As previously reported, Deep Purple will be inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. As a result of this announcemnet, Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillian has posted to the following message at gillan.com:
“Dear Friends, Families and Fans,
Putting the past shenanigans to one side, the induction is not – in clear fact – for Deep Purple.
It is an arbitrary selection of past members, which excludes Steve Morse and Don Airey; both of whom have been with the living breathing DP for a very long time.
Obviously this is very silly, and so my response is quite simple: ‘Thank you very much’.
And….what a coincidence…This morning I got an invitation to a wedding from some dear old friends. Unfortunately my family was not invited and they said that I would be required to sit next to my ex (we divorced decades ago) at the wedding feast.
They were shocked when I called to thank them and decline the invitation.
Cheers,
Ian Gillan”
Prior to the announcement, Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice said the induction could lead to a “punch up.” Read what Paice had to say here.
13 Responses
I think Steve Morse is the perfect guy for Purple right now, but Purple to me will always be Blackmore, Lord, Paice, Glover and Gillan. There both were, and are other great contributors, who should be acknowledged, but this to me is the definitive lineup.
Robert Trujillo was inducted with Metallica and he had only played on one album, Death Magnetic. So why not induct Don and Steve? Steve’s been with Deep Purple for years now. He’s by far been the most stable guitarist they’ve had. I don’t understand how the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame works. Is it a case of not wanting to induct too many people for one band? If that’s the case, then I remember watching Parliament Funkadelic being inducted and it seemed that every single person that had ever been in that group, and it was a LOT of people, were inducted. Their induction acceptance took forever. I can tell that the guys in Deep Purple aren’t overly thrilled but have accepted the induction because they know it was upsetting to their fans that Purple wasn’t in the Hall. This may turn into a situation similar to when Kiss was inducted: the current guys weren’t involved but Paul and Gene wanted them involved and in the end, nobody played. I’m still mad about Eric Carr and Bruce Kulick not being inducted with Kiss. Hopefully Deep Purple will perform and everything work out.
I wasn’t expecting the RNRHOF to get this right. Frankly, I’m surprised they included members of the MK III lineup.
This is the same organization that left Ronnie James Dio out of Black Sabbath when they were inducted.
What an awkward situation this always turns out to be. As a casual Deep Purple fan, I tend to think of DP as the Machine Head lineup – but I know they’ve had a large cast over the years and honestly don’t necessarily know who played on what track or albums. And as others have said, if we’re talking about radio or other mass media outlets we’re always fed the same handful of songs so wouldn’t hear anything else anyway. I seriously question how much the RRHoF should be able to dictate which members of a band get inducted, or at least whatever method or logic they use to do so. Metallica is one of my favorite bands, but I don’t think Robert Trujillo should have been inducted with them – at the time of induction he had been with the band for 6 years and one album. Actually even now, after 12 years with the band he’s still only been on one released studio album. BUT, if the rest of Metallica WANTED him to go in with them, I’ll accept that even if I don’t agree with it. Generally I wouldn’t think guys who just “passed through” a band should go in the HoF. But now we have bands with decades long active careers who have members that have been in them more years and played on more albums and tours than the “original” or “classic” lineups. Steve Morse has been in DP for over 20 years and 5 albums, that’s a significant amount of time and probably more importantly creative output. If we’re going to consider a RRHoF induction as a sort of “lifetime achievement” recognition for a BAND as an entity, then you have to have some kind of fair inclusion for members of the extended roster in a case like this. It’s not for the HoF to decide “everything and everyone after year #### sucks and doesn’t matter”. On the other hand you can’t leave it entirely up to existing band members either, who might exclude key members from the past because they hate each other now. Maybe there should be some kind of equation for individual members taking into account years of service, # of albums performed on, level of commercial success relative to “era” at the time, and a subjective component for creative input or influence.