Latest issue (No. 9) of the interactive iGuitar magazine has a special feature on Steve Morse with text, pictures and video. The video inteview alone lasts for almost an hour, so set aside some time and dig in. And don’t forget to check out the “Cracking the Morse Code” feature with the insight of Steve’s technique which starts on page 42.

Ian Gillan and Toni Iommi’s charity project WhoCares will release a compilation (with a few rarities thrown in) on June 22 via earMusic. Geoff Barton of Classic Rock Magazine spoke to Big Ian about the project:

Tell us about some of the stuff on the WhoCares album, beginning with the Repo Depo track.

Repo Depo dates back to 1991 or 1992. It was a three-piece – well, four, including me – very hard rocking band. We had Brett Bloomfield on bass, Leonard Haze (Y&T) on drums, and Dean Howard was the guitar player. Dean was in various incarnations of my touring bands over the years. I suppose you could call Repo Depo a kind of offshoot of the Gillan band. There are various bits and pieces of Repo Depo on YouTube, I believe. I haven’t seen them myself but Brett keeps sending me messages saying: “You must watch this, it’s awesome, man.” We must have been together a year or more. They were all staying at my house when I lived in Buckinghamshire, between tours. But then I decided to return to Deep Purple for The Battle Rages On album. I was unable to resist the clarion call.

Ian also confirmed Bob Ezrin as the producer of the new album:

To close, we simply must talk about Deep Purple. It’s true that Bob Ezrin is producing your new album?

It looks that way. I’m not sure I’m allowed to say anything until contracts are signed but it seems… let’s put it this way, I’m booking a flight out to Nashville on June 23. So I’m sure he will be [producing], yes.

June 23 is when you’re going to kick off the recording?

The whole thing, the writing and everything, yes. We’ve got six weeks to do it.

Read the whole thing in Classic Rock Magazine.

WhoCares compilation track list:

1. WhoCares – Out Of My Mind (from the CD single of the same title)
2. Ian Gillan feat, Iommi, Paice and Glover – Trashed (from Gillan’s Inn)
3. Black Sabbath – Zero The Hero (from Born Again)
4. Deep Purple – Dick Pimple (unreleased Deep Purple studio out-take from Purpendicular)
5. WhoCares – Holy Water (from the WhoCares single)
6. Black Sabbath – Anno Mundi (from Tyr)
7. Ian Gillan – She Thinks It’s A Crime (first time on CD or digital)
8. Tony Iommi feat. Glenn Hughes – Slip Away (previously only available digitally)
9. Ian Gillan – When A Blind Man Cries (live acoustic at Absolute Radio, unreleased)
10. Garth Rockett aka Ian Gillan – No Laughing In Heaven (live)
11. Ian Gillan feat. Mikhalis Ratzinkis – Getaway (available only on deleted vinyl LP)
12. Tony Iommi feat. Glenn Hughes – Let It Down Easy (Japanese bonus track of the album Fused)
13. Ian Gillan And The Javelins – Can I Get A Witness
14. Repo Depo – Easy Come Easy Go (unreleased)
15. Deep Purple feat. Ronnie James Dio – Smoke On The Water

Two more tracks are to be confirmed:

• Gillan/Glover – Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave Me
• Gillan – Don’t Hold Me Back

Thanks to Martin Johannessen for the heads up and to Ultimate Classic Rock for additional info.

Ian Paice demonstrates his signature drum kit and talks about finer points of why and how. This video was shot on April 23 at the launch of his signature kit:

Thanks to Rhythm Magazine

The Glide magazine has done a very interesting interview with Steve Morse. He talks about Flying Colors, growing up as an outsider in Georgia, his passion of flying and his passion of music:

You have played on so many albums and records doing different types of music. Do you have one that you’re more comfortable with, a particular genre that maybe excites you more than playing the others?

Well for me to answer that would sort of be a nebulous answer by saying something like Flying Colors, where there is no particular name for it. In other words, where each song can kind of live it’s own life. Like if you’re in a death metal band, you can imagine there’s a certain vibe that has to happen all the time. Same way with a country band or the same way with a polka band playing at weddings (laughs). So I like bands that feel free enough to have variety within the album and within their live set. And that seems more essential to me. In general, I think audiences are more tolerant of variety than music business people are.

…And his plans:

What do you have planned for the rest of the year?

In a couple of weeks, Deep Purple has a writing session and we’re producing an album with Bob Ezrin, who’s done KISS, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Alice Cooper, and he also worked on the last Kansas album, when I was with Kansas. So he’s one of my favorite producers and that’s going to be our studio album. It’s probably going to be more of an extravaganza. Everybody realizes we’re not going to do this forever, so to me it feels like this is a really important album to do well. So we’ve got that coming up and mixed in with that, and that is most of the summer with the album, and then I have to leave when they’re doing vocals on that to do the G3 tour. Then I have to come back, repack my suitcase and we go out with Flying Colors and the plan is to do a couple weeks in the US and then a couple weeks in Europe. That brings us to the end of September. Oops, I’m late for the G3 tour and got to get on a plane to go down to South America. Then before they go to Mexico, I have to leave the tour to come back and go straight to Russia with Deep Purple. Then I may have to come back from Russia all the way to the US and repack my suitcase and go back for another five weeks in Europe. Then it’s Christmas and then another year has gone (laughs).

In summary:

• Bob Ezrin as a producer seems to be a done deal.
• There will be Deep Purple writing and recording session (Roger Glover recently hinted that it starts in May), after which Steve goes on tour with G3 (starting in late July) and Flying Colors (tentatively in September).
• The band reconvenes at the end of October to tour Russia and Europe, by which time the album will be hopefully finished.

Read more in Glide magazine.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

The Rock & Roll Allstars package, including Glenn Hughes, were scheduled to headline the Metal Open Air festival in Brazil this weekend (April 21). However, the festival was plagued with problems and they have cancelled the gig issuing the following statement:

Rock N’ Roll Allstars are saddened to annouce the cancellation of our performance at Metal Open Air Festival in Sao Luis, Brazil.

We regret not being able to attend. We are in South America and are ready to rock, but the circumstances are beyond our control: We were informed before flying to Brazil today that many other artists have pulled out of the event, as well as local security. We are very concerned for the safety of the fans and artists whom are already at the festival.

We are receiving confirmed reports from other bands and friends on the ground that the event is dangerous and a disaster. Please be safe, and we look forward to rocking for you in the future.

Antiquiet provides the background:

The first set of problems came up when attendees found out that the camping area was set at nearby horse stables, devoid of any bathrooms, light or water supply. Due to a delay in getting the stages ready, as well as having the festival grounds meet certain security standards, the concerts began nearly five hours late – but the crowd was already aware that they weren’t getting what they came for.

At first, the line-up looked strong enough for a metal-only event. However, it suffered its first loss on Thursday, as third-day headliners Venom announced that they were no longer participating: according to a statement by the group, their South American visas were mistakenly sent to Africa. Things spiraled down from there, as a handful of Brazilian acts began to cancel their performances, stating, one by one, that they weren’t paid in time. Furthermore, Saxon, one of the main international acts, also announced they weren’t showing up, with a clear-as-crystal reason: ”Saxon is sad to announce that they have to cancel the performance at Metal Open Air in Sao Luis Brazil due to a serious breach of contract by the promoters. Having waited since march the 15th for the fee to arrive as of Friday 2pm no money has arrived.”

But the worse was still to come. “Supergroup” Rock & Roll All Stars (comprised of Gene Simmons, Sebastian Bach, Matt Sorum, Duff McKagan, Mike Inez, among others), arguably Metal Open Air’s most eye-catching act, were set to headline the second day, making their only appearance in the country, with Charlie Sheen as a master of ceremonies – for some reason. Surely enough, as with so many other acts before, the group simply didn’t get paid; Shannon Tweed, Gene Simmon’s wife, tweeted: “Allegedly the local promoter in Brazil can’t be located so we can’t pay the crew, musicians, pilots, etc & won’t make that show! #shyster.”

Eventually, the rest of the festival had to be cancelled alltogether.

Likewise, the Rock & Roll Allstars’ upcoming performance in Chile on April 25 has been cancelled as well. No reasons are given.

Update (Apr 26): It appears that the rest of the tour apart from Lima, Peru, on April 27 has now been cancelled. The official press release provides few insights as to what happened:

Rock ‘N’ Roll Allstars regret to inform our fans that the shows we had scheduled in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala and Venezuela have been cancelled. An incredible effort was made to work with local promoters to bring our show to the fans but they made it impossible for us to do so. We are saddened that we will not be coming to Central America and will do everything possible to ensure that our fans receive refunds for all tickets purchased. We are in South America and just had amazing shows in Paraguay and Argentina where thousands of fans came to hear the hits of Guns N’ Roses, Kiss, Def Leppard and more. The show in Lima, Peru [on April 27 at Jockey Club] is still on sale and the band is still playing this show. Thank you for your support and we hope to see each and every one of you soon.

Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the heads up and to Ultimate Classic Rock and Antiquiet for the details.

Roger Glover posts an update on his website. Except it’s not an update, really, but one of those semi random collections of musings which are always a fascinating read.

Sometimes I write music. I am excellent at imagining a song in my head and then battling to get some semblance of it down on tape before I forget it. Unfortunately, the simple series of notes plucked out on an acoustic guitar rarely seem to convey the mammoth-sized roar of energy I hear in my head. I promptly forget it! I have literally thousands of these snippets scattered in boxes through all kinds of formats – cassettes, CDs, DATs, cameras, Dictaphones, pieces of paper, and even reel-to-reel tapes. Without being too modest, approximately almost exactly roughly about 97.8% of these ideas are rubbish. Obviously, what I heard in my head could not be replicated, or at least I couldn’t do it. I listen to some and wonder where on earth my head was at when I pressed ‘record’! Of course, there’s the odd one that actually does turn into a song, but I have this notion that photographers take hundreds of shots to get the perfect one, artists paint over their mistakes, and so I have to write enormous amounts of crap to get one decent idea.

And the update part is:

I have the concert with Tolo Marton in Venice next week followed quickly with a writing session with my old band in May.

Read more on RogerGlover.com.

Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes will appear on the Ronnie James Dio tribute album that is being put together by Wendy Dio for a release later this year. Other artists involved are Anthrax, Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilminster, Alice Cooper, Sebastian Bach, Chris Jericho, Dave Grohl and Metallica. Metallica is also mentioned to have been asked to contribute to a Deep Purple tribute album.

Lars Ulrich:

We were asked if we’d contribute to the anniversary of Machine Head, too — we can’t turn that down. We’re circling the Dio and Purple catalogues and hopefully we’ll come up with something that is worthy of these wonderful men.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

In the spirit of celebrating the 40th anniversary of machine Head, we present you with this gem: Highway Star and Smoke on the Water performed by an octet of double basses aptly named Octobass.
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This one is for the sound geeks among us. Deep Purple were profiled in the February 2012 issue of the Total Production International magazine. They have interviewed FOH engineer Gert Sanner at the Birmingham’s LG arena last year during the orchestral tour. Gert talks about pitfalls and challenges of working with an orchestra and his approach to miking the drum kit:

The orchestra is taking the place of Steve [Morse] or Don [Airey] at times, if you like, so I have to move things about a little bit more than normal. For the second song in the set, Hard Loving Man, which is normally guitar-heavy, the orchestra is now the main focus, but the guitar still plays the part that it previously did, so I find myself having to force the guitar down a bit.

Read more in TPI Magazine.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Darker Than Blue reports that in an interview to the French magazine Rock Hard Steve Morse said:

Well I think it’s now confirmed, it’s Bob Ezrin who will produce the new Deep Purple album

Bob Ezrin is, of course, known for his production and songwriting work for Alice Cooper (most recently on Welcome 2 My Nightmare), Kiss (Destroyer, Music from “The Elder”), Pink Floyd (The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, The Division Bell) and many others. His previous Purple connections include producing Kansas’ In the Spirit of Things when Steve Morse was in that band and Dave Gilmour’s About Face, to which Jon Lord contributed keyboards.