Exklusives ROCK FM Interview mit Deep Purple

DEEP PURPLE haben gerade erst ihr neues Album „=1“ veröffentlicht. ROCK FM hat den Lange nach Düsseldorf geschickt um die britischen Hard-Rock Veteranen zu interviewen. Er traf sie in einem Fünf-Sterne-Hotel ganz in der Nähe der Königsallee und durfte mit pochendem Herzen Platz auf dem Sofa nehmen, links von ihm Bassist und Produzentenlegende Roger Glover, rechts von ihm Tastenmagier Don Airey.

Hier das komplette, exklusive ROCK FM Interview mit den britischen Hard-Rock Legenden - zum Lesen oder Anhören, auf Englisch!

Lange: I am sitting here today with Deep Purple or at least Roger Glover and Don Airey and it’s the 19^th July 2024, a momentous date, if I can say it like that. The release date of your 23^rd Album. How will this day look for you?

Don Airey: We’re just looking forward to the release of our 24^th album.

Lange: Oh, did I say 23^rd? I am sorry.

Don Airey: I am just being a little cheeky.

Lange: 24^th, yeah. I am sorry, I was just thinking about the last album I guess. How will that day look for you?

Don Airey: We are in Belgrade or somewhere like that so it will just be another day. You know, we got a concert. “Oh we’ve got an album out, all right. Fancy Beer.” (laughs)

Roger Glover: We’re off to Madrid tomorrow with the start of the tour.

Lange: Oh, tomorrow you go to Madrid? Tomorrow starts the Tour, alright. I didn't not know that

Roger Glover+Don Airey: Tomorrow and then for six months.

Lange: Okay, I got this classic rock magazine here. On the front page: Deep Purple from the seventies and on the back it’s Alice Cooper. There are many bridges we could take to Alice Cooper but the most obvious one is - I guess - Bob Ezrin. Was it ever up for debate to choose another producer for your new record or could it only be Bob?

Don Airey: No, it wasn’t a debate. Having done four albums with him already, there’s no reason to change. He’s good, I mean in the last 12 years the or so the bands fortune has changed enormously. Before that we haven’t really thought much about albums, we didn’t chart very much, we were busy working on the road. Working on an album wasn’t our priority until Bob came along. The first one Bob did, went to number one so speaks foportabler itself really.

Lange: Never change a running system. I bet the fans want to know something about the production, the vibes during the recording sessions. Any funny Stories?

Don Airey: Well, it was recorded in Toronto and the worst part about it was the drive to the studio everyday and the whole band was in the van and there were traffic jams and the drive was almost 45 minutes, so we got there all very grouchy. (laughs) And then the drive back was an hour ‘cause of the traffic when we were finished. In between we had a lot of fun. I think…when we got to the studio:  “Let’s get going, let’s get something going” and it all happened very quickly. We did 15 Tracks in eleven days more or less…you know most of the solos were done, most of my overdubs were done. Yeah, I am very quick.

Lange: 15 tracks in eleven days, that’s…

Roger Glover: …we work very quickly, you know it’s called professional.

Lange: I’ve heard about it. Okay, can we talk about the songwriting? I guess you wrote them all together but in Germany we have a saying that goes: “Zu viele Köche verderben den Brei.” I think you got it too, in english: “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” So, when it comes to assembling the puzzle pieces of a new song, are there like “departments” within the band? You just do your bassline, you invent your organ parts, Gillan writes the lyrics, whatever… Or does it happen, that you as a bass player - for example - come in and say: “Oh, something really strange just happened to me on the street, I got a song idea!”

Roger Glover: No…

Don Airey: Every time he comes in he says: “Something really strange just happened to me!” (both laughing)

Roger Glover: The last strange thing was that I fell over and broke my thumb. But we write in a different way to what most bands write. Most Bands would write a song and then go into the studio and record it. We go in the studio the other way around. We record the backing track first without any clues of what is going to go on top, what other song. And it’s down to Gillan or Gillan and I, because we were songwriting partners before even joining Purple and that’s when we figure out what’s going to go on top. And so, the other lads in the band have no idea until we send them the mp3s like: “By the way: This is the song. And I am praying that you like it.” So, it’s a different experience. And I think it works for us. It's been that way since 1969. When I first met the band it was Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lorde, Ian Paice. Stellar musicians, brilliant musicians, can play anything, anytime. You even got to just say hardly anything and they’re playing. It’s all about the playing and that hasn’t changed much. And now we have Don Airey and we have Simon McBride. All stellar musicians. So, the playing is fun. Figuring out what to go on top can be fun but it's a bit more challenging.

Lange: All right. “=1” captures the purest classic Deep Purple sound without relying on nostalgia. That's what it says on your website, I think. I want to know: What's new, what's different? Which new approaches did you give a try?

Roger Glover: Well it's a different recipe. If there’s five ingredients in a recipe and you change one of them, it's going to change the end result and Simon coming in has changed the band enormously. He's younger than us, challenges us to keep up with him. He plays with a sort of straight-ahead approach, great sound and a brilliant player as much as Steve is a brilliant player as well, let's not forget that. He's spent 28 years with us. It's a change of scenery. And it’s really done us a lot of good I think.

Don Airey: It had signal effect as soon as he came in. As soon as he started playing, you know, the first rehearsal, we got three days rehearsal and we don’t even need that really. It just seemed to work straight away. I mean that’s what happened with The Beatles, you know? They had a drummer called Pete Best. And Pete was a lovely guy, apparently. But he couldn’t make a gig, so they got Ringo to come in and as soon as Ringo started playing the whole band just went: “That’s It! That’s what we’ve been waiting for!” And Pete didn’t come back. They didn’t tell Pete he was fired, they just never called him again and Ringo got the job. I mean, horrible.

Roger Glover: (laughs) That's something that also happened in Purple. Nick Simper and Rod Evans didn’t know they were being fired until they read about it in the papers.

Lange: Seriously?

Roger Glover: Meanwhile Gillan and I recorded a single with the band, unbeknownst to them.

Lange: Do you miss Ritchie Blackmore sometimes? I mean, I’ve read a lot about him. I’ve never met him, so I won't judge a person I've never met. Was it difficult with him?

Roger Glover: I miss him, but my aim is getting better.

Lange: That’s a good one! Okay “Pictures Of You”. It's really catchy! It gets better every time you hear it. Yeah, I really love the outro, the transition to “Portable Door”. I love the oRoger Gloveran part you play there. What can you tell us about the recording of “Pictures Of You”?

Don Airey: I mean, most of it came from Simon. But I don’t really remember playing that bit. I don’t know whether it was part of something else and Bob Ezren just stuck it on. I´m not quite sure but when I heard it, I was in transpire and I think the video is really, you know, fantastic video. Well, I watched it and went: Oh, is that us? You know, it's really, really good and it just made me feel very good about it. I´ll tell you what I really liked, it was the sound coming through the little speakers on the Mac, which is so powerful.

Lange: The sound is fantastic. I mean it's really a gigantic wall of sound.

Don Airey: I mean that’s down to Bob. I don’t know how Bob does what he does. He's got some secret compressors and like all these great Producers they’ve got something and they won't tell you. Or they'll say:” I’ll tell you but then I have to kill you”, as Eddie Kramer said to me.

Lange: Okay, and Portable Door, the next Song on the tracklist. Both Songs have a nice drive and this big wall of sound. What else can you tell us about Portable Door?

Roger Glover: Ian Gillan was very driven in this album, because he was scrolling in his exercise book because we were learning the songs. And it came as a surprise to me when I went down to Portugal to talk to him about the lyrics and stuff he'd already done it and I saw the title: “Portable Door”. Wow, that’s great! That’s a great title, you know? Because what is a portable door? It’s wonderful

Lange: Never heard about it.

Roger Glover: So yeah, Ian has a very active imagination and a curiousness about everything. A curiosity I should say. And that’s one of them, that’s just an example of it, you know? I wouldn’t have thought of that. We were staying in Toronto in a place called Yorkville, which is a kind of hipster area and money and Ferraris and Lamborghinis roaring past all the hours of the night. And so his opening line is: “When it came to me one day in Jerksville” cause anyone that drives a Lamborghini in a crowded set up…

Lange: Don’t you do?

Roger Glover: They’re crazy, you know? They’re Jerks… no I don’t, no. Things tumble out, you know? We don’t plan things really that much. We just let things happen. Cause things are going to happen, whether you like it or not.

Lange: Wise words. I realized most of the songs are pretty short for Deep Purple. I mean if you think back: “Child In Time”, “Space Truckin’” and “Lazy”. Back in the day songs with 7 to 10 minutes were pretty normal and now the last one is the longest one: “Bleeding Obvious”. I personally love it when a song takes its time. Do you think there will maybe be a comeback for songs with overlength in the near future, maybe even on the radio or is that just a chapter that is gone forever?

Don Airey: I think it's gone forever. I think attention spans have changed and people want something to happen all the time. I think that was part of the plan actually. Bob Ezrin said: “If we can keep everything down to four minutes, you know, that would be the…” Not three, he didn’t want a three-minute song, but a four-minute song. If we can say what we have to say in that time, it’ll be very good for the market. And I think he was right but we did have that one long track and I think if every track was a long track, you just wouldn’t be going: Play that. I mean, everybody said to us: Bleeding Obvious is amazing. But if we had three other long tracks everyone would go: “Oh it’s a bit boring, another long track!” What I am trying to say: It’s the contrast that makes it interesting as well

Roger Glover: I agree with all that but I think there is room somewhere on another album…I'm of “The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys” by Traffic, which goes on for about ten minutes and basically is a jam and we jam a lot when we’re writing songs, but we don’t actually jam when we’re in the studio making an album enough, I think. There’s probably more room for that.

Don Airey: You know why that is? It’s Paice! If we are jamming he just suddenly stops and starts fixing his drums cause we’re not paying him enough for all that.

Roger Glover: Well we’re about to sack him! (laughs) No, don’t tell anyone that! Especially not him.

Lange: I won’t. I will be as calm as a grave. I’ve got to admit, I never really saw Deep Purple as a spiritual Band until now. Maybe I never listened.

Don Airey: We drink beer…mainly (laughs)

Lange: Would you say that Deep Purple is in some kind of way a spiritual band?  because I remember, in 2010 you played a charity concert in the Armenian capital of Jerewan to build a music school there and Ian Gillan called Armenia his “spiritual home”. Is it just my ears or does the new record deal with more spiritual stuff, if I may call it that, than before.

Roger Glover: Well, the Albania thing was between Ian Gillan and, what’s his Name? Black Sabbath…Tony Iommi. That was their thing. Although we’ve played Albania before. But I wouldn’t call it a spiritual band but there is a kind of destiny about being together. And the fact the we’ve been together for so long and weathered all the storms in deep, peaks and valley in between and somehow still come out intact. There is a kind of spiritual quality. I think we all believe in what we do, it's not a pursuit of fame or riches or glory or women or drugs or anything like that, it´s…

Lange: You’re not after the Lamborghinis…

Roger Glover: It’s about the, no no, it’s about the music. The music is what really drove Purple in the first place and still does, you know? We love what we do.

Don Airey: You know, I’ve had session and I work with other people and used to get around a bit musically but I always stay playing with this band. A soon as we start the first rehearsal, it feels like someone is coming up behind me with a big plan of wood and whips me on the back and duglhudlkdkd… And it’s not the volume. It’s something that you can’t describe, which is the essence of heavy rock, it’s the intensity and the common purpose that everybody must have in the band to make a sound like that. You know, it’s a weird thing, the volume thing. I mean we’re all out but that’s not where the power comes from. The power comes…

Roger Glover: From combination of characters and backgrounds. Sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Don Airey: Thank God you did! We did a gig once in Birmingham with Gary Moore. It was when noise measures were coming in and we couldn’t play above 105 and I said (…) I said:” Who is the loudest Band you’ve ever heard, I didn’t hear any. So, the loudest person was Vladimir Horowitz. He was playing a grand piano acoustically and the decibel went to 124. And they thought it must be wrong so they went to get it fixed, he did two nights. Next night, the same thing, 124 decibels. That’s as loud as Concorde, and I mean it was a little louder, but big… But there's something more to music, the volume side than turning everything up. It comes from an… there´s an intensity with music. It's the hardest thing to get. I’ll shut up now…honestly! 

Lange: In August you will celebrate 50 years of Smoke On The Water and you will tour North America once again, is that right?

Don Airey: Yeah

Roger Glover: No.

Lange: No, damnit!

Roger Glover: It's right that we gonna be touring America but it's wrong to say we´re celebrating 50 years.

Lange: But wasn’t it the name of the tour?

Roger Glover It’s the record company doing. We didn’t think: “Oh, Smoke On The Water is 50 years old, let's celebrate!”

Lange: I should have known that.

Roger Glover: They market it the way they want, it has nothing to do with us, really other than we have to say: “Oh okay.”

Lange: That brings me to my next question. Are you sometimes a little bit annoyed that everyone still talks about “Smoke On The Water”. I mean, even this article. I love the article in the Classic Rock Magazine but the first few pages were all about “Smoke On The Water” as if there wouldn’t be any other track or any other LP. You made so many wonderful albums. Does it annoy you sometimes?

Roger Glover: Not really. I mean it annoys me when America calls it “Classic Rock” and they only play “Smoke On The Water” or “Hush” and that’s it. You know, we have hundreds of songs. That’s kind of annoying but eh, what the hell, you know? “Smoke On The Water” always defines what we are. It wasn’t planned that way. We didn’t sit down and say: “Right let's write a Rock Anthem but it happened and it's a song I’m proud of but it wasn’t planned. It was almost an add on to the album. We almost finished the album before we realized we needed one more song and that was a jam we did in a different place in Montreux and yeah, okay, we can work on this and we just threw together the lyrics and let’s write a story about what happened to us then. Who knew at that point that that was gonna be the one, you know?

Lange: I know you thought of it as a B Side or just an album track. Okay, back to North America, once again a saw it happens that you play like three gigs in a row on stage every night. Less time leaves not much time to relax and recharge the battery so during the day time, only yoga, meditation, smoothies or the pure energy of Rock ‘N’ Roll is enough or how do you do that?

Don Airey: Well my brother used to work with Tom Jones, he’s a guitarist, and Tom Jones used to say:  “Oh it’s the days off I can’t stand.”

Roger Glover: They’re not days off usually, they’re travel days.

Don Airey: But three in a row is easy. Everyone thinks: ”Oh, how do you do it?” Well, how do you not do it? It’s the best thing ever!

Roger Glover: And we’re glad it’s just three, it used to be five in a row, six in a row when we were younger. But we’re not younger anymore.

Lange: I didn’t realize.

Roger Glover: Well I didn’t realize until just now.

Lange: Rumour has it The Rolling Stones have a gigantic vault full of ideas and unfinished songs. I mean, when it comes to your discography there must be so much stuff from Deep Purple. I mean, you’re rocking since ‘68, there must be a chest full of uncut diamonds somewhere in the basement, right?

Roger Glover: Not really, essentially, we’re a lazy band, you know? We record enough for an album, occasionally there’s one or two tracks more, but not a lot.

Lange: I remember a song called “Lazy”.

Roger Glover: You do? You’re older than you look. No, I mean, I don’t know what the Stones have got, maybe they stole some of ours but we don’t have a lot of extras. We have a lot of jams, but badly recorded, which I wouldn’t call that something we could release one day, except who knows…

Lange: If they would put you into a retirement home, in a few decades of course - God forbid -  and there was a fight over Beatles vs. Stones, who would you join forces with?

Don Airey: Oh, Beatles.

Roger Glover: Beatles. I like the Stones, don’t get me wrong. But the Beatles broke all the rules and ruled the world, you know? Ringo said the Beatles came in and saved the world from dying of boredom. And that’s kinda true, cause life back then, it really was kinda boring.  It was black and white and the Beatles came out and it went to color.

Lange: Okay, Mr. Glover, no Roger, sorry. As a producer you worked with so many great artists and bands, of course. I could ask you, like a million questions, I guess. Just allow me this one: 1976, “Calling Card”. Can you still recall how it was, working with Rory Gallagher, because I really adore his work.

Roger Glover: Yes, I can. I was actually planning to do a solo album and I booked some time in Munich in Arabella House, Music Land, there’s a studio in the basement there and I got a call saying that Rory wanted to do an album fairly quickly, so I said: “Well okay, I will donate my time that I booked and you can use that.” And we worked with Rory when he was in The Taste so we knew…I didn’t know him well but we certainly worked with him before, toured with him.

Lange: Deep Purple toured with The Taste right?

Roger Glover: Yeah, yeah and anyway… he turned up with the band and, I mean, I was a fan. He’s one of these great guitarists that seem to go under the radar. I was happy to work with him, the only problem was, we were five days in the studio, we only had two weeks, we were five days in the studio before we got anything down on tape, because he was having “too much fun”. The Guinness flowed, he did get on mic and he’d pretend to be a southern preacher and it’s hilarious and everyone had fun and I finally said: “Rory”, I said, “I’m gonna have to walk away from this project unless we get some progress here.” And finally he did and yeah, I love the album, the songs he wrote, “Moonchild” and “Country Mile”, there are lots of great songs and he’s a lovely man, lovely man. I was very sad when he left this planet.

Lange: Thank you for sharing this.

Don Airey: You know the Hendrix interview?

Lange: Of course, I know what he said: “You wanna know what the best guitar player, what it feels like. You gotta ask Rory Gallagher.” Mr. Airey, one could say the same thing about your career. Brian May, Rainbow, Whitesnake - you name it - but could you maybe tell us something about working with Garry Moore in the late seventies. Did you maybe also meet Phil Lynott and Brian Downey from Thin Lizzy?

Don Airey: Yeah, I knew them really well, but it’s a funny story meeting Phil Lynott. Gary came around, we were practicing something for Colosseum II and he said: “Oh, you know Phil lives around the corner?” This is in West-Stansted. So, we went up and knocked on his door to the flat and the door was open, so we walked in and there was nobody around and Gary goes: “Oh he’s probably just gone to the shops or something. We just sit down, there was this big Zebra skin, it was a very ornate flat, a big Zebra skin on the sate. So I sat down right…and Phil Lynott was underneath it. Fast asleep! And he emerged and he said:” Hello Boys, top of the morning to you!” That’s how I met Phil.

Roger Glover: When I lived in America…Gary, after “I Still Got The Blues” moved to America for a year and he lived literally two streets away from where I lived in Connecticut. So I got to know him pretty well, you know, going out for a meal and stuff. And one day I went out to knock on his door and I went and rang the Bell and no one answered and I thought, he has got to be in, the car is still here. So I looked in the window, Gary was all by himself in front of this big PA, just wailing away playing the Blues and that’s why he didn’t hear me. He was just lost in it. I watched him for a couple of minutes, and was like oh, “that’s a dedicated man”, you know “he loves what he does” and he was a brilliant guitarist. I actually worked with him in my little homestudio and he did things with my Stratocaster that I couldn’t replicate, when he left. “How does he bend the strings like that?” His fingers were like, so muscular and so strong and he’s pitch perfect. Pitching was perfect, so I’m a fan.

Lange: I got another strange question. What advice would you give to a young band today? Play as many gigs as they can or try to achieve fame via TikTok and stuff using every new technology there is, AI. Or do you have any advice for a young band in these days?

Don Airey: I mean, my advice used to be, I used to say: Where do you live? And if they say: “I live at home with my mum and dad.” I go: Just pack your bags and leave home, go and set up on your own, you know? That’s what you gotta do. You gotta be independent.

Roger Glover: My advice would be to find out who you are. Cause when you’re young you got Idols, you copy your Idols and it’s not really until you get a little bit older you realize what it is you have to offer and you can’t be like everyone else, you can’t pretend to be someone else. Just be yourself, but you gotta find out who you are first.

Lange: Wow, I can learn a lot here. Okay, of course the first two new singles from “=1” were instantly available on Spotify and co. The dopamine boost when your favourite band releases a new track is pretty small maybe these days compared to the old days. I mean, there were different times when you had to go on, like a hunt to your favorite record store. Of course, there are some vinyl lovers left but do you sometimes miss the good old days when there was (more) something to touch, something physical for music?

Don Airey: Absolutely, yeah, but I think it’s coming back. I mean thinks like that, you know, vinyls are starting to be a big seller in England again. And they’ve got record shops just full of vinyl.

Roger Glover: When you’re streaming, you can’t touch it, hold it. You know, there’s something about holding something that you bought, gives you a satisfaction. Just turning on your speakers and listening doesn’t do that. You can’t own it, somehow you’ listen to it but I think music plays less an important part in people lives. Back in the fifties, sixties, seventies, even eighties…music was forefront with sport. They’re the two avenues you could get to the top on. No matter who you were or where you come from or how much money you got or whatever. They’re the two things and that’s diminished a lot, because now there’s all sorts of other things that people can get up to, so music is not that important, but it still is important to us.

Lange: I met an older man on the train, he saw me working on my questions for the interview and of course he had a connection to your music. His question was: “How do you with the stress when you’re on tour?” The Rockstar life, he thought it would be stressful.

Don Airey: It is yeah, it’s kind of an invisible part of the business. You don’t realize it, but you deal with it by being together. You know, we’re sharing things and the dressing room was always a peaceful place and…little things, you know?

Roger Glover: Yeah, it’s a bit like a gang. It’s an us against the world kind of thing. You do rely on each other. I kinda imagine what it’d be to like to be in a band of only one, me, you know? No, no, no. You get used to it after a while. I mean, I think it takes a certain type of character to be in a band and to be on the road. It’s gotta have a slight…

Don Airey: Something has got to be a bit wrong with you.

Lange: You gotta be a traveler.

Don Airey: No, I’m serious.

Roger Glover: Some people don’t like being away from home. I used to know Dave Edmunds, in fact I married his Ex-Wife, years ago. And he hated being on the road and that’s why he didn’t do much touring, which I couldn’t understand. He said to me: “I don’t know how you do it, being that long away from home and travelling and living in…but I’ve always done that and it’s natural to me. I think it takes a certain kind of gypsy attitude to be either in a band or in a crew, or whatever you do traveling, especially crew. I mean, they work the hardest and you know, you don’t call them roadies anymore.

Lange: There are no good roadies anymore?

Don Airey: No, they’re not called roadies.

Lange: Oh sorry, I didn’t know that.

Don Airey: Techs.

Lange: I’m sorry. I’m still living in the past, I guess. Technicians, yeah. Okay; Mr. Glover and Mr. Airey, thank you very much for your time and I hope to see you on the road in the future.

Roger Glover: You’re welcome. We haven’t run out of answers. We just run out of questions.

Lange: Of time, we’re running out of time.