Steve Morse has been through it all since stepping back from Deep Purple in 2022. Initially taking a temporary hiatus from the band to tend for his wife Janine who was battling cancer at the time, he eventually announced his permanent departure a few months later. However with 'Triangulation', his new solo release, the Ohio native is getting back to what he does best; tasteful licks, wailing leads and rocking riffs. "Picking up the pieces and finally having that sense of purpose and drive again after seeing the band I was with for twenty-eight years, Purple just ride off into the sunset without me, it feels really good to have my musical gang again", he confesses as we sit down for a chat. Talking the album, the emotional impact of the track 'Taken by an Angel', and his favourite Deep Purple album, we caught up with Steve Morse.
Photo; Nick Neresov
Hi Steve, how are you?
I'm good. I'm currently at home. We're having rehearsals here, so today I'm doing interviews instead of rehearsing.
I think you'd much rather be shredding on the guitar.
Well, I actually enjoy talking about music, and especially if I can give anything educational that other people find useful. I think that's a part of the higher calling.
That's actually a really great place to start, because I was a kid in 1991 learning to play guitar, and I used to read your column in Guitar For The Practising Musician; your music man guitar looks nice and shiny in the issue I'm looking at!
Yeah, I didn't take very good care of it. It's been through too much. I try to take good care of it, but one of the things I did was play through a typhoon in Asia, with the rain coming in like a shower until none of the equipment would work. Another thing that contributed to the state of that guitar was being in trunks o f cars in the desert while we were traveling.
Well, it all tells a story, doesn't?
Yeah, there's big story.
How did you get into writing that column, and what do you remember about those days?
Well, John Stix was the editor, and he was basically the guy that helped make it happen. He would interview me and he would have an idea of what the column should be about, but he would try to get me to write it in response to his questions. And he said; "I want you to write it, but tell me more about this. I want to learn more about that", and he would read it and say; "well, I like the way you answered this. You answered in great detail, but that's taking away from the focus". He was very instructive, and it was a great experience for me. He liked the fact that I wanted to help people get a glimpse of really how I thought you should be as a musician in a band, or interacting with the music business or an audience or whatever.
Well, as someone reading it back then, I can say it definitely translated.
Well, I've heard from a lot of people that they're influenced by that, by having somebody lay out advice, and that it helped shape the way they'd think of things in future. I've even had John Petrucci telling me that, so I love the fact that, okay, there's something I can do that helps people.
We'll get on to John Petrucci very shortly because he features on 'Triangulation', but it's your first solo album in sixteen years; you must be so psyched to be releasing it.
Yeah, I am, especially after all I've been through with the covid debacle and then the absolute heart rending loss of my wife, and then just picking up the pieces and finally having that sense of purpose and drive again. And seeing the band I was with for twenty-eight years, Purple, just ride off into the sunset without me. It feels really good to have my musical gang again.
You also had struggles with arthritis that forced you to innovate how you play.
Playing some of the songs live you could see me changing from this method to that method, and I've done a lot of treatments and stuff to treat the symptoms. I just finished six radiation treatments and I have injections and all kinds of stuff going on trying to find ways around problems.
The album kicks off with 'Break Through', a track that musically goes; "BAM! I'm back!"
Well, that's what it is. It starts just with the rhythm riff, just in your face, you know; here's the [sings the riff], but with a little bit of swing, which actually, Purple could do. That's something that I could have brought into Purple, and they might use it as an intro to a song, I don't know. Maybe because of all the years of playing with them, that is my style of rhythm playing. So anyway, that starts out, and then we get into more stuff. The melody on the bass, that was my idea in order to have a totally different sound. Stanley Clark used to have bass melodies on his tunes back in the '70s, and very few people do it, so I thought it'd be neat.
It kind of reminded me of Deep Purple's 'Almost Human'; it's got that kind of feel.
Yeah, a little bit of swing to it!
Talking about the bass riff, that relationship with Dave LaRue is obviously really important to you, because he is all over this album.
Well, you got to use everything you got with it, especially with the trio, and even to the point of having guests and stuff, but to make it an interesting listening experience, I do want to write for the strengths of the band, and Dave's soloing ability is a big strength.
I'm good. I'm currently at home. We're having rehearsals here, so today I'm doing interviews instead of rehearsing.
I think you'd much rather be shredding on the guitar.
Well, I actually enjoy talking about music, and especially if I can give anything educational that other people find useful. I think that's a part of the higher calling.
That's actually a really great place to start, because I was a kid in 1991 learning to play guitar, and I used to read your column in Guitar For The Practising Musician; your music man guitar looks nice and shiny in the issue I'm looking at!
Yeah, I didn't take very good care of it. It's been through too much. I try to take good care of it, but one of the things I did was play through a typhoon in Asia, with the rain coming in like a shower until none of the equipment would work. Another thing that contributed to the state of that guitar was being in trunks o f cars in the desert while we were traveling.
Well, it all tells a story, doesn't?
Yeah, there's big story.
How did you get into writing that column, and what do you remember about those days?
Well, John Stix was the editor, and he was basically the guy that helped make it happen. He would interview me and he would have an idea of what the column should be about, but he would try to get me to write it in response to his questions. And he said; "I want you to write it, but tell me more about this. I want to learn more about that", and he would read it and say; "well, I like the way you answered this. You answered in great detail, but that's taking away from the focus". He was very instructive, and it was a great experience for me. He liked the fact that I wanted to help people get a glimpse of really how I thought you should be as a musician in a band, or interacting with the music business or an audience or whatever.
Well, as someone reading it back then, I can say it definitely translated.
Well, I've heard from a lot of people that they're influenced by that, by having somebody lay out advice, and that it helped shape the way they'd think of things in future. I've even had John Petrucci telling me that, so I love the fact that, okay, there's something I can do that helps people.
We'll get on to John Petrucci very shortly because he features on 'Triangulation', but it's your first solo album in sixteen years; you must be so psyched to be releasing it.
Yeah, I am, especially after all I've been through with the covid debacle and then the absolute heart rending loss of my wife, and then just picking up the pieces and finally having that sense of purpose and drive again. And seeing the band I was with for twenty-eight years, Purple, just ride off into the sunset without me. It feels really good to have my musical gang again.
You also had struggles with arthritis that forced you to innovate how you play.
Playing some of the songs live you could see me changing from this method to that method, and I've done a lot of treatments and stuff to treat the symptoms. I just finished six radiation treatments and I have injections and all kinds of stuff going on trying to find ways around problems.
The album kicks off with 'Break Through', a track that musically goes; "BAM! I'm back!"
Well, that's what it is. It starts just with the rhythm riff, just in your face, you know; here's the [sings the riff], but with a little bit of swing, which actually, Purple could do. That's something that I could have brought into Purple, and they might use it as an intro to a song, I don't know. Maybe because of all the years of playing with them, that is my style of rhythm playing. So anyway, that starts out, and then we get into more stuff. The melody on the bass, that was my idea in order to have a totally different sound. Stanley Clark used to have bass melodies on his tunes back in the '70s, and very few people do it, so I thought it'd be neat.
It kind of reminded me of Deep Purple's 'Almost Human'; it's got that kind of feel.
Yeah, a little bit of swing to it!
Talking about the bass riff, that relationship with Dave LaRue is obviously really important to you, because he is all over this album.
Well, you got to use everything you got with it, especially with the trio, and even to the point of having guests and stuff, but to make it an interesting listening experience, I do want to write for the strengths of the band, and Dave's soloing ability is a big strength.
How did the writing work for the album? Do you sit down and come up with ideas, or were you jamming, like I'd imagine Deep Purple does?
It's a little bit different. With this record I took from my ideas that I'd worked on, and accidentally found, and recorded and tried bits and pieces, lots of them. Dave lives in same town as I do, so he came over and I said; "here's some ideas; let's start with this one", and; "would you mind playing this part, and I'll play this?", and then on the spot, I would make changes and say; "actually, can you change that to an F there?", and then; "let's make that an eighth note, and then two sixteenths, okay?" We'd just keep doing that for a few hours and come up with something that that fits, that sounds good to me, and then record that and set it aside, then come back the next day, and I would work on it late at night and have something ready for the next day when he would come over. So we just worked like that and it was just a slow process, and you could think of it as being a laborious process if it was a job, but since we don't get paid for doing it, it wasn't laborious. It was just time-intensive.
In the video it certainly didn't look like it was laborious; it looked like you were having a lot of fun.
Yeah, and that's part of playing guitar, is you put in your work beforehand, and so when the time comes that you can have fun, you can just relax, and everything will be available to you.
You mentioned collaborators, and you've got Eric Johnson on 'TexUS', and there's a really beautiful use of harmonies on there; how did that work?
Well, when he agreed to do it, I asked him as a favour, and I'm hesitant to ask for favours, but I thought this could be my last album. Who knows? Let's let's make it special. I've known him since the '70s, so I wrote it just for Eric's style, and of course, me writing it would make it my style too. But I just imagined the feel of a melodic piece. The way he solos is very melodic, so, I broke it up into; here I play melody, then Eric plays melody, and then we play together in harmony. I recorded each part and sent it to him that way, and said; "this is what I'm going to play, and this is what I want you to play; feel free to make, make it your own, stylistically", and he did. So he basically muted my guitar parts using that guitar part as a guide and to learn the melody. Some parts I'd said; "you have to play this the same, because I'm going to be doing it the same, so I'm going to be doing the harmony. So in this section. It has to be these exact notes, and here's a solo section where you can do whatever you want".
I find it to be quite an unusual harmony. It's not like straight thirds or whatever, and it tricks your ear and takes you different places.
I learned that from The Beatles; don't do parallel harmony all the time. They were masters of the two-part harmony, and that's why their stuff is so interesting; the melody, and the fact that when they do harmony, they don't just block it; always there's some interplay. Love their music.
One of the other tracks I really love is 'March of the Nomads'; it's an expansive track, and you're working with Scott Sim on that one.
Yeah, he was overdubbed after the song was was done, but the idea was in my mind, this little absolutely sliver of history that I had it of a nomadic, almost like a gypsy, group of people look looking for a place to call home, and getting driven out by war or famine or drought or whatever, in some part of your islands hundreds of years ago, and then settling in the - at the time - fertile fields, and there they were, in the Highlands.
'Ice Breaker; has a real grove to it; were you trying to mix up the styles a little bit on the album?
Yeah, it was kind of a heavy trudge. The title describes it; just an unstoppable force, and it was a little bit unusual because it has a little bit of tension between the melody and the chords, and normally I play very tonal, but yeah, I was just going for a heavier feel, for variety.
I love your guitar tones on the album, and like with Deep Purple, you've go this really dirty tone on the riffs, and then when you're getting into solos, it's so smooth; do you enjoy working with that contrast?
Yeah, in fact, usually when I'm recording, I'll just change the sound almost for no reason so that I'm not doing the same thing over and over, everywhere. For the tracking, I mostly used my 100 watt Engl signature amp into a speaker cabinet, then through a Ribbon mic, back into the board. Then for some doubles I would use my twenty watt, my little head that I can put in my suitcase when I go to do a guitar clinic or something like that. It has a direct output where you can turn it from twenty watts to five watts to one watt to off so that so it doesn't hurt the amp, because of the load that it puts on it. So you can plug in an XLR into there, and you're getting a tube amp through an IR [impulse response] replicator, so it gives that impulse response thing, sort of like having a speaker and mic set up, but it's slightly different, so that when I double on a track with those two different sounds, it really made it stand out a little bit.
Yeah, you don't want to be doubling the same guitar sound all the time.
Yeah, I do that sometimes, especially if there's bends and things; it's something that makes it different.
It's a little bit different. With this record I took from my ideas that I'd worked on, and accidentally found, and recorded and tried bits and pieces, lots of them. Dave lives in same town as I do, so he came over and I said; "here's some ideas; let's start with this one", and; "would you mind playing this part, and I'll play this?", and then on the spot, I would make changes and say; "actually, can you change that to an F there?", and then; "let's make that an eighth note, and then two sixteenths, okay?" We'd just keep doing that for a few hours and come up with something that that fits, that sounds good to me, and then record that and set it aside, then come back the next day, and I would work on it late at night and have something ready for the next day when he would come over. So we just worked like that and it was just a slow process, and you could think of it as being a laborious process if it was a job, but since we don't get paid for doing it, it wasn't laborious. It was just time-intensive.
In the video it certainly didn't look like it was laborious; it looked like you were having a lot of fun.
Yeah, and that's part of playing guitar, is you put in your work beforehand, and so when the time comes that you can have fun, you can just relax, and everything will be available to you.
You mentioned collaborators, and you've got Eric Johnson on 'TexUS', and there's a really beautiful use of harmonies on there; how did that work?
Well, when he agreed to do it, I asked him as a favour, and I'm hesitant to ask for favours, but I thought this could be my last album. Who knows? Let's let's make it special. I've known him since the '70s, so I wrote it just for Eric's style, and of course, me writing it would make it my style too. But I just imagined the feel of a melodic piece. The way he solos is very melodic, so, I broke it up into; here I play melody, then Eric plays melody, and then we play together in harmony. I recorded each part and sent it to him that way, and said; "this is what I'm going to play, and this is what I want you to play; feel free to make, make it your own, stylistically", and he did. So he basically muted my guitar parts using that guitar part as a guide and to learn the melody. Some parts I'd said; "you have to play this the same, because I'm going to be doing it the same, so I'm going to be doing the harmony. So in this section. It has to be these exact notes, and here's a solo section where you can do whatever you want".
I find it to be quite an unusual harmony. It's not like straight thirds or whatever, and it tricks your ear and takes you different places.
I learned that from The Beatles; don't do parallel harmony all the time. They were masters of the two-part harmony, and that's why their stuff is so interesting; the melody, and the fact that when they do harmony, they don't just block it; always there's some interplay. Love their music.
One of the other tracks I really love is 'March of the Nomads'; it's an expansive track, and you're working with Scott Sim on that one.
Yeah, he was overdubbed after the song was was done, but the idea was in my mind, this little absolutely sliver of history that I had it of a nomadic, almost like a gypsy, group of people look looking for a place to call home, and getting driven out by war or famine or drought or whatever, in some part of your islands hundreds of years ago, and then settling in the - at the time - fertile fields, and there they were, in the Highlands.
'Ice Breaker; has a real grove to it; were you trying to mix up the styles a little bit on the album?
Yeah, it was kind of a heavy trudge. The title describes it; just an unstoppable force, and it was a little bit unusual because it has a little bit of tension between the melody and the chords, and normally I play very tonal, but yeah, I was just going for a heavier feel, for variety.
I love your guitar tones on the album, and like with Deep Purple, you've go this really dirty tone on the riffs, and then when you're getting into solos, it's so smooth; do you enjoy working with that contrast?
Yeah, in fact, usually when I'm recording, I'll just change the sound almost for no reason so that I'm not doing the same thing over and over, everywhere. For the tracking, I mostly used my 100 watt Engl signature amp into a speaker cabinet, then through a Ribbon mic, back into the board. Then for some doubles I would use my twenty watt, my little head that I can put in my suitcase when I go to do a guitar clinic or something like that. It has a direct output where you can turn it from twenty watts to five watts to one watt to off so that so it doesn't hurt the amp, because of the load that it puts on it. So you can plug in an XLR into there, and you're getting a tube amp through an IR [impulse response] replicator, so it gives that impulse response thing, sort of like having a speaker and mic set up, but it's slightly different, so that when I double on a track with those two different sounds, it really made it stand out a little bit.
Yeah, you don't want to be doubling the same guitar sound all the time.
Yeah, I do that sometimes, especially if there's bends and things; it's something that makes it different.
'Tumeni Partz' is brilliantly titled; there's an insane base solo, a wall of harmonies, and so much else going on; I think you titled that one for a very definite reason, right?
Yeah, and actually, it was eleven minutes long when we looked at the rough cut, maybe because there was a count off, but for an eleven minute tune, I thought I've got to cut something out of it, and I couldn't find any spots that I really thought needed to come out. So I said, "well, I usually don't do this, but for variety's sake - like, we're not having a country tune on here - let's do something different that we haven't done", which is a long, epic piece, so I let it stand. For the title, I said; "well, you know, back in the day, I had the song that was very busy called 'Tumeni Notes', so we'll call this 'Tumeni Partz!", and Dave laughed. So as long as we laugh at a title, then that title is staying,
We were talking about John Petrucci earlier and he features on the title track 'Triangulation'; that's the second Dream Theater guy you've worked with after Mike Portnoy, so you obviously like working with those guys.
Oh yeah. I heard him play, their first album as a demo. I'd heard they were looking for a producer, and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring, but they already had somebody, and took off from there. But yeah, I liked him ever since I heard him, decades ago. John just keeps getting better. Somehow he's just like, the top of the heap. Absolutely nobody can play better than this guy. He keeps getting more musical, with better phrasing and perfect execution; I mean, I sort of can't believe it.
So was it easier to ask him to collaborate?
I was hesitant to ask him for the favour too because we're friends, and sometimes when your friend asks for a favour, you kind of don't want to say no, even if it's uncomfortable; "I guess you can borrow my car. I sort of don't like people driving it, but if you really need it..." But it turned out he was glad to do it, and he said he was genuinely enthused, and I thought; "wow, I'm so happy, it's great!". So I parsed out the tune arrangement-wise for him, so we were playing short phrases, one right after another, trading back and forth. He did a fantastic job of filling it and finding a way to fit in so that it seems like you almost can't tell who's playing what, until the stylistic part of the phrase comes in, then you can tell that it's him. And yep, I really enjoyed it. I'm very, very happy with what he did. The guy can't make a bad recording anyway, but now it fitted in wonderfully.
We have to, of course, talk about 'Taken by an Angel'. It's so deeply personal that it's almost hard to know where to start.
Well, yeah, I had the idea at the end, to describe the scene of the astronauts that died in the shuttle disaster, the STS-107 [the fated flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, February 1, 2003], and I was writing that as an antecedent, almost like a reprise, and I never turned in anything, and then I realised I wanted to put together a piece that described the night where it was inevitable [the passing oh his wife, Janine in 2024]. All the guests had been ushered away, and it was a long night of being up and holding her hand and thinking about everything and talking to her, whether she could hear me or not, and that loneliness, the despair and the progression of that to the moment it happened, and the hope and faith that she's in a better place. So that's what the music's trying to describe.
So it was written, initially as a follow up to the track you recorded with Deep Purple, 'Contact Lost'?
Yeah, 'Contact Lost'. I wrote that later, the piece at the end of 'Taken by an Angel', as possibly another thing to play in a set, maybe with Purple, maybe with my band, as something to honour them, but it just didn't work out as a live piece, and I didn't really finish it. I got inspired, and it started from the beginning with a different beginning, and then it worked, and when I put that in there it was like; "yeah, this describes the culmination, the anguish, the despair, and then the little bit of white light that becomes super bright".
Yeah, and actually, it was eleven minutes long when we looked at the rough cut, maybe because there was a count off, but for an eleven minute tune, I thought I've got to cut something out of it, and I couldn't find any spots that I really thought needed to come out. So I said, "well, I usually don't do this, but for variety's sake - like, we're not having a country tune on here - let's do something different that we haven't done", which is a long, epic piece, so I let it stand. For the title, I said; "well, you know, back in the day, I had the song that was very busy called 'Tumeni Notes', so we'll call this 'Tumeni Partz!", and Dave laughed. So as long as we laugh at a title, then that title is staying,
We were talking about John Petrucci earlier and he features on the title track 'Triangulation'; that's the second Dream Theater guy you've worked with after Mike Portnoy, so you obviously like working with those guys.
Oh yeah. I heard him play, their first album as a demo. I'd heard they were looking for a producer, and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring, but they already had somebody, and took off from there. But yeah, I liked him ever since I heard him, decades ago. John just keeps getting better. Somehow he's just like, the top of the heap. Absolutely nobody can play better than this guy. He keeps getting more musical, with better phrasing and perfect execution; I mean, I sort of can't believe it.
So was it easier to ask him to collaborate?
I was hesitant to ask him for the favour too because we're friends, and sometimes when your friend asks for a favour, you kind of don't want to say no, even if it's uncomfortable; "I guess you can borrow my car. I sort of don't like people driving it, but if you really need it..." But it turned out he was glad to do it, and he said he was genuinely enthused, and I thought; "wow, I'm so happy, it's great!". So I parsed out the tune arrangement-wise for him, so we were playing short phrases, one right after another, trading back and forth. He did a fantastic job of filling it and finding a way to fit in so that it seems like you almost can't tell who's playing what, until the stylistic part of the phrase comes in, then you can tell that it's him. And yep, I really enjoyed it. I'm very, very happy with what he did. The guy can't make a bad recording anyway, but now it fitted in wonderfully.
We have to, of course, talk about 'Taken by an Angel'. It's so deeply personal that it's almost hard to know where to start.
Well, yeah, I had the idea at the end, to describe the scene of the astronauts that died in the shuttle disaster, the STS-107 [the fated flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, February 1, 2003], and I was writing that as an antecedent, almost like a reprise, and I never turned in anything, and then I realised I wanted to put together a piece that described the night where it was inevitable [the passing oh his wife, Janine in 2024]. All the guests had been ushered away, and it was a long night of being up and holding her hand and thinking about everything and talking to her, whether she could hear me or not, and that loneliness, the despair and the progression of that to the moment it happened, and the hope and faith that she's in a better place. So that's what the music's trying to describe.
So it was written, initially as a follow up to the track you recorded with Deep Purple, 'Contact Lost'?
Yeah, 'Contact Lost'. I wrote that later, the piece at the end of 'Taken by an Angel', as possibly another thing to play in a set, maybe with Purple, maybe with my band, as something to honour them, but it just didn't work out as a live piece, and I didn't really finish it. I got inspired, and it started from the beginning with a different beginning, and then it worked, and when I put that in there it was like; "yeah, this describes the culmination, the anguish, the despair, and then the little bit of white light that becomes super bright".
Photo; Nick Nersesov
I wanted to touch on a little bit of your Deep Purple history; is it hard to believe that you were there for almost three decades?
It's true. I really thought I was going to be there for the last Purple gig. I didn't realise that they were outlasting me. There's something about the British Isles that breeds some very tough customers. These guys survived.
2026 marks 30 years since your debut album with the band, 'Purpendicular' was released. There's some amazing songs on there, from 'Ted the Mechanic' to 'Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming'.
Well, it's great. I think 'Purpendicular' is my favourite album because there was no history between us. We had everything up for grabs. Like the song, 'Sometimes I feel Like Screaming' was me noodling around, and Jon [Lord] just returned from a break with tea, and you know in England, it's always tea! I came to be drinking tea! Every few hours, it was another thing of tea and I'd say; "sure, yeah, I'll have it!" Anyway, So Jon's got his tea, and he hears me playing this ditty I was working on for my own album and my own thing, and he just starts noodling along with it. I said; "hey, that sounds good".
So Jon Lord immediately started jamming 'Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming'?
Yeah. I said; "I didn't think that was an idea that would work for us, but I was just messing with it" and he says; "no, there's something there. Let's work on it. Now let's try playing it and modulate up to this key". "Okay, cool, let's do that. What about a verse part?" "Well, I was thinking maybe go to F, and keep that other part in D minor". "Okay, cool", and by the end of the day we had a tune, just from that very organic beginning. I loved that. I loved that progression. And Roger [Glover] was a producer, a very natural producer, and Ian Gillan, even he was listening to suggestions and stuff. Later on it got to be a little weird to make vocal suggestions to him because there was like; "that's vocals - you're a guitarist", but at that time, like I said there was no boundaries. Everybody just tried whatever. That's why we've got things on there that I love and Purple fans hate; things like 'A Touch Away', and 'The Aviator'. I wanted something different. I wanted the band to grow their sound like Zeppelin did, when Jimmy Page would do something with acoustic, like 'Black Mountainside' or 'Gallows Pole'; I wanted the band to grow like that, and natural stuff, but get more edges to the horizon.
I'm glad you mentioned the acoustic, because 'Fingers to the Bone', is another of those tracks where you brought acoustic to Deep Purple.
Yeah, that's cool. That's again, what I always wanted for the band. I thought it's such a great band, I'd love to open up the sound. I tried to do the same thing with Kansas too, but a lot of people that grew up with the classic band sound, they didn't appreciate it. Overall, we grew our audience in the last 28 years, so it was a good thing.
Finally, you're taking the Steve Morse Band out on the road in the States, but do you think you'll make it over to Europe at all?
Well, right now, that's all we're focused on. Our manager manages Dream Theater, so he may be able to get us on some kind of package that would make sense for us to do a combination tour, but that's where we are right now. We're focusing on the tour coming up and the album. I sure appreciate you listening to it and doing such a great job with your interview; you obviously listened to the music, and I really appreciate that.
Steve Morse Band's 'Triangulation' is released 14th November 2025 via Music Theories Recordings.
It's true. I really thought I was going to be there for the last Purple gig. I didn't realise that they were outlasting me. There's something about the British Isles that breeds some very tough customers. These guys survived.
2026 marks 30 years since your debut album with the band, 'Purpendicular' was released. There's some amazing songs on there, from 'Ted the Mechanic' to 'Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming'.
Well, it's great. I think 'Purpendicular' is my favourite album because there was no history between us. We had everything up for grabs. Like the song, 'Sometimes I feel Like Screaming' was me noodling around, and Jon [Lord] just returned from a break with tea, and you know in England, it's always tea! I came to be drinking tea! Every few hours, it was another thing of tea and I'd say; "sure, yeah, I'll have it!" Anyway, So Jon's got his tea, and he hears me playing this ditty I was working on for my own album and my own thing, and he just starts noodling along with it. I said; "hey, that sounds good".
So Jon Lord immediately started jamming 'Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming'?
Yeah. I said; "I didn't think that was an idea that would work for us, but I was just messing with it" and he says; "no, there's something there. Let's work on it. Now let's try playing it and modulate up to this key". "Okay, cool, let's do that. What about a verse part?" "Well, I was thinking maybe go to F, and keep that other part in D minor". "Okay, cool", and by the end of the day we had a tune, just from that very organic beginning. I loved that. I loved that progression. And Roger [Glover] was a producer, a very natural producer, and Ian Gillan, even he was listening to suggestions and stuff. Later on it got to be a little weird to make vocal suggestions to him because there was like; "that's vocals - you're a guitarist", but at that time, like I said there was no boundaries. Everybody just tried whatever. That's why we've got things on there that I love and Purple fans hate; things like 'A Touch Away', and 'The Aviator'. I wanted something different. I wanted the band to grow their sound like Zeppelin did, when Jimmy Page would do something with acoustic, like 'Black Mountainside' or 'Gallows Pole'; I wanted the band to grow like that, and natural stuff, but get more edges to the horizon.
I'm glad you mentioned the acoustic, because 'Fingers to the Bone', is another of those tracks where you brought acoustic to Deep Purple.
Yeah, that's cool. That's again, what I always wanted for the band. I thought it's such a great band, I'd love to open up the sound. I tried to do the same thing with Kansas too, but a lot of people that grew up with the classic band sound, they didn't appreciate it. Overall, we grew our audience in the last 28 years, so it was a good thing.
Finally, you're taking the Steve Morse Band out on the road in the States, but do you think you'll make it over to Europe at all?
Well, right now, that's all we're focused on. Our manager manages Dream Theater, so he may be able to get us on some kind of package that would make sense for us to do a combination tour, but that's where we are right now. We're focusing on the tour coming up and the album. I sure appreciate you listening to it and doing such a great job with your interview; you obviously listened to the music, and I really appreciate that.
Steve Morse Band's 'Triangulation' is released 14th November 2025 via Music Theories Recordings.
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