In a new interview with Qobuz, Ian Gillan shared what they liked about Deep Purple’s new guitarist Simon McBride.
When asked in what ways McBride is different from the other guitar players they previously worked with, the singer responded:
“He has been with us for about a year and we came out the bar one night and somewhere I said, ‘Are you in the band yet or what?’ He said, ‘I think so.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess.’ So it was like that. Simon’s been amazing. He’s taken over from Steve Morse and he’s changed things quite a lot.”
Gillan Thinks McBride Fits Well With The Band
Gillan further talked about what McBride contributed to the band:
“He’s a catalyst in the sense that how human chemistry can be. That one little thing can change everything else. I think we all feel very relaxed with Simon’s style of playing. It’s very compatible with the way we started. Very straight ahead. The platforms are simple. The virtuosity is on top. So it’s not like the showing off comes first. That’s just beautiful playing.”
The rocker also praised Simon’s rhythm playing:
“It’s very natural second nature to him. So we put a lot of drive back into the rhythm section because he’s also a great rhythm player. So when he’s sat in there with Ian and Roger and they crank it away, it’s exciting. It’s really great. He doesn’t fake anything. There’s no pretense. He actually plays every single note accurately.”
What Does Other Deep Purple Members Think About The Guitarist?
In a recent chat with Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz, another Deep Purple member, Ian Paice also discussed what McBride added to Deep Purple after he replaced Steve Morse. The drummer noted:
“Any record is easy to make if you have the ideas for the tunes. Anybody can sing an Elton John song but writing an Elton John song, you need Elton John. It’s a little more difficult. We had a great deal of fun going into the first writing session, which we did just before Christmas 2022. And it was the first time we’d been in that situation with the new guy, Simon McBride.”
He continued:
“It was exciting because he was bringing different ideas in. Working with Steve Morse was lovely but obviously, whenever you bring in new blood, it’s going to take you in different directions. So that was fun. We had this slightly different and probably more classic in terms of Purple’s music direction from the riffs that Simon was bringing to us.”
Deep Purple’s first album with McBride, ‘=1,’ will be released on July 19. It will have 13 new original songs. Simon officially joined the band in September 2022 when Morse permanently left.