We've been touring ever since we were able to afford to buy a van, and I don't think we'll ever stop until something falls off or is irreparable.
— Ian Gillan
I feel very fortunate to have been able to do what I do for a living.
When you're young, you're immortal, or so you think, and you never think there will be problems ahead.
Life's not so rocky now. It was very volatile when you're young: you've got no experience. Your sense of disappointment is far greater; your sense of success is overwhelming. And then you've got the emotional conflict within any group that you're not mature enough to deal with until you get older. It levels out.
When I was a kid, every street had a band, and we'd steal members from each other.
We soaked up everything from Beethoven to Chopin to Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.
Infinity is almost impossible for an eight-year-old to grasp. It's an inquiring age, and you're beginning to shape your thoughts and questions about life in general at that stage.
I don't think we were anti-commercial. But we were anti-contrivance, and like Zeppelin, we found dignity through the music we were playing.
For a rock band, I didn't see the point in live albums. To my mind, you've got to be there.
I don't think anyone likes to be pushed around.
I'm very grateful for the other bands and artists that stood up for us with a view to our induction - that's nice of them. But I wish that the Hall Of Fame had had the discretion to ask us first. It's now become a debate in which we are too late to have the final word.
Internet is a good and convenient device for us for easy communication. It has lots of value.
Things evolve. People mature.
To the general public in America, the lifespan of Deep Purple probably finished with our 1984 album, 'Perfect Strangers.'
The reason 'Fireball' is my favorite album of that period is that without 'Fireball,' we would never have been able to make 'Machine Head.'
It means a lot to a lot of people, 'Smoke On The Water.'
The people who come to Purple shows are there for the music.
I wake up every day looking forward to the concert that night. I don't think you need much more inspiration than that.
I've done a lot of research on science and theology to try and get a better understanding of what happens to the human soul or what potential it has.
There used to be a time when people used to hold up cigarette lighters and candles at concerts, and the place was aglow to celebrate the end of the evening, or during a slow song, there was this congregational euphoria that used to exist. It still does, but now it's a question of iPhones being held up.
The thing about a band is, it's not so much how good the musicians are - it's the blend of personalities and characters. It's the human chemistry that makes up a good team.
I've never been troubled by disappointment, and I get over it quickly. But I'm not good at making plans, and I don't have any ambitions. I never did.
The only advice I can give is to absorb as much as you can from as wide a spectrum as you can. If you're in a rock band and only soak up Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple kind of beginnings, then you're not going to have much leeway.
Rock music had its own constituency, its own steering wheel. It was beyond the control of the establishment, and we saw TV as the enemy.
I was in a band called Episode Six with Roger Glover, which was more of a harmony band, really. At one gig, there were a few dodgy characters leaning up against the wall of the venue - and we ended up joining their band. Purple was the talk of every musician in the country - they had something new and very exciting.
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.
The Hall Of Fame thing, it's an American thing. We don't have that in England or Germany or Australia or Russia or anywhere in the world apart from America. And it's an institution. What's that got to do with rock and roll?
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.
We were the first generation of rock & roll, but life goes on.
If there was such a thing as a typical English gentleman in rock music, then it was Jon Lord.
I used to do interviews - I still do - interviews every day, all day. And you go from maybe doing a couple of professional interviews, where you can hear the sound right, to everyone else sounds like they're at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
I think you function much better when you trust people and when you've got a sort of relationship where you can develop ideas within a framework.
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.
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.
I've tried to avoid the rock & roll highway and have taken the scenic route. I think all the guys have been more concerned with the music and the band's legacy than with the commercial aspects of life.
There's very little you can do these days about having any impact at a launch for a record unless you keep it very secret, because communications are so immediate, and YouTube and everything else kind of spoils the party.
If you start adapting to audiences, you're really second-guessing the situation, and it becomes a bit more like cabaret.
I've always been optimistic - I always expect the sun to come out.
When I was in my formative years, I rejected Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. I now realise they were all great artists, but at the time, as a young man, you have to clear the decks.
It wasn't slung together by a producer and a publisher. We decided we were going to take hold of our music and let it evolve organically.
Singles - we hated it, going on 'Top Of The Pops' and all that rubbish.
I've consciously avoided actually reading anything about Wikipedia.
Can you imagine doing 'Nessa Dorma' with Luciano Pavarotti the maestro? It's unbelievable. He's a very generous man.
I have heard that my Wikipedia entry is completely incorrect, but then again, so is everyone else's. I haven't bothered about that.
I have been touring since I got my first band in 1962, so there is no problem there. We are basically performing musicians, so that's what we do.
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.
The band's a really close-knit family. We've got fantastically good friendships and relationships that have developed after all these years.
I know the guys in Metallica. I'm very honored that they were influenced by Deep Purple when they started, and they've always been very kind to us.
'Smoke On The Water' was ignored by everybody to begin with. We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from 'Machine Head.' But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.
