Thirty years ago, Deep Purple released its third album, Concerto For Group And Orchestra, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The music was written by keyboardist Jon Lord, who was exploring his classical roots and attempting to fuse British rock and classical music, and steer the band in a more progressive direction. Unfortunately, at the time, rock audiences and the members of the Royal philharmonic were not quite ready to undertake such a collaboration, and the music was not nearly as well-received as Lord and Purple had hoped. The orchestra showed little respect to the rock group and audiences were unreceptive.

While other groups like Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer succeeded in uniting classical and rock elements, Purple's attempts were less fruitful, so the group continued with a heavier, more guitar-dominated approach led by Ritchie Blackmore. The group's subsequent album, In Rock, released in 1970, was highly acclaimed and laid the groundwork for the string of the successful albums to follow.

But Lord's idea of fusing classical and heavy rock styles was never completely abandoned. However, to add insult to injury, the original score for the Concerto was lost, and never recovered.

Fast forward 30 years. The score is rediscovered by a young Dutch composer whose deep interest in the piece fueled his efforts to transcribe it. Elated by the news, the group set out to resurrect this early work. The timing was perfect, as Purple had been searching for a unique idea for a concert that would be performed as a benefit for the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Charity. Working with conductor Paul Mann, the London Symphony Orchestra, and an array of guest performers that included Steve Morse Band bassist Dave LaRue and drummer Van Romaine, and singer Ronnie James Dio, a program was assembled. The resulting performance included classic Purple material as well as Morse's "Take It Off The Top," and was recorded for a new live album, Deep Purple In Concert With The London Symphony Orchestra.

VG met with Purple's Steve Morse to discuss the rejuvenation of Lord's original Concerto and the group's recent experiences working with the London Symphony Orchestra. Time has a magical way of revitalizing Ideas that may have been ahead of their time. This time around, the fusion of rock, classical, and progressive music proved a genuine success.

How did the idea of resurrecting the "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" and the collaboration with the London Symphony come about?

Steve Morse: Well, in '69 Jon Lord wrote a concerto that was to be performed by the band, Deep Purple, and an orchestra. It went well considering that at the time, classical musicians weren't really fond of seeing longhaired rock guys who were more famous than they were.

Roger Glover: Back in'69, there was a different attitude to music and musicians. The Royal Philharmonic was the orchestra we used then. At the time, some of the musicians walked out when we walked in. Some of them gave us wolf whistles because we had long hair, and very few treated us with any respect, or even showed the respect toward their own jobs as musicians, because they didn't make any effort to play the parts well. On the video, you can see one of the violinists, and where there's a particular passage with a lot of triplets, he's just going on, not playing the part correctly, and not caring.

Whatever it was, that was a truly live recording, and that's the way it turned out. We didn't think anything of it. Soon after, the manuscript was lost. Jon searched everywhere. Meanwhile, we go on and have a career, and the concerto became one of those things we thought would remain forever in the past.

Thirty years later, we were at the end of a tour and we owed a gig to the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Charity. The organization had given us an award the year before. We wanted to do something special, not just the usual concert. The "something special" was pretty amorphous in our minds, but our idea was to bring in some guest musicians of various styles and do something unique. We were vaguely trying to think of what it could be and thought the Royal Albert Hall seemed like a decent kind of place anyway - we'd been there a few times in the past.

When we were in Rotterdam [Holland], someone approached Jon Lord in the lobby of our hotel as we were leaving for the gig. He was a young guy in his early 20s named Marco de Goeij, a Dutch composer and music student. He gave Jon an envelope in which was a manuscript of the original recording that he had painstakingly reconstructed over a two-and-a-half year period as his college thesis. So all of a sudden, this gig and the rebirth of the manuscript for Jon's 'Concerto' starting moving toward each other, and the concept of this performance came into place. That was really how it all started and in turn, all the elements in making this record sort of fell into place, too.

What was it like to bring the Steve Morse Band into this project?

Morse: It was great. At first, I think Van Romaine was having a problem getting the volume down on his drums. Once we began, we all became acutely aware of how soft a piano or double piano section was with the orchestra. The snare drum Van uses was designed to deliver the loudest volume a snare drum can produce. I think he blinks every time he hits it (laughs). But he adapted, and we all did. He and bassist Dave LaRue are both very loud players and just the heaviest guys you could get, but they have a lot of finesse, too, so it all worked out great. They're wonderful guys to play with and I wish we could have done more together.

Was there a great deal of rehearsal with both the group and orchestra?

Glover: Five days. Paul Mann, conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, brought all of the guests together and it was an intense week of hard work.

Did the band use musical scores for reference, or did you rely on your ears and cues from the conductor?

Morse: It was like we had to follow a score, but without really having an actual score. The orchestra had their written parts and the conductor had a score. We weren't given any formal musical charts. We had wrote our cues in different ways. I went back to the old manuscript paper and wrote out little cues for where I was supposed to come in and wrote out the actual rhythmic motifs with some chord charts and actual melodic charts for my parts. Roger wrote his differently.

The conductor would read the score, flipping with one hand, then playing the parts with the other on the grand piano. As he was going through the score, he'd point out where we were supposed to come in and we would make our notes. In reality, he could only play one or two parts at a time, so when the whole orchestra was playing individual parts, it would sound a lot different and you might not be so sure about when you were supposed to play. So a cue that would sound so massive on the piano could be buried when the horns were playing something that was overpowering that part you were listening for.

Another thing I encountered was that when I learned conducting in school and whenever I'd seen a gig, the cues were so different from the way this orchestra was cued. The way I'd been taught, you are supposed to play right on the cue. But the way the orchestra was cued, their cues were given just before they were supposed to play. So every time I'd watch the conductor, I would start before the orchestra. I had to sort of tune out from the conductor and accept that there was like a 600 millisecond delay between his cue and when I was supposed to play. What we ended up doing was cueing off of the percussionists and trying to anticipate where the parts come in. To compensate, I would keep the volume on my guitar off, then strike the note and roll the volume on. The only time I didn't do that was for the staccato part at the end.

Glover: We were aware this was going to be a problem. It always is with orchestras because they have a whole different set of timing and it's a different universe, really. But I think Paul Mann was a great help in bridging the orchestra and the band. He'd help the orchestra to hit the cues in a more timely fashion and we, on the other hand, were very aware of trying to hold back as much as possible because we know that's what orchestras do.

Did you scale down your usual stage rig to keep from overpowering the orchestra?

Morse: Yes. We had to come way down a lot in volume and setup in front of the orchestra so we wouldn't be blowing our noisy speakers at them. I was relying on the master volume control on the amp to keep my volume down, since I have a lot of distortion on the input gain. We did also cut down on our stage gear. I had one 4X12 cabinet and one wedge cabinet. Roger had one SVT cabinet turned sideways. We didn't put any amps on top of the speakers, to keep the sight line as low as possible. We put our amps on the floor. We were also sitting down when we were playing, and using music stands.

Do you feel the success of Metallica's 'S&M' helped rock fans accept the combining of a heavy rock band and orchestra, and made this good timing for this new Deep Purple's release?

Morse: I think it probably was, just because they saw violin bows onstage with Metallica and liked the way it sounded, so it was okay.

Glover: We don't have much choice as far as the timing of this release. It had to be released now because if we released it in two years, then it wouldn't be current. We were already in the works of doing this before we realized that Metallica was doing something along these lines. But I think the fact that we're both heavy bands and we're both working with orchestras is the only thing that's similar. It's a whole different attitude in each situation. We're approaching it by using the orchestra as the main instrument, not just as a backing band. Metallica is basically playing their own music and the orchestra is backing it, whereas this is actually classical music we're playing, so it's really a whole different approach.

Morse: There are two things happening on our record; there are songs with guests and it's kind of an unusual gig, where there is an orchestra backing up some things. But there is also the 'Concerto,' where the band is part of the orchestra and we work as a whole. The fact that the 'Concerto' was written by a band member is also unique. It's a serious work and it's something you have to spend a lot of time to do.

Hard rock and heavy metal have greatly changed in recent years. Now it's common to have a DJ in the band. What are your opinions of some of these new bands and musical styles?

Glover: My kids are teenagers and they're really into hip-hop and bands like the Beastie Boys and Rage Against The Machine. Bands like that have someone spinning turntables. Music is always moving forward by being a hybrid of different fashions. Rock and roll itself a mixture white music and black music, country music and blues. Growing up, we were exposed to lots of different kinds of music and we all had different influences, like classical and orchestral music, jazz, folk, and rock. They all play a part in how our music comes out.

What has changed in the way you approach playing music? How have things evolved for Deep Purple?

Glover: I think that as musicians, the band has gotten a lot better, especially in the last six years. There's a great freedom in the band now. I've watched Ian Paice go through a period of being stagnant, wooden, and awkward, to being totally expressive. I don't think I've ever heard him play so well. When I was remixing 'Highway Star,' from Machine Head, some time ago, I was listening to the drums on their own. You always think of the song with really straight, pounding drums, but if you isolate the drums, you'll hear they have more of a swing beat, and it's that combination of hard rock and swing that gives you that great feel. A lot of people miss that.

There's something about what makes Deep Purple music, and when Steve joined we were really intent on not repeating where we had been. We wanted someone who was going to be 100 percent themselves and give of themselves, and not try to be like any predecessor.

To that extent, it was a real eye opener. The writing sessions for Purpendicular were a marvelous experience, from a writing point of view. When I listen to a song like "The Aviator," for example, I ask myself if that's really Deep Purple music. But that's really the wrong question because Deep Purple music is whatever we feel right playing. So I think we've expanded our horizons by being open to suggestion and having Steve be himself and not copying anyone else. I think that's influenced our writing style a lot.

How open are audiences to hearing the new music?

Morse: The audience has made some of the new tunes classics, too. Of course, they want to hear the old stuff, but then they also want to hear the new stuff. I think the audience has grown and things are going really well.

Steve, when you're playing the older music, do you hear Ritchie Blackmore or Tommy Bolin guitar parts in your head?

Morse: Oh, sure. It's just like if I was playing at someone's party and doing a Beatles song. I'd try to think about what the song needs. In this band, it's me trying to have a good time and playing celebrated Deep Purple tunes. As a guitarist, I'm going to suggest as much familiarity with the music as I can. But of course I can't help but sound like myself and not always identical to the original records.

I have all these guitar solos inside of two hours, so nobody's going to be hurting for hearing my style, so it doesn't hurt me to cover the tune as best as I can, especially when it's a real classic. For instance, the middle of 'Women From Tokyo' is one of my favorite parts, and on the recording, Jon played the organ straight through an amp, doubling the vocal melody, and the vocal melody was doubled anyway. There's a hypnotic and beautiful sound of this mixolydian melody and I really loved it. But now, Jon's not doing that part anymore. He's playing something on the piano, so I'm doing that heavy organ part instead and just kind of doing that jangling thing in the background. So I'll do whatever I think it takes to help fill in my idea of how I remember the song.

What adjustments did you make to your playing style and tone to better fit Deep Purple's format?

Morse: My normal tone was more midrangey. When we got ready for the recording, we tried different amps and sounds. I'm using (Peavey) 5150s and that works better in conjunction with the tone of the organ because the organ has a lot of midrange in it, too. It leaves a little bit of a hole and we can balance the guitar and organ on different sides in the mix. They have similar kinds of distortion, but they're different enough so they work together now. But with the rig I use with the Dregs and on my solo gigs, which is a Marshall Jubilee head, my sound is a little more focused with harder midrange. So the main thing I did was to change the amp.

I also incorporate lots of different techniques. One of the things I do now, like during an organ solo, is switch to my single-coil pickups, which I have backed off quite a bit from the strings. That alone provides a better opportunity to control the gain. I bring the guitar volume down so I don't have to change the amp setting. Then suddenly, I'm completely out of the way so the soundman doesn't have to touch the volume of the organ in the mix and you can hear the organ solo. It's so easy for a guitarist to cover up the organ during a solo. My guitar helps me stay out of his way, but I consciously get off the road when it's time for someone else's solo. That's one of the things I think every guitarist should do.

Another thing you can do is keep a similar sound, but mute it and cut down the time you're doing it by playing less, so it's there, but it's leaving holes so that even if the soundman didn't turn up the soloist, you still hear them. That's what we do in a few occasions. Roger and I are definitely in tune and paying attention to each other and working together. Same with Jon and I. I've made it clear to them and they've made it clear to me that we've got to be communicating. I don't want to be in a band where nobody looks at each other or cares what the other one is playing That's horrible! That's like work!

Glover: You know, things become habits and a band may start off a tour having fun and looking at each other. Someone may do something one night and again the next night, then all of a sudden it becomes part of the set. These little spontaneous moments have a way of coalescing into a permanent arrangement. I think we're very lucky in that everyone in the band is really into playing their instrument and supporting each other, which means you're playing the same song, but you're approaching it different every night, especially the solos. But it's not just solos that change, because drum parts and bass parts change all the time, as well. Ian also likes to make up new words every night - and sometimes they're rather rude (laughs)! Something is always happening when the band is performing live.

I've seen bands rehearse themselves to the point we're they're really slick, then they go on and do exactly the same thing every night - every solo is note-perfect. It's always the same - every movement, every position, every spotlight that hits the guitarist is just right, and it's all very choreographed...and dead. It's wooden. The other extreme is it's so loose it just falls apart.

To me, rock music should have the structure and looseness at the same time. Listen to Hendrix or the early Purple; I remember the early Purple days being complete chaos. When we were playing, I'd remember thinking that we hadn't rehearsed the song that way, but that's really what the magic of the band was. There was an element of danger, but not quite anarchy, where it was okay. Ritchie used to suddenly turn around to the band and give us a signal to stop and he'd go off on some other thing, then we'd join him again. None of it was rehearsed, so of course, there was a danger that you could end up looking like a complete fool, and that does happen. But I think you have to learn to accept that if you're going to walk on that line, you're going to occasionally get egg on your face.

Roger, how does working with different musicians affect your performance? For instance, how does playing with Ritchie Blackmore differ from playing with Steve?

Glover: I don't like to compare. I'm lucky enough to have worked with a lot of good guitarists. I think it's not so much the way they play, but their personality is what changes one. Steve is a very supportive personality and his main intention is to do the best job he can. That's an attitude that brings out the best in everyone else. It's actually a very simple concept - the more you give, the more you get. People are different personalities, not just guitarists. It doesn't really affect me as musician as it does as a person. One of the greatest assets a human being has is adaptability. So you can find yourself in a very strange situation and still adapt to it pretty well. But your personality and how you mix with others is what makes the most difference in any musical group.

If you play with other musicians then come back into the band, it serves to enrich you. You get different ideas and a different outlook.

Steve, how does working with a variety of musicians affect your performance?

Morse: Normally, it's a good thing, and in this case, it definitely is. The first thing I noticed playing with this group is the timing is totally solid. So I can take chances in my playing. I can goof around with the vocalist and do things he'll mimic back, or do a harmony with me. I can try just about anything with either Jon Lord or Ian Gillan, and I love that about them. We have a few short rhythmic things I can play with Ian Paice, too. I feel this massive foundation of timing that will always be there, so I'm very comfortable with the musicians in this group, and it allows me to really relax and play instinctively. I enjoy that a lot.

How does Deep Purple work together to write new material, since everyone lives so far apart?

Glover: I just pick up the phone and say, "Steve, I've got this great idea for a riff. I'll meet you on June 17th" (laughs). It's actually a bit of a military exercise now and we lay aside time to do writing. To that end, we all fly to Florida. It's easy to get around down there and get a condo, which is great because you're not feeling like you're living in a hotel. If you're in a hotel, you're still on the road, mentally. But Steve lives there, so it's most convenient for him. But it's convenient for us as well because we can get a condo, rent a car, and be in a community for a while. That helps you relax and the best way to write is when you're relaxed. We just go and pack up the instruments and have some fun.

Ideas for songs come from everyone in the band. When Steve joined, we went back to the writing structure we had in the beginning with the band, where we share credit equally, no matter who comes up with what. It's so non-creative to be fighting about who wrote what percentage of the song. The essence of what we do comes out of the way we interact. So we all kind of edit and support each other and somehow, out of this chemical reaction, a song emerges. So we don't really know what it's going to be like. There are no preconceptions.

Do any of you ever make demos of your ideas?

Morse: Yes, so you can hear the song and talk about it.

Glover: We have certainly done that, but it's with the intention of presenting something to the band as an unfinished idea. Sometimes, making a demo is the best way to explain it. When Steve joined the band, he became a full member right away. I'm sure a lot of people would think a new guitarist coming in would be treated as such, but we weren't interested in anything other than a full partnership. We went back to this five-way writing thing because we have wanted to do it that way for years. It clears the decks and keeps the energy focused.

How do you document the ideas that emerge from your writing sessions?

Glover: Sometimes there's a DAT or some type of recorder in the room. Sometimes I record on a cassette player with a couple of mics in front of the drums and a mic in front of each amp. Occasionally, that has come in really handy because something's happened in the studio that you can't replicate. So you have a multitrack recording, not a good one, but salvageable. There are some songs that actually made it onto the albums that were from those early writing sessions.

Morse: Roger is the record keeper and he keeps the audio files. He goes and turns on the tape recorder to catalog the idea. In every group situation, where there are a lot of ideas coming and going, that's where the teamwork comes in. I'm good at just spewing a chaotic mess of ideas, but Roger is really good at organizing them.

Do you make multi-track demos of the songs in the pre-production stage?

Glover: Sometimes. The process is kind of odd because there's no "normal" way that we do things. We've been rehearsing in a studio, so the temptation to put a few mics up and record it while we're rehearsing is pretty strong, and we've given in to those feelings once in a while. But if you make involved demos, sometimes you start worrying you can never get the real recording to sound as good as the demo, and you end up using some of that. "Rosa's Cantina" (from Purpendicular), for example, was a jam that happened and when we tried to play it again, nowhere near the same kind of magic happened.

But it's a dangerous game. As soon as you start holding up a demo and trying to better something, you find yourself trying to salvage from it just to be expressive. It's not a bad idea, but then it can be. We will probably end up making rudimentary demos of the songs for a new album, probably not more than eight or 10 tracks. We decide as we go.

When you recorded this new record with the London Symphony, was there any overdubbing done after the original live performance?

Glover: No, it was really done completely live. But Ian went in with the intention of replacing some vocals here and there, like one or two words in one song. The only other thing we fixed was a cello player- who was playing sharp, so we tried to bring his part down a bit. Other than that, it's an honest live album.

How were the live tracks recorded?

Glover: There were a hundred or so musicians onstage and everyone had their own mics. It was done as a 48 track digital recording. There were a couple of engineers. The orchestra had their own mixer and that was sent as a separate feed, and then the band and singers had another feed.

What tips would you give to other musicians on improving their songwriting skills and playing technique?

Glover: First, you have to love music if you want to be in this business. Otherwise, you're going to be bitter disappointed because the business is rife ground for disappointment and disillusionment.

Morse: I would say to play what you love and play in front of an audience regularly, even if it's just a few people on the weekend. But make some kind of presentation of new material and new ideas regularly. If you're going to do it for your career, you have to itemize your priorities everyday. If you already have a family and another job, those are first on your list if you already made those commitments. It's that simple. Then put the other things in order and do something to forward your goals every single day.

If you're going to call yourself a professional musician or strive to be one, you have to constantly ask yourself what you've done today to make yourself closer to your goal. You can't make a day go by and not do it, and then still call yourself a professional.

Glover: You can be in isolation, like in your own home studio or in your bedroom, and write songs. But there's no way you can judge it in isolation. As Steve said, the only way you can judge it is if you go out and play in front of people. That's the only way you'll be aware of your strong points and your weak points.

Morse: When you play in front of people, you'll develop the objectivity that will be what you need to gain a sense of how you're doing. Everyone needs their own way to judge their work, and gain some sense of direction because everyone will be telling them conflicting things for the rest of their life. It's important to get feedback from others on a regular basis.

Playing music is an ongoing process, and you have to keep working at it to stay on top of your game. Practice your craft in several different distinct groups - technical, creative, and review each day work on something in each category and don't do too much of just one. That will help develop and improve your skills in all of those areas, and maintain what you've learned.

Transcribed by John D. Smith