Deep Purple

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Deep Purple have been a musical institution since their inception in 1968.

They are widely regarded, alongside Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, to be the forefathers of heavy music, and with the recent release of their latest album, inFinite and subsequent The Last Goodbye tour, are still dictating musical terms.

“It’s a good representation of where Deep Purple is at now as we exist now,” guitarist Steve Morse avowed. “We are utilizing the services of an amazing producer in Bob Ezrin who loves the band the way it is but also wants us to put out those extra little bits and pieces that all add up to making the album more listenable.”

With the title having two meanings – either immeasurably great, or unlimited or immeasurable in extent of space or duration of time – Morse says eve the band members are at odds with the actual meaning as applied to the album.

“Ian Gillan says it one way and I say it the other,” he laughed. “I like that it is open to interpretation and that’s the way music should be and one thing I like in music myself is when it isn’t defining. You can interpret it so many different ways in your mind. It’s one of the beautiful things with music.”

“inFinite” marks a return to the older guitar driven sound of Deep Purple, with Morse laughing when I ask if that is his influence.

“I hope so,” he voiced, “unless they replaced me! Basically I come up with new ideas constantly and they have no choice (laughs). The idea is to bombard them with ideas and then the group decides what they are going to use . Somewhere on every album there’s going to be a lot of my ideas.”

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With twenty studio albums under their belt Deep Purple pretty much know what to create from a new album, and Morse says the band have little in the way of discussions before committing to new material.

“All that we said before we put this together was lets have something that is the same basic vehicle that brought the band into existence which is rock and blues based rock and roll,” he disclosed. “And then give it some surprises and take it out a little bit but we wanted to keep the basic vehicle that we’ve always had.”

At the request of their record company, Deep Purple are also releasing a 97-minute bonus DVD, From Here to inFinite with the album, which documents the recording process.

“It’s more for fans who are curious about what goes on,” Morse revealed. “It’s not fully reality based. I don’t know a lot about it, I’m not a big media person. I’m very happy to stop and explain anything I do – pretty much anything to do with playing. I’m in favour of sharing things with people who like to find out more about the band or the songs or the way things are put together.”

While finding the cameras in the studio a little intrusive, Morse also says the band can see the benefit in opening up more of the process to the fans.

…continued below…

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“It is intrusive to an extent,” he contested. “First of all it came at a certain stage so you can’t really see all of the stages as they happened otherwise the cameras would pretty much have to live with us. There were some periods where we got together at different times. This is more of the polishing stages that we captured, more than the total experimentation of ideas. In that sense it’s a little… not misleading, but it doesn’t tell the whole story but is still a great insight into what goes on.”

When Morse first joined the band in 1994 he took over from pivotal guitarist and fan favourite Ritchie Blackmore, who many believed to be the heart and soul musically of the band.

After Blackmore walked out on a tour in ‘93, Joe Satriani was drafted in to cover but couldn’t stay with the band permanently due to previous contractual obligations.Bringing with him a fresh outlook and new guitar skills, Morse has become an integral member of the current line – up, despite facing occasional fan negativity over his place in the band.

Bringing with him a fresh outlook and new guitar skills, Morse has become an integral member of the current line – up, despite facing occasional fan negativity over his place in the band.

“I think I brought a certain amount of excitement and energy to share with the band,” he reflected. “I did not really know the guys at all to start and we all did a musical introduction together by just playing. We got together and played and put things together and that was all we needed to know it was going to work. We had a chemistry and coming in as an outsider with that energy you can’t help but reignite the flame in a way.”

Deep Purple’s first album with Morse, Purpendicular in 1996, paved a new direction for the band, with an array of newer sounds creeping in and helping to reinvent the band and their sound without tinkering too much with an already successful formula.

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“I think it was a reinvention”, he agreed. “Some of the voices that had not been noted in the band that much were suddenly there. Roger Glover and Jon Lord said ‘wait a second, this is weird (laughs), the stuff Steve is playing is really unusual’ and I was playing some things I never thought the band would be interested in – some harmonic bits – and that became a song called ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’. A lot of the fans then – and now – still hate me because I’m not Ritchie Blackmore but I can’t do anything about that.”

It’s hard to believe that after 23 years of being in the band sections of their fan base would still hold a grudge like that, but Morse says that is still definitely the case.

“Yeah, there’s a contingent,” he sighed. “I guess it’s like all things, there’s some people that can’t be swayed either way and then there’s the haters and then there’s the people for you. It does hurt sometimes but how are you going to convince people? I can’t be him and I didn’t come into the band trying to be him. In fact if they wanted somebody to be like him they had plenty of choices of guitarists who were influenced by him but they deliberately chose someone… they wanted someone who had been through what they had been through physically but had their own voice and ideas.”

After going through a rough period in the late 2000’s with declining record sales and subsequently having EMI refuse to renew their contract, Deep Purple embarked on a massive touring schedule that saw them play in 48 countries in 2011, turning things around through hard work and dedication.

“From my point of view and the bands point of view things were going pretty well,” he said. “The band was expanding, markets were opening up and more people welcomed the band in areas we had never played before and once we’d done the rounds we came back to the old familiar places and it got better and better. The whole time was spent touring and seeing people face to face and things got better with making albums once we made that connection. Some of us never thought that making albums was not something that we had to do, we just wanted to.”

Written by Kris Peters

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“It is intrusive to an extent,” he contested. “First of all it came at a certain stage so you can’t really see all of the stages as they happened otherwise the cameras would pretty much have to live with us. There were some periods where we got together at different times. This is more of the polishing stages that we captured, more than the total experimentation of ideas. In that sense it’s a little… not misleading, but it doesn’t tell the whole story but is still a great insight into what goes on.”

When Morse first joined the band in 1994 he took over from pivotal guitarist and fan favourite Ritchie Blackmore, who many believed to be the heart and soul musically of the band.

After Blackmore walked out on a tour in ‘93, Joe Satriani was drafted in to cover but couldn’t stay with the band permanently due to previous contractual obligations.Bringing with him a fresh outlook and new guitar skills, Morse has become an integral member of the current line – up, despite facing occasional fan negativity over his place in the band.

Bringing with him a fresh outlook and new guitar skills, Morse has become an integral member of the current line – up, despite facing occasional fan negativity over his place in the band.

“I think I brought a certain amount of excitement and energy to share with the band,” he reflected. “I did not really know the guys at all to start and we all did a musical introduction together by just playing. We got together and played and put things together and that was all we needed to know it was going to work. We had a chemistry and coming in as an outsider with that energy you can’t help but reignite the flame in a way.”

Deep Purple’s first album with Morse, Purpendicular in 1996, paved a new direction for the band, with an array of newer sounds creeping in and helping to reinvent the band and their sound without tinkering too much with an already successful formula.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” text_orientation=”justified” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”]

“I think it was a reinvention”, he agreed. “Some of the voices that had not been noted in the band that much were suddenly there. Roger Glover and Jon Lord said ‘wait a second, this is weird (laughs), the stuff Steve is playing is really unusual’ and I was playing some things I never thought the band would be interested in – some harmonic bits – and that became a song called ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’. A lot of the fans then – and now – still hate me because I’m not Ritchie Blackmore but I can’t do anything about that.”

It’s hard to believe that after 23 years of being in the band sections of their fan base would still hold a grudge like that, but Morse says that is still definitely the case.

“Yeah, there’s a contingent,” he sighed. “I guess it’s like all things, there’s some people that can’t be swayed either way and then there’s the haters and then there’s the people for you. It does hurt sometimes but how are you going to convince people? I can’t be him and I didn’t come into the band trying to be him. In fact if they wanted somebody to be like him they had plenty of choices of guitarists who were influenced by him but they deliberately chose someone… they wanted someone who had been through what they had been through physically but had their own voice and ideas.”

After going through a rough period in the late 2000’s with declining record sales and subsequently having EMI refuse to renew their contract, Deep Purple embarked on a massive touring schedule that saw them play in 48 countries in 2011, turning things around through hard work and dedication.

“From my point of view and the bands point of view things were going pretty well,” he said. “The band was expanding, markets were opening up and more people welcomed the band in areas we had never played before and once we’d done the rounds we came back to the old familiar places and it got better and better. The whole time was spent touring and seeing people face to face and things got better with making albums once we made that connection. Some of us never thought that making albums was not something that we had to do, we just wanted to.”

Written by Kris Peters

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