It is official — the new Deep Purple album is called =1, and the release date has been set to July 19, 2024.

But Deep Purple is more than just their members and ‘=1’ embodies the essence and attitude of their 1970s incarnation possibly more than any other album in recent memory. With the legendary Bob Ezrin once again producing, the record evokes the pioneering band’s classic sound, without relying on nostalgia.

The enigmatic title ‘=1’ symbolises the idea that in a world growing ever more complex, everything eventually simplifies down to a single, unified essence. Everything equals one.

Its full meaning will be revealed in the coming weeks, with the artwork also playing its part. Fans have already been speculating after mysterious equations and depictions of multiverses appeared in London, Paris, and Berlin in recent days.

Track listing:

1. Show Me 03:59
2. A Bit On The Side 04:10
3. Sharp Shooter 03:44
4. Portable Door 03:48
5. Old-Fangled Thing 04:08
6. If I Were You 04:42
7. Pictures Of You 03:51
8. I’m Saying Nothin’ 03:28
9. Lazy Sod 03:40
10. Now You’re Talkin’ 04:05
11. No Money To Burn 03:21
12. I’ll Catch You 03:20
13. Bleeding Obvious 05:50

The first single is due on April 30th, and little birdie told us that it might be Portable Door.

Available formats for the album will include CD jewel case, CD+DVD digipak, 2LP (in crystal clear, picture disc, black, and purple vinyl), and cassette (sic!).

DVD content:
Access All Areas documentary with exclusive Deep Purple Behind-The-Scenes footage
Duration: 57 min
Screen Format: NTSC, 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0
Disc Format: DVD-5
Language: English
Subtitles: English, German, Spanish, French

There will also be a box set (pictured above), including

• 2LP Gatefold (180g)
• CD+DVD Digipak
• 3 x exclusive 10“ vinyl editions featuring live recordings from 2022
• Exclusive Collector’s T-shirt (Size XL)
• 2x exclusive guitar picks
• Art print
• Lanyard

Pre-orders are available via this link, and there is plenty of merchandise in the official store.

Thanks to janbl, Nohrmann, Stathis, and our editor emeritus Benny Holmström for the heads-up.

Glenn Hughes will embark on another US tour this September. He will be performing his Purple set, the tour is billed under the ‘Celebrating 50th anniversary of Burn‘ moniker. It will start on August 30 in San Juan Capistrano, CA, loop around the country in 16 dates, and finish back in California on September 28th, 2024. Chris Lafferty will provide support for the shows. Full details in our calendar.

A series of cryptic messages appeared over the past few days on various social media accounts affiliated with the band. They revolve around a new handwritten logo and an elaborate math equation, which (if my calculus serves me right) equals to one.

The timing and style of the said cryptic messages make some people to believe that this is the start of the promotional campaign for the anticipated new album.

Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the heads-up.

Guitar Player reprints online an excerpt from a vintage interview with Ritchie Blackmore that was first published in the July/August 1973 issue of the magazine.

Did you ever have lessons?

I had classical lessons for a year. That helped, because I learned how to use my little finger. A lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, so they can’t figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers.

Besides getting you to use your little finger, has classical training affected your playing in any other way?

I would say that it shows up most in the music I write. For example, the chord progression in the Highway Star solo – Bm, to a Db, to a C, to a G – is a Bach progression. The classical influence is always there somewhat, but I don’t intentionally use it that much really. I play a lot of single notes, and that’s not classical.

Continue reading in Guitar Player.

Rufus Stone publications have announced a new photo book Portraits of Gillan, covering Big Ian’s career after his first departure from Deep Purple.

ON LEAVING DEEP PURPLE IN JUNE 1973 IAN GILLAN seemed to turn his back on music. Instead of joining or forming a new outfit the vocalist instead invested heavily in a number of business projects and to all intents and purposes appeared to have retired.

But there was more to Gillan than just his work with Purple, and he’d been singing for over a decade by this time so it was inevitable that he would eventually go back to what he did best – fronting a band and so in September 1975, in Paris, the world was introduced to the Ian Gillan band.

Over the next few years the band expanded and transformed into Gillan, releasing a batch of successful albums and singles, sell-out tours, headlining the Reading Festival, guesting at the third ever Monsters of Rock event and playing a final show at Wembley Arena before the band disintegrated. What happened next surprised everyone and in April 1983, Ian Gillan, flanked by Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, was officially announced as the new singer of Black Sabbath.

PORTRAITS OF GILLAN – is a photographic celebration of Ian Gillan’s post Deep Purple career, published as a brand-new coffee-table book tracing his career with a mixture of well-known, rare and unseen photographs from some of rock’s greatest photographers. The book includes an 8000 word essay from rock journalist and writer John Tucker, tracking Gillan’s career through this period. This unofficial book is 230mm square, case-bound, 240 pages, printed on luxury 170gsm matt-coated paper. The book comes with a fold out poster and is presented in a black slipcase with a gold foil logo. The main edition comes in 500 numbered copies and sells for £55 plus shipping. In addition to this, a much larger, ultra-limited Black Leather and Metal Edition measuring 375mm square and presented in recycled leather and a hand welded aluminium metal slipcase with a screen printed logo in a run of 50 numbered copies. This edition also comes with a unique lenticular for framing and will sell for £350.The books will go on sale on Wednesday April 24th at 3pm UK time and will feature a 10% pre-order discount if ordered before April 30th. The first 200 orders will also come with a free Gillan enamel badge worth £6.95. The books will ship worldwide at the end of June 2024.

The book can be pre-ordered through the publisher. Pre-ordering opens on Wednesday, April 24th, at 3pm UK Time.

Scottish newspaper The Courier has a historic account of a Deep Purple concert at the Caird Hall in Dundee on April 18, 1974. It is accompanied by some never before published pictures from the gig.

These rare colour photographs document the night Deep Purple kicked off their UK tour in Dundee 50 years ago.

They give us a front-row seat to what it was like to be there.

The band performed at the Caird Hall in 1970, 1971 and 1972 where chunks of the ceiling fell down because of the face-melting volume.

Deep Purple was a much different proposition on returning to Dundee in 1974.

The band had cracked America with two new members in the ranks.

Lead singer Ian Gillan and bass player Roger Glover had left the band in 1973.

They were replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes who would make their British live debut at the Caird Hall.

See more in The Courier.

Image credit: Graham Kennedy

An outfit called Hypergallery has posters of Abandon artwork for sale. They are said to be limited edition (50 copies) prints “meticulously reconstructed from the original source material by artist Ioannis”.

The band had just completed Abandon and were late getting the cover art together. I sat in their manager Bruce Payne’s office along with Roger Glover who, as well as being the bass player and producer, was the art director for the band whenever I worked with them. We discussed a series of ideas and about a week later I brought them several concepts – the cover that eventually became Abandon was one of them.After that I worked with Roger on a tour book, and designed merchandise for the Abandon tour.There had been a huge rush to get the album art finished, approved, and off to the printers. Because of this, although it is one of my favourite images, I always regretted the fact that I did not have the time to work on it as I would have liked. In the creation of this edition of prints I had the chance to revisit the original source material and painstakingly recreate the artwork with all the depth and detail that I had always seen in my mind’s eye. I think what we have made, Hypergallery and myself together with the talented printers at Visual Impact, is very striking.

The prints are signed by Ioannis, and are not cheap, at £324 + shipping.

Poking further around the site, one can stumble upon another poster that might be of interest in this heck of the woods — Rainbow Difficult to Cure artwork signed by its designer Storm Thorgerson.

This Rainbow album cover design is one of a collection of archival inkjet prints that we released in 2014, celebrating previously unpublished album cover art from the Hipgnosis archives. Originally put forward as a cover for Black Sabbath’s 1978 album, Never Say Die!, the surgeons are posed in a mock rock’n’roll manner, parodying a similar narcissism which we found faintly ludicrous. Po’s friend George Galatzon took the lead role whilst the backup surgeons were played by Peter, Storm, John Blake, Hipgnosis assistant George and his mate. The supporting surgeons are set back slightly from the lead surgeon, an effect achieved by spraying a thin layer of white paint, like a mist, over the entire photo after laying a carefully cut, clear, sticky mask over the image of the lead character so that it would not receive the spray. Richard Manning added hand colouring to enhance the green outfits and the yellow of the gloves.

This one can be yours for £720.

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.

A short and sweet interview with Steve Morse in Ultimate Guitar.

How did the reunion with Dixie Dregs come about?

We’ve always talked about doing it. We did a 40-year reunion and I thought that every 40 years we can do another one…but then somebody pointed out my math as being a little optimistic – as far as longevity goes. We were in a good place we thought, with the cancer treatments my wife had been getting. So, we felt confident to do some short tours and that’s when that was booked. The guys have always wanted to play and I’ve always wanted to play. And I was out of Deep Purple, so it made the most sense.

And it turned out to be a really awkward time, but for me, it’s good that I have this and something to look forward to, playing music that I grew up playing with my friends…and playing for my friends, a lot of the people in the audience have seen us before. We know them, they know us. So, it’s sort of like going to that high school reunion that I never went to. It’s a good feeling.

I’d like to offer my condolences about your wife’s passing.

Thanks. It’s awkward. I can’t make a conversation without having her intertwined. I don’t try to, we just were very intertwined. And she loved music and traveling with me. She would be out there selling t-shirts and CD’s to people and talking to them and answering their questions. So, people knew her and liked her, too.

Read more in Ultimate Guitar.

Louder Sound reprints a feature on the events that precipitated the demise of Mark II, the formation of the Mark III, and the creation of Burn. Penned by Geoff Barton, with input from Ian Paice, Glenn Hughes, and David Coverdale, it was originally published in issue 72 of the Classic Rock magazine, dated November 2004.

[…] The trail of circumstances that led to David Coverdale – and also bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, let us not forget – becoming Purple people began in December ’72 when Ian Gillan gave notice of his intention to quit the band in six months’ time. Gillan had decided to offer advance warning so that “nobody will be able to take unfair advantage of the situation,” he stated cryptically, more than three decades ago.

David elucidates: “The weirdest thing is that when I started to crack America [with Whitesnake] hardly anybody knew I was in Deep Purple. Of course there was a huge lack of homework on the part of journalists I would talk to – and I was quite happy just talking about the ’Snake.

“But it was always a surprise for me to get back to Europe and the first question somebody in Romania would ask would be [adopts bizarre Eastern European accent]: ‘Zo Davi-i-id, how vaz it in Deep Po-o-orple?’ Because in the US Led Zeppelin were like the Pope, but Purple were the Pope in Europe. That was always fascinating to me.”

Read more in Louder Sound.

An interview with Roger Glover, originally published in the issue of New Musical Express dated June 19, 1971. Roger very prophetically talks about retiring from the incessant touring in a couple of years to focus on the production work. As we all know, this is pretty much what actually happened, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Quote of the day:

We have been criticised for not changing the stage act but people don’t want us to change. It’s a bit frustrating because you get very stale playing the same numbers. Another frustrating thing is you don’t get time to rehearse, we haven’t rehearsed since January — you come back from a tour and the last thing you want to do is rehearse.

Sounds like not much has changed in the intervening fifty-three years 😉

Read the whole thing in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.

Many thanks to Geir Myklebust for putting this up.