Second part of Ian Gillan’s interview to the Artisan news Service:

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Black Country Communion 2 was released last week in the UK and is enjoying chart success. The Official Charts Company reports that for the week ending June 25 it has topped the Rock Charts and is at #23 in general Album Charts.

Polish documentary on the life of Frédéric Chopin narrated by Ian Gillan (which we’ve covered previously) has been completed. It’s got a new title — Chopin’s Story by Ian Gillan from Deep Purple — and will be aired Polish channel Discovery Historia on June 21st. The documentary was produced by TV Project and directed by Jerzy Szkamruk. So far the film has won four international awards, the most prestigious being ‘Best Documentary’ award in Florianopolis, Brazil, in 2011.

A worldwide DVD release is also in the works, with release dates to be specified “in the nearest future”. The documentary itself clocks around 23 minutes, plus there’s a 10-minute bonus interview with Ian centering on his involvement in the project. One of the proposed DVD covers can be seen on the right.

Quoting back cover of the DVD:

The movie is about the rise of extraordinary artistic genius of Frederic Chopin and documents his Polish years. Ian Gillan, the singer of rock band Deep Purple, takes you on the journey around Poland to show how his home country and the local people helped creating one of the most prominent artist in the history of music. The movie is contemporary take on how a piece of local culture morphed into beloved treasure of European heritage.

For further info visit the movie’s official Facebook page.

Thanks to Marcin Rybacki for the info.

Here’s a little roundup of the North American press coverage for the tour that was not featured elsewhere on our site.

The Examiner has a positively glowing review and slide show of the first night at New York’s Beacon Theater on June 14:

Rock music has evolved dramatically since the heydays of the 60s, with grunge, indie, heavy metal, and thousands of sub-genres offering a rich tapestry of audio brilliance. But every one of those bands, from Megadeth to Nirvana to Arcade Fire, any band that has ever written a riff and said “hey, this rocks,” owes something to Deep Purple and its distinguished lineups over the years. That made last night’s show all the more enjoyable, beyond its raucous, two hours of straight up hard rock music that made heads bang and fists pump. The members of Deep Purple are class acts all the way, even taking time to sign autographs for fans waiting on the 75th Street stage entrance, and will serve as shining examples of how rock n’ roll is done for every future rock star to come.

Read more in The Examiner.

MLive.com has an interview with Roger Glover promoting the Detroit show on June 17. He explains how the idea of an orchestral tour came around:

We tour constantly all around the world. We have high profiles in most of the places. In America, it’s dipped a bit. We thought, ‘What can we do to say hello?’ Our manager approached promoters and someone came up with the idea of extra musicians or guests or something like that. The promoters really went with it. They believed in it so we thought, ‘Why not?’

Read more on MLive.com.

Across the river from Detroit, The Winsor Star has interviewed Don Airey:

Just spoke with Jon recently. He heard we’d added Hard Lovin’ Man to the set. He told me to play the organ line just as loud as I possibly could. He also said never get in the way of Ian Paice’s (drum) fills.

Read more in The Windsor Star.

Before the start of this tour Roger Glover did an interview for The Aquarian. This one is rather interesting as it digs a tad deeper than your usual tour-promotional fare.

How is the writing going? When did you start?

In March, we all convened in Spain, at a studio in Spain, up in the mountains. Quite idyllic. We spent about nine days, just jammed every day and got a whole bunch of ideas down.

And we’ll continue working on it later this year, probably—September, October—and it’ll be out next year. I can see into the future.

I hope the world doesn’t end before it comes out.

No, no, no. I know the date the world will end and it’s not the one they say. But I’m not telling you.

That’s fine. I’d rather not know anyway. Are you writing all the time still? It seems kind of strange to get together once, then tour and go back to writing. Is that just everyone’s schedule, or do you prefer to work that way?

Well, a lot of bands kind of write on the road. They actually work as a band. We don’t actually do that. We work as five individuals, most of the time, and writing sessions have to be orchestrated almost as closely as a tour. We all have to fly in somewhere, we’ve all got to stay somewhere, etc.

We all live in different parts of the world, so you can’t exactly call someone up and say, “I’ve got a few ideas, come on over tonight.” It’s got to be a different way. So writing tends to get done in small batches as far as the band’s concerned, but individually, we’re all writing all the time anyway. That’s what we do.

Read more in The Aquarian.

After Phoenix Rising was released in Europe, several people have complained (despite our warning) that the European DVD would not play in North American DVD palyers. Well, the domestic release did not make wait long — it’s due on June 28 via Eagle Rock Entertainment. Three packages will be available: DVD+CD, CD+DVD and blue ray. We’ve covered the details earlier. We are being assured that the contents will be identical to the European releases, but we could not get a firm responce about all the extra booklets.

Order from a store near you:

DVD+CD

CD+DVD

Blue ray

New York based Artisan News Service did a short interview with Ian Gillan about the current orchestral tour:
Continue Reading »

Both of Martin Popoff’s Deep Purple books — Gettin’ Tighter: Deep Purple ’68 – ’76 and A Castle Full Of Rascals: Deep Purple ’83 – ’09 are now available in electronic form. The ebooks have been published in PDF format, which is probably not the best option for pocket size readers, but are DRM free and readable worldwide. At 182 MB each, both are rather hefty downloads. The size is said to “maintain the layout of the original book, and provide images at the highest quality”.

The ebooks are available through zunior.com for $8.88 each: Gettin’ Tighter and A Castle Full Of Rascals.

Automobile magazine reports that Nissan is introducing a new minivan to the Japanese market:

Chances are when Deep Purple wrote the song “Highway Star” back in 1971, the “driving power” they sang about wasn’t a family-friendly minivan. Nevertheless, Nissan’s used the same title on its latest minivan, the Lafesta Highway Star — which, for all intents and purposes, is simply a Mazda5.

Our automotively inclined readers are directed to Automobile magazine for further insights.

In anticipation of the June 11 show in Atlantic City, another interview with Steve Morse appeared in the local press:

I love being part of this. Musically this has been the easiest group I’ve been a part of. It’s a relaxed atmosphere.The songs are simply structured. I play with a band that has lots of intensity. It’s fun and perhaps the best thing is that you can do what you want.

We’ve been seeing a lot more teens and people in their 20s at shows. It’s a funny thing because people that age couldn’t have seen Richie Blackmore as the Deep Purple guitarist. They could have only seen me. That’s a cool thing. I want to make sure that they get the best possible experience. They need to leave the venue knowing that they have just witnessed one of the best hard rock bands ever. We have a reputation to protect every night we step on that stage.

Read more in Atlantic City Weekly.

After the show, a pretty much glowing review appeared in Press of Atlantic City:

Few bands have successfully gone through major lineup changes – particularly the replacement of its lead singer and lead guitarist – and remain together as long and stay as successful as Deep Purple.

More than 40 years after the band formed and eventually became British rock royalty, Deep Purple proved Saturday night that it still has a few tricks up its sleeve, performing to a packed Tropicana Casino and Resort showroom backed by a nearly 30-piece orchestra.

Read the rest at pressofAtlanticCity.com.

Thanks to Andrey Barabanshchikov for the info.