In July 2022, after over a quarter of a century as Deep Purple’s guitarist, Steve Morse announced that he would be stepping back from the band to look after his wife Janine, who was battling cancer. He had already been sitting out shows since March of that year, but found it was fairest to the band to step aside permanently as he realised he would be needed at home long-term.
Simon McBride initially filled in as Morse’s temporary replacement. When Morse’s departure became permanent, McBride was announced as his permanent basis in September 2022. The apprenticeship had clearly worked out well for all parties, leading to the band’s 9th official line up (a.k.a. Deep Purple Mark 9) since they began in 1968.
For a long time, it looked like Mark 8 (consisting of Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums), Don Airy (keyboards) and Steve Morse (guitars)) was going to be the version of the band to ride into the sunset. It was by far the longest lasting line-up of the band, from 2002 (the departure of founding keyboardist Jon Lord) to 2022. Morse was heavily supported by everybody. Family always comes first, but at the same time, the last thing Morse would have wanted was for the band to stop. With his blessing, they soldiered on.
McBride is Deep Purple’s fifth guitarist (including the ‘live only’ line-up featuring Joe Satriani). In comparison, there has been five vocalists (including bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, who sang several lead vocals on his own), three bassists, two keyboardists – and one lone drummer. Ian Paice is the only member to have been involved in every line-up, on every album, and at every show the band has ever played. For all of the band’s fluctuations, there has always been a solid base of key members keeping them close to their roots. Paice has always been one of those.
Not everybody had heard of Simon McBride when he was announced as Morse’s replacement. The Northern Irish guitarist and singer was somewhat of a child prodigy, winning Guitarist magazine’s Young Guitarist of the Year competition when he was 15. Shortly after, he was recruited by Belfast-based metal band Sweet Savage, which reformed in 1994 without their founding guitarist Vivian Campbell (who had gone on to be a member of Dio, Whitesnake, and Def Leppard). Later on, McBride would also work with Andrew Strong, Blind Friday, and Snakecharmer. He also recorded and touring with his own band and taught at BIMM in Dublin.
His entry into the Deep Purple world came when he was tapped by Don Airey to perform with his solo band in 2016, and again when Ian Gillan used that Don Airey band for further shows in 2019. They were highly impressed with him, and when they needed to think of options for Deep Purple, they did not want or need to ask anyone else.
With McBride on board, Deep Purple continued to tour throughout 2022. As early as June of that year, even before the band had officially confirmed McBride as a permanent member, Gillan announced that the band had plans to work on their twenty-third studio album after the conclusion of the Whoosh! Tour: “Deep Purple has got a writing session booked in March 2023, which I believe is to get started on thinking about our next record.”
The album turned out to be =1 [pronounced ‘equals one’] – Deep Purple’s 23rd studio album since the beginning in 1968.
The band started work on the album in March 2023 as planned. Just like they did for their 2020 album Whoosh!, they set up base at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studios for writing and recording of the album, with Bob Ezrin producing as he had the four previous albums.
From a songwriting perspective, Deep Purple have always worked the same way: every song is written by the full band together, with all of them in the same room. Nobody in the band brings in complete songs for the others to consider. Instead, the band gets together, jams, throws ideas back and forth at each other, and sees what sticks. Interesting musical moments are identified, focused on, developed, expanded, and if it works out will eventually start taking the shape of a song. Writing is very much a group project, which is why the entire band shares every songwriting credit equally.
This process has led vocalist Ian Gillan to quip that Deep Purple is ”an instrumental band with song accompaniment.” This is half accurate. The band certainly have plenty of songs with conventional amounts of rock vocals, although the improvisational nature of the music has always been important and led to some songs having large instrumental sections, especially live.
The vocalist is however very much part of the songwriting process. Some of the making-of documentaries from recent albums has shown Gillan setting up shop by a table in the studio, next to where the rest of the band is playing. While musical ideas are thrown out, explored, and tried from numerous angles, Gillan is taking notes, will chime in, and help honing in on worthwhile ideas. He will often scribble down lyrical ideas when inspiration takes him, ranging from fragments and stray thoughts to near complete lyrical passages.
Deep Purple have always stayed reasonably faithful to their 1970s guitar/organ dominated hard rock sound. This is still accurate, even though with every passing decade the band has found ways of reinventing the music to suit whoever has played in the band at any time, as well as to cater for their own development and tastes as musicians. Since the band started working with Bob Ezrin in the early 2010s, for example, they have increasingly had room for more reflective and thoughtful material which suits their status as elder statesmen of rock.
One such moment on =1 is the ballad I’ll Catch You. It is placed towards the end of the album, which suits it very well. If we imagine that the album represents a full day, then I’ll Catch You is the evening – the kind of song that appears at the end of a long day. We have arrived at home, maybe a bit tired or worn down from the day, possibly feeling a bit melancholic. The house is empty, and you start reflecting on your life and/or relationships.
I guess that it’s to be expected
When I have to talk this way
When I have to speak in tongues
I want to say what can’t be said
I have to keep a straight face
When I’m breaking up inside
If you know who, knew what I thought
Then we’d both be crucified
I dream about you every night
But you’re just beyond my reach
So now you never know my touch
And we shall never meet
In spite of the song’s longing for someone who isn’t there, it manages to be a comfort blanket through its intense pledge to be there for them at a moment’s notice. The emotional heft hidden inside this relatively quiet song is immense. On an album with a surprising amount of really great songs, this is easy to overlook. I’ll Catch You isn’t the kind of song that leaps out at you on first listen, but as the album establishes itself as a work of both width and depth, this is one of the songs that contributes heavily to both. Once noticed, you will frequently find yourself thinking about and going back to it.
McBride plays some tasteful notes here, filled with a lovely tone and with a sustain that makes the notes cry. The keyboard sound is less amped up, frequently hitting those blue, jazzy notes which adds a lot to the overall feel. There is an inherent sadness in the song, as there is in in the vocal performance and lyrics.
These are exactly the type of songs I love hearing Gillan sing at this point in the game. He is approaching 80 and is singing his heart out on the album. He is obviously no longer the guy in his 20s who left the world in stunned, open-mouthed amazement with his ‘best-rock-vocal-ever’-level performance on Child In Time in 1970. I can’t imagine that anyone realistically still expects him to sound like that. On the contrary, I have enjoyed his maturing voice a lot in recent years, as it has picked up a timbre that makes it extremely suitable for songs just such as I’ll Catch You.
One thing to note is that Deep Purple have always recorded their songs live in the studio and used punch-ins for solos and vocals as needed. This song clearly has a very raw vocal take, and it would not surprise me if this is one they all played live right there and then, including the vocals. Emotionally the performance nails it. There’s perhaps a note or two that are not quite there, and maybe some lines could benefit from redoing them from a technical point of view, but the end result needs to feel right, which is probably why they have resisted autotuning or rerecording anything. This feels very raw emotionally and hits you just perfectly.
The lyrics describe a situation where someone finds themselves alone, without the person they want to be with (“I dream about you every night / But you’re just beyond my reach”). At the same time, the lyrics are an ongoing pledge to always be there for them (“My bags are always ready / My keys are in the car / Anytime you want to jump / I’ll catch you in my arms”).
Fans of the band will know that Ian Gillan’s wife Bron passed on 19 November 2022, reportedly after a long illness. This was just four months before the band started work on =1, and many have felt that Gillan wrote and sang with his wife in mind.
Roger Glover was quick to agree on that count. With the music completed and early lyrics in place, Gillan and Glover usually retreat somewhere to work further on lyrics for their song ideas. This time, with initial sessions in Nashville wrapped up, the two of them went to Portugal to finish that process.
In speaking with Sweden Rock Magazine about I’ll Catch You, Glover said “I can promise you that this is a very touching song. When I was working on it with Ian and he sang those parts, I found it to be so beautiful that my eyes filled with tears. For real. […] In that moment, he really exposed his soul. This was right around when he fought to overcome losing his wife, who had just passed. I don’t know if it is his intention that the listener should know that this is what the lyrics are about, but to me this is obvious.”
Mother nature’s keeping her socks on
Father time’s gonna be late
Ships at night are passing silently
And our love will have to wait
My bags are always ready
My keys are in the car
Anytime you want to jump
I’ll catch you in my arms
One person who thinks this is far less obvious is Ian Gillan. As part of their huge coverage of the =1 album release, Sweden Rock Magazine would have a separate interview with Gillan shortly after, and asked him about the song in general.
“That was a very spontaneous song that was written in about ten minutes,” Gillan offered. “It follows a simple chord structure, but isn’t a conventional song. It is just an obsession about an unobtainable romance. Unrequited love. I am just so happy that it worked. I always give it my all when I sing, but can split my performance into a technical part and an emotional part. There and then, I really focused on song technique. It wasn’t until later, when I listened back to the song, that I thought ‘Oh, yes, it works!’.”
When Glover’s comments about Gillan exposing his soul in the song, Gillan is quick to dismiss that notion. He said, “No, that is not what it is about, haha! It’s absolutely not true, it could not be further from the truth. It is a song. It is something imagined. Just imagined. I was not at all exposing my soul. It is just a song that I wrote. Every song is not autobiographical. They can be based on experiences, feelings, colours, situations, and things like that, but this is just a song.”
Glover and Gillan are musical brothers, collaborators for nearly sixty years, and continuing songwriting partners. They know each other inside out. How could Glover be so mistaken about the song (which they even collaborated on) that he had started crying when he thought about Gillan overcoming the loss of his wife? The Sweden Rock journalist found this so strange that he didn’t quite know what to say, but managed to point this out to Gillan in a respectful question.
“No, no, it had nothing to do with that,” Gillan maintained “You know, songs can be open to interpretation. If you analyse the song a certain way and tear it to pieces it almost ruins the song. It’s supposed to be the way anyone wants it to be. But you asked me what inspired the song, and I can only say that it had nothing to do with that. It can mean all sorts of things to different people. It is just a song.”
Still, the discussion about Glover’s comments about the song must have struck a chord with Gillan, who at a much later point in the interview suddenly brought up: “You know, that question about I’ll Catch You and what Roger said… I remember now that he said he felt emotional, but he never told me what he thought the song was about. This actually comes as a great shock to me, albeit a pleasant one because as I said, song lyrics can be interpreted exactly as you want to interpret them.”
Yes, I’ll catch you in my arms
I’ll catch you in my arms
Anytime, anytime, anytime you want to jump
I’ll catch you in my arms
Given Gillan’s closing comments on the matter, he is fine with us taking the song any way we want to, but in any case, the song remains a poignant and touching display of devotion that adds a lot to the closing section of the new Deep Purple album.
=1 was released on 19 July 2024. Being old-school, several singles (including 7’’ vinyl singles) would be released, starting with Portable Door on 30 April 2024. Pictures of You followed on 5 June, and Lazy Sod on 5 July.
Having been a recording artist for 60 years does not shield you from the burden of expectations and hoping your audience will embrace it. With a new member in the line-up one will put additional pressure on to prove that the band is still special.
Don Airy takes a light-hearted view to all of that, choosing to rejoice at the invigorating effect that a new band member can bring. “He has brought our average age down to 72!” he beamed in the bonus documentary that came with certain editions of the album.
The band knows they have recorded a very good album. “In a long career, this particular one is a bit special,” Ian Gillan says at the end of the band’s official album trailer on YouTube. “But I’m still nervous.”
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