It’s very likely that Don Airey appears on several of your most treasured albums. The original keyboard kingpin, that’s Don on all the best post-Dio Rainbow albums. That’s Don on Ozzy’s Blizzard Of Ozz. That’s Don on Whitesnake 1987, some albums by Gary Moore, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and, for the past three decades, Deep Purple’s.
As Don says: “I like to keep busy.” So as well as the very long list of sessions he’s done and bands he’s toured with, he makes solo albums. His latest, Pushed To The Edge, is fantastic: deeper than Purple, more moreish than Moore, the glorious spirit of classic Whitesnake and Rainbow fully intact.
First of all, the new album. It’s awesome.
I’m glad you like it. I did an interview last night, and the guy said to me: “It is a cracking album.” I said, “What? You think it’s a crappy album?”
How do you decide which songs to keep for your solo albums and which to offer to Deep Purple?
The record company wanted another solo album, so I phoned [Purple guitarist] Simon McBride and said: “What are you doing tomorrow?” He said: “Nothing much.” I said: “All right, you’ve got a plane ticket.” We had a few days with [Nazareth vocalist] Carl Sentance, all sitting in a room, then we went in the studio for five days and that’s what came out.
Where did you record it?
There’s a studio outside Cambridge in a place called Harston. It’s run by the son of a very old friend of mine. It’s got a big old analogue desk and he’s a shit-hot engineer. Each day I’d be up at half past five in the morning and work out what we were going to do. We tried to do two tracks a day, then start the third track for the next day, get a little bit of prep in.
Simon told me that at the end of the day that the guys were going out to the car park like: “Phew, we got through that! I wonder what the old boy’s going to give us tomorrow?” Leonard Bernstein said: “What you need for good work is a plan, but not quite enough time to put it into operation.” He was quite right.
Some of the new album sounds like you’re channelling some of the bands you’ve played with. Like They Keep Running, which makes me think of Rainbow.
Yeah, the riff on the chorus is very Blackmoreish. Ritchie could be very off-the-wall. He was great at putting music together, so it kept surprising you. I’ve always been inspired by that. I’d say to the guys: “We’re not hidebound here by length of solos. If you really want to go into one, go into one.” That was the rule, rather than the exception. I was really trying to make an album that was like a gig, like we were playing in a club.
There’s only one song that’s three minutes long, the rest are all over four minutes. So musically it stretched out. And I was trying to make it a bit more symphonic, different movements in different songs. Another thing I tried to do is something The Beatles always did, which is when you get to the end of one number, the next number is in a different key, but it’s kind of related. That’s always fun to do.
And you recorded it old-school, playing together as a band?
We were all in the same room as the drums, but we had the bass amp in one room and the guitar stack in another room. I had a Leslie and a Marshall stack in another compartment. So it really worked. It was a bit cramped, but I think that added to the atmosphere.
Do you have a personal favourite track on the album?
Yeah, I like Out Of Focus. Inspired by Focus, who are one of my all-time favourite bands. Thijs van Leer, what a wonderful musician and organ player. He has been an inspiration to me for years. That’s my little tribute to him, really. There’s an organ solo where I play a bit of Bach, because Thijs was always playing Bach – [1972 Focus song] Sylvia, for example.
And I like The Power To Change. It features our second vocalist, Mitchel Emms, who nobody has heard of, but he was on Strictly Come Dancing for a couple of years, singing in the band there. He was also on The Voice. Mitchel sings with choirs. Last time we talked, he said: “I’m out doing a dance with Ballet Rambert.” I could only imagine.
It’s a very up-sounding record. You sound like you’re really enjoying yourselves.
The band is like a side project I’ve had going for ten years, and we tour every year for three weeks doing clubs in Europe. On a tour bus with a trailer. And nobody ever came off the tour saying: “Oh, I’m glad that’s over.” It would be: “When are we doing this again?”
Will you be touring the solo album this year?
Hopefully. Things have changed now with all the Brexit nonsense. [Financially] it’s quite difficult for a small band to tour if you’re only doing halls and clubs. If you’re a big band, there’s no problem. But there’s reams of paperwork and god-knows what, so we’ll see. I haven’t really toured this band since before lockdown.
Any 2025 plans for Deep Purple?
I only came off the road with Purple on the nineteenth of December. So we’re having a bit of a break. Once the dust has settled down a bit we can look to the future, I should think.
You once told me a fantastic story about a Rainbow show: how Ritchie used to lean back dramatically against his stack while soloing. He’d have roadies on the other side of it holding it up so he didn’t fall over. This particular gig, they didn’t get there in time, so suddenly there he is toppling backwards…
I’ll never forget it. The Sofia Gardens, Cardiff, 1980, on the Down To Earth tour. Ritchie kind of gave me a wave as he was falling backwards and pointed. That was my cue to do a ten-minute keyboard solo.
Pushed To The Edge is out now via earMUSIC
