It's a running gag in the editorial office that we should translate a David Coverdale text for the "Further in the text" section. Probably the eclipsed would then only be allowed to be sold under the counter ... Dave, affinity for such innuendos, asks for a minute's pause during the interview when he hears this anecdote, as he is about to undergo surgery for his hernia. "When I look at my pants, I have to say these are the fattest balls I've ever had, but unfortunately I can't laugh, not even at myself, because then it gets painful ..." Shortly before, Old Cov had undergone surgery on both hips. "If that isn't fate! You could say the man gave it his all, though. (chuckles) Oh dear, now I've been laughing painfully at my own joke again."
For just under a quarter of a century, Deep Purple/Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has been part of the music scene with his wife Candice Night in medieval garb. By devoting himself to live hard rock in recent years with a newly formed Rainbow lineup, the musical pressure on Blackmore's Night has been lessened. This also seems to have had an effect on their new album "Nature's Light". Candice Night at least seems very deeply relaxed - and definitely takes a look beyond the horizon of medieval pop ..
eclipsed: When you approach a new album, is there a route to take beforehand?
What will remain of Deep Purple once the "The Long Goodbye Tour" is over? Will the tribute bands and epigones take over and do justice to the hard rock legend? Can they re-create the myth of Deep Purple in their songs or concerts? Or does the group, which is celebrated as the Liverock band, remain unique because of all its facets? These and other questions are addressed in the fifth part of our series of articles on half a century of Deep Purple.
Deep Purple only know one drummer in their ranks. Also on the keyboarder position the hardrockers only get it to two players. And when you ask for their bassists, strictly speaking only one name comes to mind. Thus Purple form a fixed instrumentalist unit. This explains the homogeneous, powerful sound that has been the band for decades. In the following we portray the drummer as well as the keyboarder and bassists in the service of one of the greatest bands in rock history.
"It's the singer, not the song," that thesis rarely applied to Deep Purple. On the one hand the instrumental presence and potency in all five decades of the band was at least always at the same level as the lead vocals. And as long as Ritchie Blackmore was in the band, he provided the band with song ideas that would have worked well with other vocalists. On the other hand, there are these vocal great moments: "Child In Time" belongs to Ian Gillan and "Soldier Of Fortune" to David Coverdale.
Deep Purple is a band for guitarists. With Deep Purple you can and must become a hero as a guitarist. Ritchie Blackmore created the template and filled it with life like no other rock guitarist. Huge footsteps a Tommy Bolin couldn't grow into because of the drugs. And a role that Joe Satriani, despite all his brilliance on the guitar, did not want to accept. Even on Steve Morse, after two and a half decades in the band, the mighty shadow of Blackmore still falls.
Ian Gillan likes to call the guitarists who work for Deep Purple "mandolin players". This trivialization has a method, because only in this way can the frontman bear the fact that Purple's eyes and ears are always on the guitarist. A good Purple song is always judged by how memorable the guitar riff is and how virtuoso the solo is.
"Deep Purple is the best thing that's happened to me in my life," says Ian Gillan, "and not a few music lovers around the world can join this statement for themselves. Deep Purple was created fifty years ago. For eclipsed, this special anniversary is one of the most important groups in the development of hard rock and in this and the next five issues the phenomenon Deep Purple will be highlighted from different angles. Half a century of lively rock history has written the formation once led by Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore. Beside great music the English produced, at least as long as Blackmore was part of the band, headlines concerning internal disputes. Where there's planing, chips fall.
20 studio albums in 49 years - whether this is the end of the journey, the musicians themselves are still unclear. "We all enjoyed the recording sessions with Bob Ezrin very much," keyboardist Don Airey says, drawing attention to a fact that this album radiates. It's a feel-good album.
Deep Purple belong to those bands that just can't stop. Some may be happy, others more compassionate. At least it's been that way for a long time. In the meantime, two members of the group, founded in 1968, have crossed the seventy mark, and two others are about to do so next year. Guitarist Steve Morse with his sixty-two Lenzen makes himself out like a young boy among his colleagues. Meanwhile, Purple's new CD "Infinite" has nothing to say about Alterszipperlein. With strength and esprit the slaughter-tested troupe fights their way through ten songs, of which certainly not all have what it takes to become classics, but some can at least be put painlessly between the train numbers of the band.
