If you thought Deep Purple’s “Long Goodbye Tour” was going to wrap things up neatly with a bow and a handshake, drummer Ian Paice would like you to kindly stop trying to make “final” happen. “We’ve never used the word last because it’s just too scary,” he says. “I’ve got fifty years of my life tied up in this. I can’t plan the last date, or last venue, or last town. I can’t do that.”
It’s a fitting sentiment for a band whose latest album is titled Infinite—a cheeky nod to their refusal to die or even slow down. “It’s a lovely ambiguous word,” Paice grins. “You can play around with it.”
That refusal to be embalmed in classic rock nostalgia has been central to Deep Purple’s curious longevity. While most bands with this many lineup changes are lucky to find their way to the bathroom without a GPS, Paice insists the sound has stayed relatively intact—and weirdly, not by design.
“There wasn’t a conscious effort,” he says of the album’s retro flavor. “We’ve been recording the same way from day one. Four of us sit down in the studio and play together. We try to get the best take all together—if it takes longer than three takes, you’re not going to get it. You might get it perfect, but you’ll lose the humanity.”
You’d think with that many decades and egos under their belt, it would’ve all gone sterile or exploded by now, but Deep Purple thrives on that messy, analog creation. “We’re trying to capture those moments of creation, rather than recreate something you thought you did ten minutes ago,” Paice says. “That’s exactly how we had to do it in the analog days, when you didn’t have the convenience of digital editing—and all the other crap we take for granted now.”
And if the band’s got a signature sound, you can thank the guitar-and-Hammond-organ cocktail that still defines their identity. “Very few bands utilize that sound, so it becomes a Deep Purple thing,” he says. “Those two instruments interact so beautifully well in hard rock and roll.”
Even their cover choices—like The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” recorded in one gloriously sloppy take—are rooted in feel over fuss. “We just said, ‘Let’s invest half an hour and see what happens.’ That’s probably how long it took,” Paice laughs. “Everything’s live—vocals, solos, harmonica. I think that tape lasted about fifteen minutes. We just kept the first six.”
Not bad for a band who supposedly started saying goodbye eight years ago.
As for whether Infinite and Roadhouse Blues mark the end, Paice shrugs. “I don’t think it’s the last record. At the end of this long goodbye, we’ll have a little holiday, have a talk, and the first thing that usually comes up is, ‘Wanna make another record?’” He’s not ruling out the possibility of retiring the marathon tours, though: “Maybe we’ll just do four or five weeks next year. Or maybe that’s enough.”
Whatever it is, don’t call it “final.” Not yet. Not ever.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video to "All I Got Is You" below.
