The one thing nobody was taught was how to deal with success, and I think that happens to everyone who makes it at a young age.
Our partying was governed by licensing hours. When the pub or club shut, that would be it.
I realised that if I wanted to carry on with my musical dreams, I had to change, so I started meditating, and I changed my life entirely.
I have to think that ‘Nessa Dorma’ is the greatest rock ballad that’s never been recorded as such.
I’ve never listened to any of Purple Mk III’s records.
Can you imagine doing ‘Nessa Dorma’ with Luciano Pavarotti the maestro? It’s unbelievable. He’s a very generous man.
When we arrive at the studio, we put the kettle on, have a cup of tea, say, ‘How’s the family? You still got that old car? Is that dog still alive?’ and then we start jamming. That’s how the songs get written.
An album represents an artist or a band or a group of musicians at any given moment in time. You just produce the music that you feel good about and hope that the audience shows some interest in it.
I feel very fortunate to have been able to do what I do for a living.
I have got a good imagination.
It was immaterial to me that Elvis didn’t write his own songs. Those were very different days, and he selected whatever suited him best from material supplied by publishing houses and teams of writers – all of whom were extremely conscious of his style of delivery.
I wake up every day looking forward to the concert that night. I don’t think you need much more inspiration than that.
We always used to describe ourselves as an instrumental band. Basically, the music was always instrumentally based, so the songs always came later.
The reason ‘Fireball’ is my favorite album of that period is that without ‘Fireball,’ we would never have been able to make ‘Machine Head.’
I love Buffalo. The people here are wonderful, genuine; they look you straight in the eye.
I can’t do one thing at a time. If I’m writing song lyrics, I’ve got to be doing the ironing or cooking or something while I’m working. If I just sit there and stare at the walls, I get nothing.
To the general public in America, the lifespan of Deep Purple probably finished with our 1984 album, ‘Perfect Strangers.’
You can never criticize a monumental musician like Jon Lord or Richie Blackmore, or the part they played in the group, but life goes on.
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