With Deep Purple's 19th studio album now just over two years old and the legendary band on a whirlwind American tour and impending European jaunt ready to roll, WVOX Metal Mayhem host Matthew O'Shaughnessy was honored to welcome guitarist Steve Morse to his rocking New York area radio show.  Now What?! is the groundbreaking British group's first studio album in over seven years, following Rapture Of The Deep in 2005. 

"The band really obviously has a long family tree and history." notes Morse. ''It's always been a player's band.”

Deep Purple guitar great Steve Morse is respected as one of the hardest working musicians in the world, including founding the Dixie Dregs in the ‘70s, his own Steve Morse Band in the ‘80s, a quick stint with rock staples Kansas and more recently forming Flying Colors with Mike Portnoy. Known for his stylistically diverse compositional skills as well as being able to play fast, alternative arpeggios. 

“The real deal for a musician is when they listen to their own work and say that's what I was going for. You can't spend your life looking back good or bad. You have to keep looking forward.” 

On Jon Lord, Morse remembers: " I was in the studio recording Now What?! Everybody in the band was there. I came in the room and Ian Paice said, 'You want to step outside and he told me.  Something just caught the whole band by surprise. I was floored."  

O'Shaughnessy and Morse spoke about Deep Purple's timeless and universal gift of music, a gift that has certainly resonated with their worldwide legion of fans; a sound that is so unmistakable. Morse also talks about Deep Purple's latest US tour and what fans can expect to hear.

“The final set-list is done a few minutes before the show. We'll do for sure three or so songs from Now What?!  It's a great time to see the group. We also play the classic tunes that people have heard on the radio over and over, the new tracks, then we do some off the wall tracks from the classic era, that people would not know unless they were diehard fans."

Made In Rock!  

Click here for audio of the entire interview.