MusicRadar.com has issued a new interview with DEEP PURPLE guitarist Steve Morse, conducted by Joe Bosso. An excerpt follows:

Q: The band is currently working on a new record. How far along are you with things?

A: "We've got the music pretty mapped out for the majority of the recording. The goal on this album isn't to stretch out to new heights; it's more about revisiting the roots – riff-oriented blues rock. Heavy stuff, you know?"

Q: I know you said the band encouraged you to be yourself on stage, but when writing with the group, is the atmosphere the same?

A: "No, writing for Deep Purple is much different than playing with them on stage, and it's very different from writing for a Steve Morse solo album. I think it's good for musicians to understand the particular situation they're in and what's expected of them. The band wants me to come up with lots of ideas, the vast majority of which never get used.

"My way of doing that has been a bit of a shotgun approach: I just hit them with tons of ideas and see what really sticks. One thing I like to do – and I've encouraged the rest of the guys to do this, too – is to only bring in snippets of things, not finished tunes, because people might only like this bit or that bit. They might not like an entire song. Giving them sections is a cool way for everybody to contribute and truly make a song 'Deep Purple'."

Read more at and check out more video footage at this location.

Check out part of Morse's video footage for MusicRadar.com below:

Tomorrow, Tuesday June 28th, Eagle Rock Entertainment will release Deep Purple’s Phoenix Rising – a two-hour-plus revelatory documentary including 30 minutes of never-before-seen (not even on bootleg) onstage footage from Japan. Phoenix Rising will be released on DVD, Blu-ray, and in a special two-disc DVD/CD package.

The CD portion is currently streaming in it's entirety as part of AOL's Full CD Listening Party at this location.

Check out the new Phoenix Rising microsite at this location.

The release is cause for celebration amongst Purple fans due to the rarity of material. Extensive interviews with keyboardist Jon Lord and bassist Glenn Hughes tell the tale of a band caught by circumstance into one of its most controversial, extreme and exciting eras of its long career. Ian Gillan and Roger Glover were gone. A young unknown singer by the name of David Coverdale was recruited as was bassist Hughes. The results were the albums Burn and Stormbringer (both released in 1974). But then Ritchie Blackmore left the band. Against all odds, they rocked on, recruiting Tommy Bolin (from Zephyr and The James Gang). The album Come Taste The Band (1975) documents the short-lived Bolin era, an era that all came crashing down when the band announced in July of 1976 that it was breaking up. By December, Bolin would be dead due to a heroin overdose. Nine years of silence would ensue.

The never-before-seen 30 minutes, Rises Over Japan, has the Coverdale/Lord/Bolin/Hughes/Paice lineup delivering the goods in 1976 on eight songs: 'Burn', 'Getting Tighter', 'Love Child', 'Smoke On The Water', 'Lazy', 'Homeward Strut', 'You Keep On Moving' and 'Stormbringer'. (The double-disc package contains these eight songs on CD.) This segment is some of the only video footage that showcases Tommy Bolin performing in Deep Purple.

The 90-minute documentary portion, Getting Tighter, recounts the trials and tribulations of a band in turmoil, riding the rock’n’roll roller coaster to total excess. With its live images, backstage footage, never-before-told stories and original video material carefully culled from years of research, it’s a veritable bonanza for Purple fans and fans of Rock History. No stone is left unturned… and sometimes it’s not pretty. Gritty, truthful, wild, this is the story of an era in the 1970s that is simply unforgettable.