An outfit called VWMusic spoke recently to Simon McBride, and that resulted in an interesting interview.

Andrew: Can you recount the initial call you received to fill in for Steve Morse?

Simon: Well, there was talk of me stepping in for Steve temporarily towards the end of last year in 2021, but I never really thought much of it. I never thought much of it because it was always a case of, “It may happen, or it may not happen,” because it depended on Steve’s wife’s condition as to whether he would be able to tour. But it just got to the stage where Steve decided enough was enough, and he needed to look after his wife, which is an amazing thing he’s doing. So, I knew it was possible, but I didn’t know for sure; I only really found out recently that I was being confirmed as a permanent replacement.

Andrew: I chatted with Ian over the summer, and he mentioned that Deep Purple may start working on some new music in early 2023. Are there any updates in the way of new Deep Purple music?

Simon:
At the minute, I’m just focused on the tour. As you said, there’s been whispers of new stuff, but we haven’t done any writing or anything yet, so we’ll have to play it by ear. I take things as they come to be honest, and my main focus of attention right now is these shows with Deep Purple and having an amazing tour. But I’m always writing stuff on the road; it can be for me, or it can be for Deep Purple, so we’ll see how things unfold in terms of new music.

Read the whole thing in VWMusic.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

It sounds like Black Country Communion (remember them? — an on and off “supergroup” of Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham, and Derek Sherinian) might record another album. Bonamassa spoke recently to Lazer 103.3 radio station and said:

We have quite the group chat going right now. So we’re gonna start — Glenn and I are gonna start working on writing some songs. We’re just gonna get together in October, next month, and we’re gonna start. And we’re gonna see if we can get everybody’s schedule lined up for next year and do another record. ‘Cause I really miss those guys. And when we fire on all cylinders, there’s nothing better.

I like nothing more than to be a member of a band and playing guitar. I don’t have to front it; I don’t have to sing all the time. And it’s a lot less pressure than being the front person. Being the person in front is a special skillset. You have to be an entertainer. You can’t just sit up there and stare at your guitar and go, ‘Wow. Look, I can play guitar pretty good.’ That’s not gonna fill the theater. You have to put on a show. And to put on a show requires being an entertainer. So being in a band, the sum of the parts is greater than the single entity. So this thing where Glenn co-fronts BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION, I can just sit back and play rhythm guitar and watch him do his thing. He’s a legend. And then conversely, Glenn doesn’t have to sing all night; I’ll sing three or four [songs]. So we kind of spread out the whole workload a little bit.

Listen to the interview in its entirety on Soundcloud.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the heads up and quotes.

Jens Johansson, the keyboard player for the last incarnation of Rainbow, spoke to Blabbermouth on the future prospects of the band:

I don’t know. You never know. At the moment, of course, with the pandemic, everything went completely right down to zero, all activities. I think he’s back to doing some stuff with BLACKMORE’S NIGHT. To be honest, that’s where his heart is. If he has to focus on one band, that would be the number one priority. I was always joking that BLACKMORE’S NIGHT was ‘the’ band and RAINBOW was his basement band. [Laughs] Like a project. Whenever we would do European gigs with RAINBOW, it was somehow that the gigs would be placed around when certain castles were unavailable. [Laughs] It was like, ‘Sweden Rock has 40 to 50 thousand people.’ They’d say, ‘No, it’s on the wrong weekend. This castle is available, so fuck Sweden Rock.’ That was the attitude that BLACKMORE’S NIGHT is the priority, which I think is cute.

It was a lot of fun. But most people understood that this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Ritchie, he’s a little bit like a cat: You never know what he’s going to think. The next month he’s ‘No, I don’t want to go out.’ Then it’s ‘No, I don’t want to go out. I want to go in.’ You can’t predict which way he’s going.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new documentary about Ronnie James Dio out. Truly yours ventured to movie theater this past weekend (for the first time in umpteen years), and here are some of my thoughts.

It is fairly well put together. David “Rock” Feinstein, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Wendy Dio, Lita Ford, Rob Halford, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, Vinny Appice, Sebastian Bach, and many others were interviewed for the film. I guess expecting an appearance from His Blackness was too much to ask, and absence of Vivian Campbell who even after all these years is not on speaking terms with Wendy Dio was rather conspicuous. Many an anecdote was shared, a lot of previously unseen footage was shown, and even more of the previously seen, but long forgotten. The film goes into great detail of Ronnie’s early years, but is also quite skimpy on his career between early 1990s and the Heaven & Hell reunion. And from our point of view that includes the glaring omission of his participation in the 1999 Concerto celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall and subsequent tour with Purple.

Verdict: not sure i can recommend going to a theater, but if you have a chance to catch it on a streaming service, do so without hesitation. And if you do end up in a theater, stay put until after the credits finish rolling and bonus outtakes start — they are hilarious.

Australian musician Stefan Hauk have previously appeared on these pages for his collaboration with Paicey. Stefan not only plays guitar and sings, but also does keyboards, drums, and bass. On top of that, he has the cojones to tackle Child in Time all on his own. Continue Reading »

A rare beast in this universe — an interview with Nick Simper, courtesy of Karen Beishuizen for the the RingSide Report.

KB: You played bass on the first 3 Deep Purple albums and then left: what happened?

To say exactly what went wrong could be a book in itself! The whole episode is a very long story which I will soon be dealing with in depth during a future chapter on my website. The short version is that a new vocalist was secretly selected without my knowledge, and he came with a bass player as a complete package. The group chose expediency over loyalty, which became their trademark, and so I left before I could be pushed!

KB: In 2016 Deep Purple was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Alle members from 1968 – 1974 were inducted but you as one of the founding members were snubbed: Why and how did you feel about this?

I never viewed the Hall of Fame as relevant to rock n roll and as such it held little interest for me. Of course, to be honored after a lifetime in music would have been appreciated although not expected. In the end only one original member of the group was present, and apparently even the other members were uneasy at my exclusion, but to me it held little importance and was a farce very quickly forgotten.

Read the whole thing in RingSide Report.

Nick is performing with Nasty Habits in Vienna on October 8.

Steve Morse has recorded an instructional video of him performing a bespoke piece The Dude Ranch written by Jason Sidwell. The full video, audio, backing track, tab/notation transcription, and chord chart will feature in Guitar Techniques magazine issue GT341, available from 19th October 2022. Continue Reading »

This gentleman going by the online moniker Börje Unchained definitely has an unchained imagination. He records instrumental covers of metal songs as if they were written and performed by another metal band. He went all out for Smoke and did it in no less than 6 different styles: Testament, Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Slipknot, and Tool. And by the way, the dude is looking for a singer…

Yet again it’s time to check out how things would have gone in a parallel universe. Or in 6 different parallel universes. What if Tool made Smoke on the water? What if Metallica wrote it? Slipknot? Well I visited a few alternative timelines just so you guys won’t have to. I listened these songs there and they were all hits there and I brought them home with me. Check ’em out. Peace and love! ☮️❤️

It ain’t everybody’s pint of lager, but enjoy if it’s yours!

As the saying goes: it’s not a tree, it’s a jungle. Several branches and vines of said jungle have intertwined on a new album by Ruffyunz. It is a project of bassist Randy Pratt (Cactus/The Lizards), engineer/producer with songwriting credits JZ Barrell, and session vocalist Ed Terry (Stevie Wonder, Slash, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Talking Heads, Simply Red, Little Steven, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, David Lee Roth, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner — to name a few!) The band’s concept is to invite well known drummers, guitarists and keyboard players as guests on their records. Guest artists featured on the project’s second offering Ruffyunz II include Don Airey, Bobby Rondinelli, Dave Maniketti (Y&T), Pat Thrall, Tracy G. (Dio), and Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake).

Randy Pratt says:

Hey folks, here’s a first look at a video for a song from our upcoming release Ruffyunz II, reuniting my longtime rhythm section partner, Bobby Rondinelli on drums. We have a groovy list of guests Don Airey (Rainbow, Ozzy and Deep Purple for decades) on smoking Hammond B-3, Dave Maniketti on BADASS guitar, Tracy G. (Dio & WW III) on BRUTAL guitar, Joel Hoekstra from Whitesnake…AND starring in our video, Pat Thrall from the CLASSIC Pat Travers band line up, Hughes Thrall, Asia…and if you’re old AND cool enough to know the band AUTOMATIC MAN…that’s Pat! Please check out ‘Hype in My Head’ and watch for the imminent release of our new album, Ruffyunz II on Hyperspace Records.

The album is available for streaming courtesy of Hyperspace Records:

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.

In this new interview with Blabbermouth, Doug Aldrich talks about working with the diverse vocal talents of Ronnie James Dio, David Coverdale and now Glenn Hughes — all members of the Purple family one way or another.

Blabbermouth: What was the situation like when Glenn came down with COVID-19 and you had to enlist Dino (Jelusick, vocals, WHITESNAKE) and Yogi (Lonich, bass)?

Doug: We were bummed. We were concerned because we tried to protect Glenn and make sure he didn’t catch anything the whole time. In fact, when I caught it, David and I got it right before a big festival in France. We had to cancel the festival and the one the next day. David tested positive the next day, but I was still negative. To be safe, I tested myself again and I was negative. Then, I tested Glenn and he was negative. Later in the day, I tested myself again and was positive, so I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’ I was worried about Glenn catching it. We were just going to go home. We didn’t want to do anything without Glenn. There was one thing — everyone was bummed because there were a couple of shows, one in Switzerland and in Germany, that were headline shows. We had promoted it and gotten so many people from other parts of the world who made plans to fly in. It was this extravaganza — basically, a hangout, a musical hangout. We were bummed we would have to make people change or cancel flights and hotels. All of a sudden, you know, everybody knows everybody — Yogi had been filling in already for a couple of shows over the years for David. Yogi knew the set. He had done one show with us and knew the set. Then, we didn’t think of anything, but somebody said, ‘Dino is home because WHITESNAKE just canceled because David [Coverdale] had a sinus thing.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute — both of those guys are in Croatia. That could work.’ Of course, we didn’t want to do anything without Glenn, but with his approval, we finished the tour and maintained our commitments. That’s all we were trying to do. We didn’t want to let the fans down who were planning to come party with the band. We carried on. It was nerve-wracking. I felt responsible for making sure we didn’t suck.

Continue reading in Blabbermouth

Photo: © 2015 Eddietherocker, some rights reserved