DEEP PURPLE keyboardist Don Airey recently took some time to talk to DeepPurple.com about his forthcoming solo album, A Light In The Sky. The album will be released on Mascot Records on February 22nd and can be pre-ordered here. Excerpts from the chat follow:

DeepPurple.com: Your new album A Light In The Sky has a very ethereal, “space music” type sound. What inspired your interest in this genre?

Don Airey: "Interest originally inspired by seeing the film 2001, and director Stanley Kubrick’s use of music by contemporary composers such as GYORGY LIGETI and KRYSTOF PENDERECKI. I collect a lot of synthesiser albums by pioneers such as WALTER CARLOS, TONTO’S EXPANDING HEAD BAND, BEAVER & KRAUSE, KRAFTWERK etc., and owning lots of old analog synths and a pile of effects boxes gives one a natural disposition towards the 'spacey' side of the sound palette. It must be said that there is a lot more to my album than just that particular element though."

DeepPurple.com: Do you have an interest in cosmology in general, or mostly just that particular sound?

DA: "My interest dates from the age of 6, when I looked out my bedroom late one winter’s night in the far frozen north of England and saw the Aurora Borealis – an astonishing sight! I own a telescope and while away many an evening in the back garden staring into space. Mind you, I do much the same on a tourbus or in a dressing room. I have lots of books on astronomy, birth of stars, death of stars, the solar system, relativity, theoretical physics, the nature of time, and all that jazz. I don’t actually understand any of them, but they are inspiring nevertheless!"

DeepPurple.com: Having played in so many bands throughout the years, have you had trouble defining your own sound/style as a musician or have you been able to do that despite playing so many different styles of music?

DA: "No matter how hard I try I always end up sounding just like me! Having done hundreds of recording sessions, it never ceased to amaze me after setting up the keyboards and being ready to go, how quickly the realisation would dawn that the artist, producer, director or whatever had absolutely no clue what they wanted. You have to fill up their musical void and in double-quick time, that’s the job. As time is usually of the essence in these situations, you just do what comes naturally to you, as there is no opportunity to think of anything else. Horace, the Roman poet summed it up - 'Tibi constet', or as translated by Shakespeare, 'To thine own self be true', or in modern parlance, 'Take the money and RUN', by far the best answer to stressful situations, musical or otherwise."

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