Deep Purple has had ample opportunities to hush itself, if you will, over the years.
The London-formed hard rock troupe has gone through the kinds of lineup changes during its 46 years that would have debilitated most bands. With Irish guitarist Simon McBride joining in two years ago to replace Steve Morse after an 18-year tenure, the Purple gang is on its Mark IXth lineup. Only drummer Ian Paice has been a fixture since 1968.
But bassist Roger Glover, who along with frontman Ian Glover was part of the famed Mark II — i.e. Machine Head and “Smoke on the Water” — says there was never a thought of consigning Purple to the past.
“We can’t stop,” Glover tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Switzerland. “We love what we do; that’s the bottom line. And we’ve had the opportunity to carry on. Most bands don’t get that opportunity…well, I don’t follow bands that much, but certainly for us that’s been the case.
“I’m in my late ’70s (78) — we all are except for the new guitarist, who’s in his early forties. He’s infused the band with a lot of energy. We may have been lacking a little — but not much, I don’t think.”
Glover says it was Deep Purple’s live performances with McBride that sparked the idea to make =1, due out July 19. It’s Deep Purple’s 23rd studio album and the follow-up to 2021’s covers set Turning to Crime. McBride had been playing with Purple keyboardist Don Airey in his own band for a number of years, which Glover and frontman Ian Gillan had both performed with in recent years. “He seemed the only choice,” Glover says. “We didn’t even think about anyone else.
“When Simon came in, the tour went very well,” Glover adds. “Early in the tour we said, ‘Hey, we should make an album as soon as we can.’ So that’s what we did last year.” Like its four predecessors, the 13-songs set was produced by Bob Ezrin, and the songs took shape via the band jamming together in Nashville rather than coming in with prepared material.
“That’s the way we work,” Glover explains. “It’s like a blank canvas when you go in the studio, all you’ve got to do is fill it with noises. The songs aren’t written; they evolve from personalities and ideas. Someone starts a riff or something and we’re like, ‘That’s good. How about if you go to an F here…or a B flat?’ Once we’ve got the instrumental part, then Ian Gillan and I figure out what’s going on top, the words and the tunes. Obviously, they don’t just appear for no reason. We work at it.”
Glover adds that the method has been a Deep Purple tradition since he and Gillan joined the band in 1969. “In the early days, before Deep Purple In Rock (1970), we realized that the music came from playing, not from the head, therefore we should share the credits and that’s what we did since the early days, shared everything, no matter who came up with the idea. It was freeing in a way — there’s no backbiting, no, ‘I like my idea better than yours,’ no jealousy. It was very healthy.”
The approach only changed once, says Glover, who’s in the process of writing a memoir. “When we had the reunion (in 1984) it didn’t go back to that — maybe it couldn’t, you know?” he remembers. “But as soon as Steve Morse joined the band (in 1994), guess what? It went back to that, which was great. For a band like us, that’s the only way to work.”
The process continues to be a welcome kind of “challenge,” according to Glover, who points to =1 tracks such as the album-closing “Bleeding Obvious” as particularly challenging and requiring “a lot of work” to get right. Meanwhile the opening track, “Show Me,” had a particularly interesting gestation that sounds like a rock n’ roll warrior story that could have happened during the ’70s as much as the 2020s.
“We were all invited to Alice Cooper’s 75th birthday party with (Ezrin),” Glover recalls. “We finished early and Simon and Don (Airey) and I went to a bar and hit the tequila a bit too much and I fell over and really hurt my thumb. The next morning was the last day of writing sessions and my thumb was swollen all up and I couldn’t play anything. So I said, ‘Excuse me, lads, I have to get it checked out in a hospital or something,’ which I did. In the meantime, the idea of ‘Show Me’ had started, but it was later on when we worked it out. I couldn’t imagine what Ian would sing over that until I was in Portugal with him and he just attacked it and found the right tune and everything, and we had the song.”
=1 has been preceded by three singles and videos, starting with “Portable Door” in April, “Pictures of You” during June and “Lazy Sod” at the beginning of July. =1‘s release takes the quintet back on the road next month in North America, joining fellow British veterans Yes, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year after Deep Purple. The 19-date co-bill begins Aug. 14 in Hollywood, Fla., and runs through Sept. 8 in Scranton, Pa.
“We worked with them years ago in the ’70s,” Glover says. “We did some festivals together — one in particular called the Plumpton Jazz and Blues Festival in ’71. Ian Gillan and I had only been in the band a couple of months at that point. There was an argument about who’d be closing the show, and they won the argument and were closing the show. Ritchie (Blackmore, Purple’s original guitarist) set fire to his amplifiers and made them explode on stage. So they were delayed a lot and weren’t very happy with that.”
But, Glover says, bygones are bygones and he expects nothing but friendly relations this summer. “We’ve met them since. They’re a great band. We saw (Yes guitarist) Steve Howe a couple years ago. We got on, no hard feelings. I don’t know which state they’re in now, which combination of musicians they have, so I’ll be happily surprised.”
