Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were present but no Ian Gillan or Bill Ward. Tony loved it and Geezer, so I’m reliably informed, looked at it and in his best Brummie accent said, “It’s shit. but it’s fucking great!” Don not only loved it but had already decided that a Born Again baby costume was to be made for a suitable midget who was going to wear it and be part of the now infamous ‘Born Again Tour’. So suddenly I find myself having to do the bloody thing. I was also offered a ridiculous amount of money (about twice as much as I was being paid for an Ozzy sleeve design) if I could deliver finished artwork for front, back and inner sleeve by a certain date. As the dreaded day drew nearer and nearer I kept putting off doing it again and again until finally the day before I sprang into action with the help of a neighbour, (Steve ‘Fingers’ Barrett) a bottle of Jack Daniels and the filthiest speed that money could buy on the streets of South East London and we bashed the whole thing out in a night, including hand lettering all the lyrics, delivered it the next day where upon I received my financial reward. But that wasn’t the end of it oh no, when Gillan finally got to see a finished sleeve he hated it with a vengeance and hence the now famous quote “I looked at the cover and puked!” Not wanting to sound bitchy but over the years I’ve said the same thing about most of Gillan’s album sleeves. He also allegedly threw a box of 25 copies of the album out of his window. Gillan might have hated it but Max Cavelera (Sepultura, Soulfly) and Glen Benton (Deicide) have both gone on record saying that it is their favourite album sleeve.

Read more on black-sabbath.com.

Thanks to Nigel Young for date correction.

Roger Glover sends a message recalling (what once seemed to be) the ill-fated gig in Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic, on August 4:

On a tour full of remarkable events, the festival gig outside Brno in the Czech Republic stands out. As we arrived at the venue, we were told that there would be a delay because a heavy storm was approaching. The promoter, although initially requesting us to go on early before it arrived, decided, after watching the storm’s progress, that it would be better to delay the start to let the storm blow through. The crowd of 15,000 people were informed of this and waited patiently. So did the band and crew. We watched the skies as they darkened, waiting to see how strong it would be.

Then it hit. Hard. First came the wind, testing the dressing room tents, flapping and billowing the canvas like sails on a boat going round Cape Horn. The stage shuddered with the first blasts of wind, the lighting rig swayed dangerously and people scurried to find whatever shelter they could. Then the rain came bucketing down at a sharp angle, driven by the fierce wind and illuminated by streaks of lightning. It was decided that we in the band should head to a crew bus for safety. We sat there for an hour or so, unable to appreciate the severity of what was going on outside, fearing for the audience.

Then reports came back that the stage and some of the equipment was drenched, particularly the drums and keyboards, where the covers had been blown off, exposing the delicate instruments to the elements. The damage was serious, particularly to the keyboards. It was still raining hard and so the gig had to be abandoned and we left the drenched, long-suffering Czech audience to their silent, soggy night. Fortunately, the following day was a free day so our management team and the promoters worked out the complicated logistics of shifting things around so that we could do the show twenty-four hours later.

Of course, the following day was a beautiful, sunny one – as if nothing had happened the night before. Our crew, along with some of the local crew, stripped the gear down and carefully dried it out and reassembled it in time for the evening’s performance. We arrived, expecting to see a diminished crowd – after all, it was now a Monday and the weekend was over. Then came the biggest surprise of all; there were more people the second night than the previous one, about 5,000 more. We were amazed. Not only did all of the equipment work flawlessly, but also we had the most fantastic welcome from the crowd. It was a superb gig in every way.

The plan was to do the show, pack up, and, along with our crew, head straight to the airport for a night flight to Brussels and play the next concert that evening. An escort of police cars and motorbikes, lights flashing and sirens wailing, ensured that our convoy of vehicles raced past the traffic to the airport. I’m writing this on the plane as we head to a late check-in at the hotel and some sleep before the next show.

Good luck,
RG

Thanks to Edel Records and Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

[Updated #2: even more video] On August 1 Deep Purple headlined probably the largest heavy metal festival in the world — Wacken Open Air. Uli Jon Roth came on stage to join them for Smoke on the Water, and the whole performance was filmed in 3D for a future DVD/Blu-ray release.

BraveWords has a report:

Must admit that DEEP PURPLE seem to be a bizarre fit at Wacken, but when you step back and view the hard rock/heavy family tree there are numerous roots that need to be recognized and praised, no matter how ancient they may seen and the British icons took matters into their own hands with a wealthy catalog that’s second to none. And the not-so-recent addition of guitarist Steve Morse and keyboard maestro Don Airey, sees that classic Deep Purple sound elevated to a different groove, while longtime members Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and Ian Paice just soak in all of the glory they deserve.

So the crowd of 80,000-plus – of all shapes and sizes – lapped it up in front of the Black Stage (the True Metal Stage was empty all day in preparation of RAMMSTEIN’s massive stage show). And whether you were a kid who is barely of age to remember this current line-up of the band, or an aging metalhead who was around when ‘Hush’ ruled the airwaves (which the played as an encore by the way), Purple is a band that satisfies generations…

Read more on BraveWords.

A big portion of Purple’s Wacken performance can be streamed courtesy of German TV network ZDF (forward to 91:25):

A slightly longer version of Purple performance from another German TV network NDR (head over to their site if it doesn’t work for you here):
[video src="http://media.ndr.de/progressive/2013/0804/TV-20130804-2248-4242.hi.mp4" /]

Thanks to Claus and Joerg for the ZDF link, and to Lutz, KAZZ and nupsi59 for the NDR one.

We have reported last month that Argentinian fan club Amigos de Joe Lynn Turner was running a contest with several recent CDs as prizes, Gustavo Solinas now informs us that the winners of the contest have been chosen:

1. Anderson Guimaraes — The Jan Holberg Project At Your Service signed by Jan Holberg
2. Jimmy Carlos — Pushking The World As We Love It)
3. Tanya Lanovets and Tonni Chatterton each will receive a copy of Sunstorm Emotional Fire
4. Frank Beltran and Nicolas Paez each will receive a copy of Avantasia The Mystery of Time (with 2 bonus tracks)

Our congratulations to all the winners!

The winners should receive an email soon. In case of any mishaps, please contact Gustavo via Amigos de JLT Facebook group or JLT Yahoo group.

Thanks to Gustavo Solinas for the info.

J.J. Cale has passed away on July 26. Roger Glover posts a personal eulogy:

One evening in the early 70s, I was at my friend Kent’s place, down by the canal in Uxbridge, with Roger Brewer and Ron Quinten. We were relaxing, smoking some weed and listening to music, when I heard something that blew me away. It was an album called Naturally and I got completely taken with it. Every song was a masterpiece. I needed to know who it was. Kent said, “That’s J.J. Cale.”

Continue reading on RogerGlover.com

A message from Roger Glover was published on BraveWords:

The Montreux Jazz Festival is always a special occasion but this time tainted by the lack of Claude Nobs, whose personality dominated the event. What a legacy he’s left us. Even so, the concert was most enjoyable for us and the atmosphere was electric.

Whenever we play in Italy, I am always bowled over by the welcome we get from the Italian fans. The last few days have been no exception; the wave of appreciation coming at the stage is wonderful. And humbling. Back in 1985, we played our first concert in Milan since the early 70s and the crowd then sang every word, every riff, every solo along with us. And they were so loud that all but drowned us out. I will never forget that moment. Believe it or not, it happened again in Milan and Rome over the last few days. Afterwards, those that I spoke to also said they loved Now What?! Life is good.