The long awaited Deep Purple Mark IV DVD which we detailed previously has now been completed. It will be called Phoenix Rising: The untold story of the 1975/76 MkIV world tour and release date is set for May 20th.
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Steve Morse has published a brief message on his official site:

This disaster is sobering and heart breaking. Having been in Japan and admired their earthquake preparedness, who could have imagined so much tragedy from a Tsunami in Japan? Those folks who are helping others in the face of unknown risks are true heroes. Let’s hope and pray that the suffering is mitigated as much as humanly possible.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles has an extensive interview with Glenn Hughes:

The difference between this and the last one is that there was more time to write. It’s heavier than the first one. It’s darker than the first one. It’s the same blueprint and components as the first one, but just a bigger brother.

I’m writing so much for BCC. I’m writing all the time. Obviously, we’re going to make a third record next year, so all I’m concerned about is getting the right amount of decent music… hard working rock ‘n roll songs for our band.

No, you won’t see BCC doing any ‘80s package tour or anything like that. It’s not going to happen and the reason why we’ve done album ‘2’ is because we want to have twenty-four songs to draw from when we play live. We want to have a two-hour show of nothing but BCC songs.

BraveWords.com: Is the book coming out this year?

Hughes: As you know, the luxury edition with all the bells and whistles – the music, embossed in gold and what have you is coming out in May. There will also be paperback and hardback editions coming at the end of the year…

We’re also recording a live DVD in Germany in July (which will be coming out at Christmas). That’s an exclusive for you. Nobody knows about that, so there are going to be a lot of things happening for BCC.

Read the full interview: part 1 and part 2.

David Coverdale will make an in-store record signing on Tuesday, March 29, at the Vintage Vinyl record store in New Jersey, USA. You’ll need to purchase the new Whitesnake album from the store to receive a wristband that will grant access to the event.

Vintage Vinyl is located on 51 Lafayette Rd., Fords, NJ, 08863:

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Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Black Country Communion have completed their second album titled simply Black Country Communion 2. The album will be released in the US on June 14 on Joe Bonamassa’s J&R Adventures label. In June the band will undertake a brief US tour starting June 9 in San Diego, CA, and finishing June 19 in Washington, DC.

Looks like it. There is no official word yet from the band’s management, but there are 4 North American dates that have surfaced so far with tickets already on sale:

• June 3 – Rama, Ontario (just north of Toronto)
• June 4 – Quebec City
• June 18 – Chicago
• June 23 24 – Los Angeles

The band is billed to be playing with an orchestra. They are also booked wo play with various orchestras in July in Europe. So far there’s been no word from the band’s camp as to what exactly this will involve.

In other touring news, we have a bunch of new dates for Black Country Communion, Whitesnake, Blackmore’s Night, Nick Simper and Jon Lord. It’s gonna be a very busy year for the Purple family indeed. Particularly on this side of the pond.

Full details in our calendar.

Now, here’s a cover you don’t hear every day:
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A previously unreleased set of picture of Deep Purple performing at the Bundeseisstadion Liebenau in Graz, Austria, on April 3, 1975, is being posted online at dpac.at. There already are two installments, with more to follow on a weekly basis.
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Roger Glover’s solo album, of which we first heard back in 2007 when it was provisionally titled Close Up, will now be released in June. The new title is If Life Was Easy. Considering the delay, it’s rather apt. The album will feature Randall Bramblett on lead vocals, with Gillian Glover guesting.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

David Coverdale recently talked to ultimate-guitar.com Lots of history and topics were covered. One of them being Coverdale’s idea of ease up on the screaming and go acoustic as his moves into his 60’s.

I’m 60 years old in September so I want to work this for at least another three years. God knows how long physically I’ll be able to manage “Still Of the Night” without compromise and that’s what I’m not interested in. However, it doesn’t stop me doing intimate venues and telling my stories and singing acoustic versions of certain songs ‘cause I’ve done a little bit of that. And just adored the energy and the intimate experience of being close with people; close enough just to talk. You saw Beck at Ronnie Scott’s and that type of thing [referring to the Performing This Week…Live at Ronnie Scott’s DVD]. That kind of venue where I could actually interact and not the big Tarzan rock star but an evening with David Coverdale. So that’s gonna be an interesting transition if indeed that’s how the future unfolds.

Will a Whitesnake audience accept David Coverdale as an acoustic artist? Is there a line stylistically you can’t cross as this famous hard rock singer?

Well, I don’t know; it’s nothing to do with them. I have to please myself first. One of the feelings that I have with the relationship with the hardcore of Whitesnake fans, we have a website that gets 100,000 to 200,000 hits a day all over the world. I’ve never betrayed them. I’ve let them down now and again, which is human; that happens. But I’ve pissed and made up. There are things that I wanna do and thankfully I have a core audience that goes there and sticks with me. I mean the response we had from a 90-second sound bite, in two days we had over 600,000 hits and the website was filled with, “Oh, my god, I can’t wait for the album. This is amazing.” So it feels fantastic, it really does. The song “Forevermore” incidentally is about a love that crosses all barriers and indeed lifetimes; it’s an eternal love. It’s a message not only to my beloved wife to the fans who I love and who are helping me keep the flame of Whitesnake still burning bright all of these years later.

About his friendship with old Whitesnake members:

But the good news is Bernie and I are speaking and we’re friends again after several years in the wilderness.

Could this mean Marsden is one of the names for the “special guests” show at Sweden Rock Festival this summer?

About the noodling in vintage Deep Purple:

I’d finish some songs in concert with Purple and forgot what the fuck it was we started with.

About writing lyrics for someone else:

With Blackmore, wanting to be his disciple of course in those early days, I wrote the only two sci-fi song lyrics that I’ve ever done in order to please him: “Burn” and “Stormbringer.” You know the version that I actually preferred of “Burn” was called “The Road” and it was much more a bluesy lyric.