In a recent interview with Brian Kachejian of ClassicRockHistory.com, DEEP PURPLE drummer Ian Paice was asked what he and his bandmates meant when they announced in 2022 that they had welcomed guitarist Simon McBride as an official member of the band. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, we’re a democratic outfit. Luckily, with five [members], we always get a decision. His vote is as valuable and as important as any one of the rest of four of us.”
Regarding how McBride ended up joining DEEP PURPLE, Paice said: “We knew very, very quickly, and we had an impossible situation with our friend Steve Morse [DEEP PURPLE‘s previous guitarist]. He had this tragedy in his family [when his wife was battling cancer] and he couldn’t be on the road. Family comes first. When we were in that situation, [we couldn’t] say, ‘Look, we might do a tour in the summer. You wanna book it now. We’ll let you know later.’ Nobody’s gonna go for that. So, Steve had his situation. And we knew, at this stage of our lives and careers, if we stopped and waited for him, we probably wouldn’t get going again. It would probably be the end. You can’t take a year, two years off. Not now. It’s not like being 21 again. It’s not the same. So we had this impossible situation, both him and us. And we decided that we had to continue.
“Simon had worked with [DEEP PURPLE keyboardist] Don Airey before, and I think he’d done some work with [DEEP PURPLE singer] Ian Gillan before, on their own solo projects. And they just said, ‘This guy is great.’ He’s gonna fall straight into the ethos of the band. So I said, ‘If he’s good enough for you, he’s good enough for me.’ And within — I don’t know — half an hour of just jamming around together on the first day, it was obvious. Not only was he good enough, he was his own man while at the same time paying respect to some of the stuff that had come before he was there. But it was great fun playing with him. It still is.”
On the topic of how playing with McBride‘s addition to DEEP PURPLE has affected the band’s sound, Paice said: “If I say it’s like a breath of fresh air, that’s not to deny Steve‘s genius and his input for the last 20-odd years. It’s just different, and sometimes a change of direction is very important. And I think Simon has given us that. He’s brought a more riffy approach to the songwriting. Some of Steve‘s stuff was far more cerebral. You had to really work out where he was going. He’s got a wonderful mind, Steve. He thinks of things that nobody else can come up with, and they’re beautiful, they’re clever. Simon is a little more — I get it straight away. And that is nice, ’cause, again, it’s just a slight change of direction. Nothing we haven’t done before. If anything, it harkens back to some of that stuff from the early ’70s.”
DEEP PURPLE‘s new album, “=1”, is due on July 19 via earMUSIC. The LP marks DEEP PURPLE‘s first material with McBride.
Since 2022, Simon has already played to DEEP PURPLE audiences totaling more than half a million people.
With the legendary Bob Ezrin once again producing, “=1” evokes the pioneering band’s classic sound, without relying on nostalgia.
The enigmatic title “=1” symbolizes 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.
With three consecutive No. 1 albums in their back pocket and a resurgent new energy powering them forward, this is DEEP PURPLE at their pinnacle. “Now WHAT?!” (2013),“inFinite” (2017) and “Whoosh!” (2020) have sold over one million copies worldwide, making DEEP PURPLE one of the most successful rock bands currently active. The latest studio album, “Whoosh!”, reached No. 1 on the album charts in seven countries and charted in the top 10 in another 12.
There simply aren’t enough superlatives to properly acknowledge the contribution DEEP PURPLE has made to rock music. Having sold more than 100 million albums and filled global arenas for decades, there’s little wonder that the respected British radio station Planet Rock named the group the “Fifth Most Influential Band Ever”. The band were also presented the Legend Award at the 2008 World Music Awards and were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2016. DEEP PURPLE truly are “rock royalty”.
With a body of work spanning seven decades, DEEP PURPLE has helped pioneer and define the hard rock genre while progressively moving into new areas, both keeping their sound fresh and attracting new fans to the legions who have remained loyal since the band’s inception. The celebrated MKII line up of Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore were responsible for creating many of the defining rock albums of the early 1970s, including “Made In Japan”, universally accepted as one of the most important and influential live albums of all time.
Known as one of the hardest-working bands ever, DEEP PURPLE has continued to release No. 1 albums and tour globally since forming in 1968, with little rest. In 2007 (almost 40 years after being formed),the band performed 40 dates in France to an award-winning audience, and they continue to spend much of their year on the road selling out arenas across the globe.
DEEP PURPLE has stayed true to its musical roots taking from an eclectic mix of styles to create a distinctive sound that defines the band today, but which in turn, has created a legacy that very few bands could ever hope to replicate. The band has written and produced so many “classic”, well-known songs, that its audience range widely in age and background — something the band has readily embraced.
DEEP PURPLE‘s recent studio album “Whoosh!” (2020) followed their worldwide chart-topping albums “inFinite” (2017) and “Now WHAT?!” (2013). 2024 sees the release of their brand-new album “=1”. On all albums, DEEP PURPLE joined forces with producer Bob Ezrin, who has worked with the likes of KISS, PINK FLOYD, Lou Reed and Alice Cooper.
Furthering their collaboration with Ezrin, in 2021 and during the pandemic the band recorded a collection of cover songs from their own homes (normal for most bands nowadays, revolutionary for a band that records everything together in the studio),creating an eclectic and celebratory history of their roots in music, in the shape of “Turning To Crime”.
Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Don Airey and Simon McBride continue with renewed vitality, pushing the boundaries of hard rock to audiences around the globe, proving that DEEP PURPLE are very much here to stay.
Photo credit: Jim Rakete (courtesy of The Outside Organisation
