Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover has opened up about the band’s future and their stance on retirement in a new interview.
Glover addressed the long-running question of whether Deep Purple will ever officially call it quits. The topic has followed the band for years, particularly since they launched what was dubbed “The Long Goodbye” tour over a decade ago.
“Don [Airey, Deep Purple keyboardist] was saying when [2017’s] ‘InFinite’ [album] came out, he was doing an interview and someone said, ‘Is this gonna be your last album?'” Glover recalled. “And Don’s reply was great. He said, ‘I thought the last album was gonna be the last album.'”
Glover went on to make clear that a formal farewell is not something the band intends to pursue.
“We ain’t gonna stop. We’re not gonna have a final tour, a final gig and make a hoopla about it,” he said. “Although that was actually Steve’s [Morse, former Deep Purple guitarist] suggestion years ago, which is why we started calling it ‘The Long Goodbye’ tour. Well, ‘The Long Goodbye’ got longer and longer, and we decided to ditch that in the end.”
The bassist also explained the emotional reasoning behind the decision to avoid a grand send-off.
“I can’t imagine doing a final gig, with all the hoopla involved. The emotion, the place, the fans, the sorrow, et cetera, it would be too much to bear,” Glover said. “And I think we all feel the same. We’re just gonna carry on till we can’t. That’s it.”
The comments come roughly a decade after Deep Purple first announced “The Long Goodbye” tour. The band has no plans to set a definitive end date anytime soon.
The attitude reflects a band that has consistently refused to slow down. They have backed up their words with a steady stream of new music and live activity well into their sixth decade together.
Deep Purple released their most recent studio album, Whoosh!, in 2020. The record demonstrated that the band’s creative output has shown no signs of slowing despite their veteran status. It was followed by In These Black Days in 2021, further confirming the group’s commitment to recording new material rather than coasting on their classic catalog.
The band’s lineup has also remained notably stable in recent years. Glover, Don Airey, and Ian Paice have held down the core of the group for an extended stretch. That kind of personnel consistency is rare for a band of Deep Purple’s age and history. It has helped sustain the momentum that makes a formal retirement feel unnecessary to those involved.
Steve Morse, who is credited with suggesting the “Long Goodbye” framing in the first place, departed the band in 2022 to care for his wife, who was diagnosed with brain cancer. His exit marked a significant transition, but the band pressed on. They brought in guitarist Simon McBride to fill the role and continued to tour.
Deep Purple’s resistance to a farewell moment also stands in contrast to the broader trend of legacy rock acts staging elaborate goodbye tours in recent years. For Glover and his bandmates, the idea of manufacturing a final moment appears to run counter to everything the band stands for — a group that has always let the music, rather than the spectacle, do the talking.
Source: Noise11
