There's no Ritchie Blackmore, but '70s rock legends Deep Purple roll on with - bizarrely - Steve Morse on guitar. TGM joins the new boy and veteran bassist Roger Glover for a précis of Purps past and present, and charts the wayward careers of past guitarists Blackmore and Tommy Bolin...

The tinkling of ivories is clearly audible in Room 510, even with the door closed. The tune is unmistakable. It is Knees Up Mother Brown, hammered out on the hotel's baby grand by a chuckling Ian Gillan, loin-girding frontman with original Brit rockers Deep Purple. Gillan, a man whose voice registers an ear-bleeding ten on the Richter scale (11 if he's doing that loud bit in Child In Time), is posing for pictures and treating the attentive German photographer to instrumental versions of traditional English pub singalongs. Thankfully, we are spared My Old Man's A Dustman or Smoke On The Water.

This morning, London's Landmark Hotel resonates to Gillan's impromptu piano recital and the polite banter of Purple's resident keyboard player Jon Lord, also in attendance. Cocooned from the outside world by a legion of attentive PRs and 40-something blokes with pony-tails, Purple are conducting their latest press push in a dignified and orderly fashion - reaffirming their position as the Donald Sinden of heavy metal bands.

For some, the very mention of the group's name is automatically followed by the words, 'Christ! Are they still going?' But since their reformation in 1984 they've never really gone away. While The 'Classic Mark II Line-up' - as it's known among the faithful - of Gillan, Lord, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice, hasn't survived the last ten years intact, Purple have stayed together in one form or another: whether soldiering on, following Gillan's temporary departure, with ex-Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner or, as now, with seasoned US session guitarist Steve Morse taking over from Ritchie Blackmore.

While some may have believed that Purple jumped to the tune of the notoriously temperamental Blackmore, it was in fact the guitarist who bailed out this time, quitting on the eve of a Japanese tour in 1993. Blackmore has since complained to one journalist that he was tired of Gillan grunting - rather than singing - during their live show, and, in display of quaint English etiquette, wrote letters to each member of the band informing them of his decision to leave. The remaining foursome of Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice called on the services of studious fret-fiddler Joe Satriani to complete the jaunt.

It seems, however, that Le Satch never planned on staying for good and quit amicably at the end of the tour. Steve Morse was drafted in early last year ('95). Morse, formerly of cult southern rock combo the Dixie Dregs, is a journeyman guitarist, who's dabbled in country, jazz and new age music, and played with everyone from '70s bozos such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Triumph and Kansas to, er, Liza Minnelli ('I'm on an album of her's somewhere').

With his blond locks, goatee beard and sleeveless t-shirt, Morse is the American ying to Roger Glover's terribly English yang. Glover must have been cut from a mould marked Elder Statesman Of Rock. Thinning hair wisping from beneath his trademark beret over the collar of a discreetly expensive shirt, he remains impossibly cheery while nursing the vestiges of a monstrous hangover. ('Back in London... some old friends... wine,' he murmurs with a dramatic quaffing gesture.) So, a change in Deep Purple's line-up? Again?

'I know how it looks,' Glover sighs, 'Oh right, Ritchie's quit this time. But it wasn't working out for him anymore and I respect him for acknowledging that and leaving, rather than attempting to oust the rest of us. It was obvious that the five of us couldn't function as a unit anymore. Ritchie's actually been very gracious about it all.

'I also know how it sounds when I say that I'm happier now than I've been since, er, 1969 when I first joined this group,' he admits, before adding cautiously, 'It probably seems ridiculous, I know. But I was talking to Jon (Lord) the other day and he agrees that the feeling in the band now is the best it's ever been since we cut Deep Purple In Rock. Steve really has brought something to this group.'

Deep Purple In Rock, was released in 1970. 26 years on, Steve Morse makes his debut on Purple's latest album which, it has to be said, labours under the knuckle-suckingly bad title of Purpendicular. In Rock positively bulged with proto-metal classics like Speed King and Child In Time; in contrast, Purpendicular is a dark, free-form, jazz-tinged affair, that even after several listenings refuses to yield anything approaching a hit single. Wholly uncommercial, it's nevertheless easy to see why Glover is so fired up. Purpendicular is guaranteed to wow Purple's muso audience and should sate the appetite of Morse watchers everywhere.

But Morse's addition to the ranks was preceded by Joe Satriani's spell with the band, suggesting perhaps that the core Purps delight in upstaging Blackmore by recruiting the cream of US axemen. Who next? Steve Vai?

'We were all very aware of Joe's ability as a guitar player,' concedes Glover. 'But we had a tour to fulfil. It was just a question of whether he could learn the material in time... which of course he could. It worked well. But Joe has his own solo career and other commitments. It's also a hell of a responsibility to take over in a band that carries around as much of a legacy as we do.'

It seems Morse was an obvious choice. A guitarist's guitarist, he came to prominence in the late '70s with the Dixie Dregs. Graduates of the University Of Miami's jazz department, the band began life knocking out covers of Allman Brothers and Mahavishnu Orchestra material mixed in with their own songs. A mind-scrambling fusion of classical, Southern rock, jazz and bluegrass, the Dixie Dregs cut a string of albums beginning with Free Fall in 1977 and continuing into the '80s with the likes of the Grammy-nominated Industry Standard and Unsung Heroes, by which time they had abbreviated their name to the Dregs. Morse, also a hot-shot banjo and pedal steel player, was acknowledged throughout the US as the session player in excelsis. Defunct UK music mag Sounds cruelly dubbed him 'the Mike Oldfield of the rodeo set', but Morse prefers to remember the accolades heaped on him by the US pundits.

'I'd been touring with Kansas before I joined Deep Purple,' he reveals. The mid-western pomp rockers notable for their 1976 hit, Carry On Wayward Son, were, however, toilet-bound. 'They were completely falling apart but still selling out theatres across America. It was weird to be a part of something that was still successful but which was disintegrating. It was also a strain on me as an individual.'

Once bitten, Morse at first feared that Purple would be in a similar state of disrepair. 'My manager called me and asked me what I thought of Deep Purple and I figured I'd been asked to play on a Purple tribute album, as that's the kind of thing I get asked to do these days. I agreed to try this out but I was reluctant to commit to anything that wasn't going to be fun.'

'I saw Steve play in the Dixie Dregs when I was still in Rainbow,' chips in Glover. 'But it wasn't a case of having him on hold waiting for Ritchie to leave. Someone suggested we try him out and it seemed to make sense.'

A professional airline pilot, Morse admits that 'the '80s were a weird time for me' and he was earning money between riffing assignments piloting his private plane.

'I didn't want to do anything unless the chemistry was right,' he continues. 'I can get up on stage and play with anybody for a certain period of time whether or not I can actually spark off them as a musician. But there has to be a cut-off point. The beauty of Deep Purple is that there is no cut-off point.'

'There's a rapport,' states Glover.

This musical rapport reveals itself throughout the new Purple album, on songs that Glover admits are all the results of extensive jamming sessions. Morse's distinctive touch is especially noticeable on the opening track, Vavoom: Ted The Mechanic, four minutes-plus of cocksure hard rock spiked with a shot of jazz and funk and not unlike some of the more R&B-flavoured moments on Come Taste The Band, Purple's 1976 swansong album, which featured the late US guitarist Tommy Bolin in place of Blackmore.

Glover, who was no longer in Deep Purple when they cut Come Taste The Band, is reluctant to make the comparison. 'I was fired in 1973 and it hurt like hell,' he winches. 'I did eventually listen to Burn (Purple's 1974 album that featured Gillan's and Glover's replacements David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes) and I can say now that I thought there were some good songs on there, especially Sail Away and Might Just Take Your Life. I never liked Stormbringer (the follow-up album) and I never actually heard Come Taste The Band.'

Bolin was a supremely gifted player who stamped his musical mark on Come Taste The Band, as well as exposing his genteel English band members to the downside of Class A drug consumption. A heroin addict, he quit the band in July '76 and was dead within six months. 'I liked what Bolin did in Zephyr,' says Morse, referring to the late guitarist's pre-Purps jazz-rock outfit. 'But not in Purple.'

Blackmore's departure has heralded what Glover calls 'a new-found freedom' in the ranks of Deep Purple. 'I feel like I can do what I want in here,' says Morse enthusiastically. 'When I was in Kansas it was like playing with one hand behind my back. I was told what to do and I did it. If I have an idea here they'll let me run with it.

'Deep Purple have actually gone from E to F on this album,' he adds. 'I don't think they'd ever done that before.' Glover nods sagely. 'There's also a couple of ideas on this record that I'd had left over from Kansas but which they'd never let me use.'

Glover looks comically appalled before taking over. 'Ritchie wasn't terribly big on encouraging other people,' he explains carefully. 'And he was incredibly set in his ways. Everything reached a head when we played live because he insisted that the set was basically Made In Japan (Purple's 1973 live album) plus a few of the new songs. Ritchie refused to do anything else and from a personal point of view that drove me mad. Don't get me wrong, I love Strange Kind Of Woman, Lazy, Highway Star, even Smoke On The Water, but there are all these other wonderful Deep Purple songs that we should be playing. As soon as he left we put Maybe I'm A Leo into the set.'

It seems Ian Gillan's creativity was particularly hindered by the ex-guitarist's formidable presence in the studio. Purple's spectacularly hirsute vocalist may have been the the man who quite incredibly rhymed 'wimmin' (as in women) with 'swimmin'' on the Gillan band's 1981 hit, No Laughing In Heaven, but Blackmore was dismissive of his talents.

'Ritchie doesn't regard Ian as a musician,' shrugs Glover. 'Any idea he came up with was immediately dismissed. That situation has changed. Ian's actually been working on more than just lyrics here. There's this brilliant Bo Diddley-style riff which he came up with which we've used on the new record.'

Morse cheerfully explains that every track on the new album came out of a jamming session. 'Everything started with the four of us playing, then Roger sneakily switched on the DAT machine when no-one was looking and Ian wandered in and started singing the first thing that came into his head. We built from there.'

'It could be a problem live,' admits Glover. 'We have to find a way to keep everything in check and make sure that we don't go off in our own direction. But the joy of what we're doing now is that the five of us are making incredible music together. Jon, in particular, is like a man reborn. He's enjoying working with Steve to such a degree that we've recaptured that whole guitar and keyboards duelling style that we had in the old days.'

Glover is diplomatic on the subject of Purple's last three studio albums, The Battle Rages On ('93), Slaves And Masters ('90) and The House Of Blue Light ('87). 'We won't be playing anything off those records when we tour in spring,' he says. 'I'm not disowning them but what we have with Steve is so much stronger. I also want to bring some more old Purple songs into the set. Maybe When A Blind Man Cries or Fireball.'

Fireball remains one of the heaviest songs in Purple's canon. 'It still holds up doesn't it?' grins Glover. 'It's incredibly fast. I think aggression and conflict is a vital part of hard rock music which is, by its very essence, violent music. The conflict we used to have in Deep Purple gave us our edge. But when it became too destructive it had the reverse effect, and it tore this band apart.

'It was wonderful when we first got back together in '84,' he continues. 'To see the five us sitting in a pub together laughing and joking about the terrible rows we'd had 20 years before. We had to send a roadie out to the local record shop to buy a copy of Machine Head because none of us could remember what key Highway Star was in. The reunion album, Perfect Strangers, was wonderful because we'd been apart for so long. Then we went on tour. Then we went back into the studio to make The House Of Blue Light and we'd only had three months apart, and it showed. We suffered from classic Second Album Syndrome.'

Despite being fired by Blackmore in 1973, Glover rejoined the guitarist in Rainbow in 1979. Blackmore once claimed that he took Glover back because even after being sacked he 'kept his mouth shut.' Put it to Glover that Blackmore has been the bane of his adult life and he smiles. 'It can feel that way sometimes,' he nods. 'The thing is Ritchie is terribly ambitious and incredibly driven and he won't let anything stand in his way. I envy him at times because I'm not really like that.'

Glover, a proficient songwriter and producer (previous credits include Judas Priest's Sin After Sin) and, according to Morse, 'a genius in the studio,' plays the role of reliable sideman with consummate ease. He's just turned 50, has lived in Connecticut for the past 15 years, admits a fondness for the music of the Penguin Café Orchestra and apologises at one point for using the word 'grunge'. Considering this is the man who penned the juggernaut riff to Smoke On The Water, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unlikely heavy metal behemoth.

'We're not trying to prove anything to anybody or pretend to be something that we're not,' he insists. 'We never envisaged that we'd still be doing this 25 years after we made Deep Purple In Rock. It would have been unthinkable. But how far can we go with this?' I don't think anyone really knows.' He smiles politely and sips his coffee. 'Actually Ritchie summed it up rather well. He recently said that everyone's at peace now, and I think that says it all really.'

Pick Of The Purps

Roger Glover

Hard Lovin' Man (from Deep Purple In Rock)
'Loud, brash but also flippant. That one song has summed up Deep Purple for me.'

Fireball (from Fireball)
'It's just so loud and fast. Quite amazing for 1972, I think!'

Perfect Strangers (from Perfect Strangers)
'The reunion record was a pleasant experience, believe it or not, and I think this was the best song on it. It was like classic Deep Purple but with a modern edge.'

Steve Morse

Speed King (from Deep Purple In Rock)
'A great, great riff. I remember playing this over and over, figuring out how to play it.'

Maybe I'm A Leo (from Who Do We Think We Are)
'It was always one of my favourite album tracks and the band started playing it again on the tour with Joe Satriani.'

Highway Star (from Machine Head)
'I always just knew it as the first song on the live album, Made In Japan. It's such a great song to play live and the solo is fantastic.'