Ultimate Classic Rock has an interview with David Coverdale where he is discussing, among other things, his plans to celebrate a life changing job offer he got 50 years ago:

With me celebrating the 50th anniversary of Purple, we’re going to be doing something, probably around October. I spoke with Glenn Hughes last year and asked if I could fly him up, to just sit down there and video us talking about our memories of getting the gig. He got the job with Deep Purple before me.

I’m hoping I can pull that off, so we can just put that on the internet for both him and I and our respective social media. Because it’s such a fucking game-changing, life-changing thing. This is how the universe works. Last week, I came into the studio and we were going over stuff to do. They said, “Oh, what do you want us to do about that huge trunk downstairs?” I went, “Uh, what huge trunk?” They bring up this thing I’ve never seen before. I said, “What’s in it?” They said, “It’s locked.” I said, “Well, break the fucking thing open!” It was my mother’s belongings. I lost my mother 20 years ago.

There’s this gift from the grave, which sounds awful, but it’s the tape that got me the audition with Deep Purple. That’s one of the things that we’re putting together now for a special release in October.

Read more in the Ultimate Classic Rock.

Louder Sound publishes what appears to be a transcription of the Machine Head recording story as told in the Classic Albums series documentary by everyone involved.

Deep Purple’s Fireball was the second album recorded with the Mark II line-up. It was another No.1 hit in the UK, but despite its success there was a nagging feeling within the band that the best was yet to come.

As 1971 drew to a close, it was time for a change of scene.

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Roger Glover (bassist): We needed to make another record, and we’d become pretty successful, and accountants and lawyers and management said: “You know, if you record outside of England you pay a different tax rate.” And that’s the reason we were in Switzerland. It could have been Germany or France, anywhere as long as it was out of England.

Jon Lord (keyboard player): We’d heard the Rolling Stones had a wonderful mobile studio, so we contacted them and we were able to get hold of that. And the reason we went to Montreux was because we were going to be in America at the end of 1971, but Ian Gillan got ill. It was hepatitis, I think – which was the disease to have at the time.

Ritchie Blackmore (guitarist): It was a very fashionable thing to have. Gillan went down with it first. And then we went back to America to do the shows we’d cancelled. And then I got hepatitis, and I ended up in a Harley Street hospital, and had about two months off. That gave me some time to write something. I came up with Space Truckin’, Smoke On The Water and stuff like that.

Ian Gillan (vocalist): Fireball gave us a chance to actually bring out what I always call the funk in the band, instead of just pure English rock. However, when we got to doing Machine Head, there was a lot of pressure to do what most people saw as a follow-up to In Rock. We’d got to get back to doing that rock stuff, and that was pretty much how we approached it.

Read more of the familiar story in Louder Sound.

David Coverdale appeared on the Rock of Nations podcast.

We are thrilled and delighted to have #Whitesnake mainman #DavidCoverdale back on the show! This time he’s talking about the brand new boxed set “Still Good To Be Bad”, featuring remixes and remasters of the heavy 2008 classic album. And of course Dave and Shane get into all kinds of other stuff with DC. Here is part 1!

The interview itself starts around 6 minutes into the podcast.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the heads-up.

Swedish Rock’n’Roll magazine publishes a 9-page Guide to Deep Purple in their latest (#4/2023) issue. It is accompanied by 3 pages of every studio album reviewed. And although this doesn’t sound like something most of our readers would be interested in, if you have to have it, the issue can be ordered through the publisher’s web store. Continue Reading »

Roger Glover was interviewed for Brazil’s Rádio Rock. The questions seem a bit contrived, so Roger is trying to make the best of it. See for yourselves. Continue Reading »

Paul Mann, Bruce Dickinson & Co. are taking their Concerto performances to Brazil. The show is wrapped up with a set of Purple classics done with the orchestras. Here is Burn as performed on the opening night of the tour, on April 15 in São Paulo Continue Reading »

Rolling Stone has a long form interview with Joe Lynn Turner, focusing on his days in Rainbow and Deep Purple. This was done for the magazine’s King for a Day series that “features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and singers who had the difficult job of fronting major rock bands after the departure of an iconic vocalist. Some of them stayed in their bands for years, while others lasted just a few months. In the end, however, they all found out that replacement singers can themselves be replaced.” And Andy Greene is, of course, the man responsible in the past few years for the excellent interviews with Don Airey, Neil Murray, Bob Daisley, and David Rosenthal, among others. Dig in!

Ronnie James Dio and Ian Gillan are two of the most beloved singers in the history of hard rock. After they laid down their vocals on Rainbow and Deep Purple classics like “Man on the Silver Mountain,” “Smoke on the Water,” “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and “Highway Star,” it was almost impossible to imagine anyone else delivering them.

But when each of them parted ways with their band, Rainbow/Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore turned to the same singer to fill the voids they left behind: Joe Lynn Turner. He fronted Rainbow from 1980 to 1984, helping them score the biggest American hits of their long career, including “Stone Cold” and “Street of Dreams.” He then joined Deep Purple in 1990 for the Slaves and Masters album and tour. This time around, fans were less willing to embrace him as the new guy. The album sold poorly, and it was ripped apart by critics. Gillan returned to the band shortly after the tour wrapped, and he’s still at the helm of Deep Purple today.

“My theory is that fans find it difficult to reconcile what they’re used to hearing with something new,” Turner tells Rolling Stone via Zoom from his home in Eastern Europe. “I don’t care who you replace or whatever happens. If they don’t hear that old familiar, they’re going to crucify you. I got crucified several times.”

Long before his hard-rock crucifications, Turner grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, as Joseph Arthur Mark Linquito. His grandmother was a country music fan who loved Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard since it reminded her of the Italian folk music of her youth, but Turner gravitated towards acts like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis instead. “I had older cousins that would spin 45s at sock hops,” he says. “I was too young to go into the parties, but I still checked out all the girls dancing with the guys. It’s really what turned me onto this stuff.”

Continue reading in Rolling Stone.

Doogie White reminiscences about his days in Rainbow Continue Reading »

Simon McBride spoke to Colombia’s El Expreso Del Rock. Listen to the interview here Continue Reading »

Sleaze Roxx has a fresh interview with Don Airey, done on the occasion of the band’s upcoming shows in Brazil. And in this one, questions dig a bit deeper than the usual fare.

Sleaze Roxx: I would like to begin by thanking you for your time and willingness to answer the questions below. First, could you assess Deep Purple’s current momentum, please? The band comes from a very good sequence of albums produced by Bob Ezrin, but also suffered the loss of Steve Morse. In short, you win on one side and lose on the other. What would you say?

Don Airey: It’s a musical fact of life that bands’ line-ups are ever changing. The circumstances in which Steve had to retire from Deep Purple were sad indeed, but a bit of new blood seems to have revitalized the whole operation — band wise, crew wise, management wise — so musical life goes on and we are looking forward to getting back together with Senor Ezrino sometime this year.

Sleaze Roxx: About the albums produced by Bob Ezrin [2013’s ‘Now What?!’, 2017’s ‘Infinite‘, 2020’s ‘Whoosh!’ and 2021’s ‘Turning To Crime’], in what aspects do you believe they differ from those the band had been producing before his arrival? Do you believe he has sort of taken on an unofficial sixth member role? What could you say about working with him and the albums resulting from this partnership?

Don Airey: We connected with Bob after a concert in Toronto in 2012. He was obviously impressed and got down to work with us almost immediately. He is a tough taskmaster but very sympathetic too, and just told us to be ourselves, do what comes naturally, but squared! Yes, he plays quite a creative part in the construction of the songs, but I wouldn’t say — nor would Bob — that he is the sixth member. There is a sixth member incidentally, but nobody has really seen him – felt his presence, yes! The albums have been very successful sales wise and well received when playing them live – the best in my humble opinion being ‘Whoosh!’.

Continue reading on Sleaze Roxx.