Deep Purple

WHOOSH! THAT’S THE SOUND OF HARD-ROCK PIONEERS DEEP PURPLE BLASTING BACK TO THEIR RIGHTFUL SPOT AT THE TOP OF THE PODIUM – AND, FITTINGLY, THE TITLE OF THEIR GAME-CHANGING 21ST ALBUM. LONGSTANDING AXEMAN STEVE MORSE RUNS US THROUGH WHAT MAKES THIS NEW SET OF SHRED THEIR MOST DEFIANT IN DECADES.

If you’ve ever listened to literally any rock ’n’ roll song, there’s a good chance that, somewhere along the chain, Deep Purple’s influence rubbed off on it. A key element to the genesis of modern heavy music – so much so that the Guinness Book of World Records branded them “the globe’s loudest band” – the British shredders have been doling out their colourful solos and crunchy riffs since 1968.

Over the last five decades, they’ve managed to smash out a truly cataclysmic 20 studio albums – not to mention to near-uncountable deluge of demos, bootlegs and extra releases to bear their kaleidoscopic stamp of approval. And they’ve hardly settled down; in 2017 they embarked on the Long Goodbye tour, which would supposedly see them fizzle out their touring efforts. But when the stint ended at the tail end of 2019, it only took a few months for Deep Purple to announce yet another sprawling world tour.

Unlike most bands of their caliber, too, Deep Purple aren’t simply kicking on as a legacy act churning through the hits of their “glory days” – they’re still living theirs, after all, and celebrating them with a brand new collection of bold and bombastic hard-rock anthems.

Whoosh! marks a striking return to the classic sound of Deep Purple, capitalising on thick, byzantine chords and polychromatic rhythms that stick to the eardrums long after the songs themselves have ended.

As frontman Ian Gillan so elegantly puts it, “Whoosh is an onomatopoeic word that,

when viewed through one end of a radio telescope, describes the transient nature of humanity on Earth; and, through the other end from a closer perspective, illustrates the career of Deep Purple.”

Before the album drops on us like a bombshell of brilliance in August, Australian Guitar had the incredible privilege of shooting the breeze with longstanding guitarist Steve Morse – who, in addition to diving deep into the inner mechanics of Whoosh! with us, declared that one of Deep Purple’s biggest priorities moving forward (as soon as they can move forward with their touring plans and so forth) is making their return to Australian stages for the first time since 2013.

After 21 Deep Purple albums – seven with yourself in the mix – how do you keep things feeling fresh and exciting, not just for the fans, but as musicians and music lovers yourselves?

We try to put a lot of effort into the crafting of the music, and try to leave in some of the more outlandish ideas we might come up with. I fight hard for those kind of interesting instrumental bits – the bits that keep me personally more interested. And when we add vocals, we have Ian Gillan’s lyrics and delivery, which I think is superb; he has such a magnificent command over the English language, speaking on the obvious level, and then even moreso once he explains it to me on the cryptic, crossword-y sort of level. And I just love the craftwork of it. So it’s no problem for me to keep things fresh and interesting.

In the press release for this record, we learned that your motto in the studio – the motivational tagline, if it were – was, “Deep Purple is putting the Deep back into Purple”. What did that mean for you, as far as what you wanted to achieve with this album on a creative wavelength?

A few albums ago, we said, “Well, nobody’s gonna play it anyway. Nobody buys albums anymore, so let’s just make the music that we think is best for the band.” We weren’t going to worry about sales or charts or anything like that – the only thing we’d focus on is having it be good quality. And I think that’s really where the ‘Deep’ part comes from.

And as far as the ‘Purple’ part goes, we’ve always had that sort of arrangement where… Y’know, someone like me coming in – even a quarter of a century ago – being the new guy, what I would do is just constantly bombard the other guys with all the ideas I was having. And y’know, those ideas would be taken seriously on maybe a ten-to-one ratio… 20-to-one, even. But the idea was always that the guys who were there for the longest would listen to those ideas and judge whether or not they liked it for a Deep Purple song.

Did this record give you much of an opportunity to step outside the square and explore some techniques outside of your comfort zone?

I’m usually a little bit out of my comfort zone working with Bob [Ezrin, producer]. I love what he does, and I was the only person in the band that had worked for him before he came onboard, so it was very easy for me to recommend him when his name came up. But having said that, I love him in the way that you love your coach or your drill sergeant, y’know? It’s not an easy love – especially when the red light is on and you’re in the hot-seat.

He pushed me a lot – mostly with the challenge of, “Morse, play something different than you would normally play!” I’d be like, “Just don’t play like myself, you mean?” And he’d go, “…Yeah!” That’s virtually impossible, when you think about it, but the idea was to push me beyond the boundaries of what was comfortable. And we we came up with a product that I couldn’t have done on my own.

Left to my own devices, I would’ve reverted to more of my own approaches to the solos and stuff; he picked some solo parts that I would have just thrown in the trash, but he heard a different thing and he was listening from a different point of view. He’s probably someone that doesn’t listen to guitar players, y’know? Not unless he’s getting paid to [ laughs].

You’ve had a couple of really incredible signature guitars hit the market throughout the years, starting of course with the very boldly named Ernie Ball Steve Morse – which has a staple of their lineup for over 30 years now. How did you first get to collaborating with that team?

Well, Ernie Ball had bought the Music Man label from Leo Fender, and Ernie himself was a big fan of Leo’s designs. But what they decided was that the guitars needed work, however they loved the basses. They were just going to start producing the Stingray basses right out of the bag, and not even change the formula. But for the guitars, they wanted to switch things up a bit.

They approached me about doing a signature model when I was talking to them at a NAMM show – Sterling was the spokesman at the time, and he’s since become one of my oldest and best friends. We’d already played a lot of music together, but the thing that impressed me about the Ernie Ball brand was that when I came onboard, they said, “Well, we’ll just make [a guitar] like you want. We won’t put it out if you’re not happy with it.”

I’d been through the process [of designing a signature guitar] before with a couple other companies, and it hadn’t worked out. But they said, “You tell us when it’s finished,” and I said, “Okay! I like that idea!” I asked them, “What parts can I use?” And they said, “Whatever you want.” So they took some of my suggestions, and I took some of theirs: for instance, the Music Man headstock – I was a little skeptical about it at first, but when I really looked at it, I said, “That actually makes more sense.”

Y’know, there’s four and two [pegs on each respective side], instead of six in a row – having six in a row puts the two thinnest strings the farthest away from the nut, requiring a nut tree to hold enough down pressure. And that’s wrong for two reasons: firstly because a nut tree adds extra friction, which causes the string tension to change or re-equalise after you’ve tuned it, possibly while you’re playing, and secondly because having four and two makes it a more balanced guitar.

It also fits in a three-quarter-sized case, which is my secret weapon when I go on flights. As your Aussie musicians know, the international Australian flights are the only place in the world you’ll never see a guitar inside the cabin. But everywhere else in the world – literally everywhere else in the world – I can tuck my guitar under my arm in a little three-quartersized gig bag and pass them my ticket with the other hand, and nobody says a word.

So the first guitar was based on your infamous Frankentele, which was a beautiful clusterf*** of different bits and pieces from all over the place. How did you figure out what parts of what guitars were right for you, and what was your process like in using them to create something that suited your very specific needs?

For instance, I owned a Les Paul and a 335, and I knew there was something different about that sound.

“I’VE ALWAYS JUST PLAYED MUSIC, Y’KNOW? I’VE NEVER BEEN A GREAT PERFORMER OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, BUT ONE THING I’VE ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO DO IS CLOSE MY EYES AND GET INTO THE MUSIC.”

I said around and asked myself, “What was it?” The 335 was light and airy and the Les Paul was heavy, but they both had a similar fat sound that I liked.

So I thought, “Okay, well it’s gotta be that pickup.” I liked the sort of sound that Hendrix got with a heavily effected single-coil pickup, so it seemed that if I was going to play lots of different styles, I was going to need lots of different pickups. And I noticed that with the 335, I could get feedback real easy – too easily, in fact – so I wanted a solidbody base.

When I was a teenager, I got paid for a session with an old Telecaster, and I thought, “Wow, this is perfect – it’s just a slab of wood!” And so I stripped the paint off it and drew some lines where the pickups would go, took my dad’s chisel set and went to town on it! Fender had just come out with the humbucking pickup, and I said, “I’m going to try this first.” And a Thinline humbucker was a giant pickup, y’know, so I pretty much chiseled out the Grand Canyon on this 1960-something Telecaster. It had a maple neck, too, so I said, “Huh, it looks like my Strat neck would fit right on there.” So I busted out the screwdriver, and what’d’ya know, it fit! And it played fine!

Next was the bridge – the bridge was three double trees on the Telecaster, and I couldn’t get the G and D in tune because the G was plain and the D was wound. The day the Telecaster was invented, they used flat-wound Gs and flat-wound Ds, so they were more similar. So I needed a Tune-O-Matic bridge – that was the only thing we knew of at the time, so I bought one at my local music store, and then came some careful measurement for a change. I graduated from the chisel set to a drill, and pretty soon I had a Tune-O-Matic bridge!

Then I needed something to hold it on, so I went to a pawn shop and found a part from a 12-string floating tree – this crazy trapeze type of tree – and I just screwed it into the wood. Then came the process of taking out the capacitor from one of the tone selections that was wired into the factory Tele – I needed another switch so I could get more combinations. Then I took the lipstick pickup from the Tele and moved it closer to the humbucker, which I knew was something I was missing. Boy, was I glad I did that! I’ve used that pickup combination for my whole life since.

You really were the mad scientist of DIY luthiers, weren’t you?

I was just a kid! And y’know how kids are. My parents were saving for their kids’ college, and I had two other brothers. My dad started as a minister with a very modest income, and he and my mom worked their way up to where they had finally gotten their PHDs in psychology and had regular, middleclass jobs. But even then, money was not something I had in my pocket on the regular. But luckily my dad let me borrow his tools, and y’know, as kids we weren’t afraid of trying stuff.

I had a little 50cc motorcycle, and every time it wouldn’t run, I would just take it completely apart and scrape the carbon off the piston, drill it all back together and drift off into the sunset. I liked taking things apart and figuring out how they worked. My dad had a soldering gun – a big, powerful industrial one – and I was using that for soldering the wires on that guitar and everything.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a broke teenager! Back to the present day: did you record Whoosh! with your signature axes?

Pretty much. I would start with my number one – the blue Steve Morse model with four pickups. I take that to every gig and use it for everything that I can. But when we recorded a lot of the main parts on this record, I used the Y2D guitar it’s a little bit more of a rock-sounding guitar, slightly less flexible in terms of playing cleaner country stuff or anything classical, but it works great with Purple.

And then there was Bob’s bits and pieces – he bought some expensive vintage guitars at some point in the recording process, and y’know, he has to use those finds on every album he makes. So I would have to double some parts on his Les Paul or Telecaster – and the Telecaster played like a Mack truck, y’know? A nice looking Mack truck! And sure enough, it does have a real Tele sound. With my Telecaster, y’know, I took away some of that Tele sound by changing the bridge and the lead pickup – which was prone to feedback, by the way, as a lot of people know.

I would say we used the Y2D most of the time, and then 40 percent of the time we used number one – and a fraction of a percent on Bob’s guitars, by request. I think I used his baritone, too, because I forgot to bring mine when we did a baritone guitar solo on one of the tunes.

You’ve been known to improvise a lot during the live show, and take your guitar parts in some really crazy new directions. What’s going through your mind when you’re up onstage with axe in hand? Are you thinking much about where you want to take a song, or are you just getting into your zen place and letting the music guide you?

I’ve always just played music, y’know? I’ve never been a great performer or anything like that, but one thing I’ve always been able to do is close my eyes and get into the music. And when I improvise, I just say, “Well, I hope the audience will forgive me.” Because I don’t know how it is for you [ writer’s note: my version of improv involves mashing the fretboard like a toddler having a seizure – we all have our ineptitudes], but when I improvise, I get about 75-to-85 percent of what I would do if I had worked on a song.

The great moments are where people are like, “Oh, I dig what you were trying to do there, Steve,” And the low points are when they go, “You didn’t quite finish what you started there, Steve.” But my theory is that if I keep it interesting for myself, and challenging and fun, then it will be that way for the people who took the money out of their pockets to buy the tickets, got the babysitter and the ridiculous parking spots that cost so much, and paid half a million dollars for a t-shirt.

“MONEY WAS NOT SOMETHING I HAD IN MY POCKET ON THE REGULAR. BUT LUCKILY MY DAD LET ME BORROW HIS TOOLS, AND Y’KNOW, AS KIDS WE WEREN’T AFRAID OF TRYING STUFF.”