Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice has revealed that the band is already discussing the possibility of recording another studio album in 2027, even as their 86-show world tour for the upcoming Splat! (July 3, earMUSIC) gets underway. Paice made the comments in a new interview with the Rockonteurs podcast.
After co-host Gary Kemp quoted producer Bob Ezrin expressing hope to continue working with Deep Purple for “a very long time,” Paice said (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “Well, that’s already being discussed for [2027]. This [2026] is a heavy touring year — it’s almost 100 shows or something — so next year won’t be the same. You can’t keep doing it that way. So if you have any ideas, making a record’s easy. If you don’t have ideas, making a record’s impossible. So getting together, and if we find we have some ideas we all like, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t put together another record sometime next year. It’s all about ideas. You can be an actor, but if the guy hasn’t written a screenplay, you’ve got nothing to say.”
Asked how Deep Purple approaches writing in its current configuration, Paice described a process of spontaneous group improvisation: “Everybody comes in with a couple of basic notions of something that they probably woke up in the middle of the night and said, ‘Oh, that sounds good.’ And one person will start something. Now, if it’s interesting, the other guys will join in. If it’s not interesting, there’s a deathly silence and somebody else starts something. The amazing thing with the whole process is you go in in the morning and you’ve got nothing, and you come out after five, six hours’ work and you got two or three really nice somethings. And that’s what keeps it working for the next day. You don’t get three good ideas every day — the first day, all these things you’ve had loitering in your mind, they come to the fore. But after 10 days, you’ve probably got more than you can put on an album in the way of ideas, and then you gotta separate the wheat from the chaff.”
Paice stressed the importance of capturing every moment during writing sessions: “You capture everything. ‘Cause you may only play something once as a jam, and it’s gone. So if you’ve caught it and say, ‘Well, there was something good five minutes ago,’ you take that and you see if you can go further with it. It’s always been that way. We never had one dedicated songwriter. So it becomes out of the influence of the five people.” He also offered a candid take on how initial excitement curdles into doubt: “When you start something, everything you do is the best thing that’s ever been written, ‘cause you’re all excited about it. The next day you go, ‘What a piece of crap.’” Paice noted that singer Ian Gillan plays a distinct role in the early writing phase: “Initially the four [instrumentalists work out the music], because Ian’s there noting all the atmosphere and what the emotions of it are.”
Splat! is Deep Purple’s sixth consecutive collaboration with producer Bob Ezrin, who has helmed every Purple album since 2013’s Now What?! The album has been described in press materials as “the heaviest Deep Purple album in many years.” Two singles have been released: “Diablo,” which features a guest appearance by guitarist and singer Keith Urban, and “Arrogant Boy.” Uncut calls Splat! “distilled, high-octane Purple at its finest,” while Classic Rock praises the album for delivering “everything that makes Deep Purple one of the greatest acts in hard rock.” The concept was conceived by Gillan and imagines the end of humanity not as destruction but as metamorphosis — a transformation beyond physical existence.
Deep Purple recently kicked off a major European summer run, beginning in Finland and moving through Norway, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Italy before the Splat! world tour heads to North America. The full touring schedule encompasses 86 shows across 28 countries. With more than 120 million albums sold since forming in 1968, Deep Purple are among the founding forces of hard rock and heavy metal.
