Steve McLean is primarily known as a stand-up comic, originally from Scotland, but now in London. McLean also is a passionate music fan, and particularly of Deep Purple. In 1980, originally DP singer Rod Evans fronted a new band that took the name ‘Deep Purple’ (or ‘The New Deep Purple’), as the group was defunct at the time, and began doing shows throughout North America. They were ultimately stopped, and through the court case it cost Evans in fines and future royalties. From then on Rod Evans disappeared from the spotlight completely, and hasn’t been heard of since. But in Stealing Seep Purple, McLean has researched throroughly and published the story of that strange chapter in Deep Purple’s history, often not mentioned so much.
Below Steve’s answers my questions pertaining to this period and the making of his book. A very interesting story, well worth checking out. *You can find out more on Steve and Stealing Deep Purple at the links at the bottom.
Did you have any connection to this 1980 era of Rod Evans DP? (did you see the band or follow the story at the time?)
Alas, I was four or five years old at the time. The first I heard part of the story was when I was 17 (1993). I was visiting London to see Aerosmith at Wembley Arena. I was in a bar called The Royal George which used to be a rock pub and there was a guy from the U.S. who said he saw Deep Purple in a small club near Boston in the autumn of 1980. The friend I was with, who was a bit older than me and a massive Deep Purple fan, called the guy out for talking bullshit, since Deep Purple were not together at the time. It got quite tense.
I later learned of the Rod Evans group and have been kind of fascinated about the tale since then. Now, the show that the guy in the bar was talking about near Boston (I think in Lowell or Lynn) might have been cancelled, there are conflicting reports. So it is possible that the guy was bullshitting in a different way. He might have seen the adverts for the show before it was cancelled and decided to tell young and naive strangers a tale. And it’s possible that the shows weren’t cancelled and did go ahead and he was there. But it’s also possible that he went to a different show in the same town on a different day. There was no publicised ‘tour schedule’ as such. The plan for the band was to play in small towns and just advertise the shows locally.
What we do know is that there was around 70 shows and there is printed evidence of about half of them. That’s the kind of fuzzy details we’re dealing with when it comes to “The New Deep Purple”. The book attempts to unpick the facts from fiction.
During the late 70s there was a lot of band’s ‘resurrected’ in questionable ways. Curious if you dug in to some of these other bands at all (for research). The one I’m thinking about it Steppenwolf, where there were a number of versions of the band on the road at the same time (a couple of these guys wound up in DP1980). Much of this came from John Kay’s book.
John Kay’s book is excellent. It does however tell us a story that we don’t often consider in our appraisals of the events.
The ‘questionable ways’ that the band was resurrected were initially empowered by Kay granting a license to the band name. Now that license ended up getting abused by multiple Steppenwolf members and also by musicians who had never been anywhere near the original Steppenwolf (namely Tony Flynn and Geoff Emery who both went on to be in the New Deep Purple), but without Kay agreeing to the license for original reconstituted band, well I wonder if the others would ever have happened.
I don’t blame John for what he did, he had bills to pay and licencing deal from the name of a band that he no longer had any interest in must have seemed like free money. It appears Kay took over two years to launch legal action against the multiple bands using the Steppenwolf name and even then it seems, to me at least, he was only really outraged about it when the licensing fees stopped coming in.
I think a person would have to be incredibly naive to believe that John Kay wasn’t aware what was being done to the Steppenwolf name. This sort of behavior was as old as the entertainment industry; From fake circuses pretending to be connected to Barnum, the unofficial versions of Gilbert and Sullivan musicals to the multiple versions of the Zombies or The Animals. It only really seems to be a problem for the venues or the promoters when the ruse is discovered by the general public. Personally I think the industry operated under a blanket of plausible deniability.
I spoke to a few members of reconstituted bands to try to get an understanding of how things worked in such a group. Musicians from the likes of The New Cactus Band and The New MC5 (who did shows with The New Deep Purple). In contrast to the rock and roll luxury lifestyle, they often painted a bleak picture of working bands on gruelling schedules singing for their supper.
What sparked your interest enough in this period to want to write about it?
I just think it’s totally WTF! The Mexico chapter of story alone has its roots in the Mexican revolution, it also involves the civil rights movement, a burgeoning rock scene and a happy ending. Not bad for a episode that also includes a riot, a crowd crush and a Red Cross emergency triage unit! I was interested because it’s the kind of story I’d like to read. I’m a stand up comedian and I write hour long shows. I don’t write shows about things I don’t love or I’m not interested in. I think anyone reading the book will understand that I love Purple’s music and I love the tale, fans can tell if you’re a fraud and the last thing I’d want is for any hardcore Deep Purple fan to think I’ve done a disservice to the band they’ve devoted their lives to.
This period is often overlooked or unmentioned in Deep Purple books and stories. Do you feel it is a valid period that deserves to be told and mentioned In the band’s history? And do you feel this tour might’ve had any connection or influence in the band’s eventual reunion a few years later?
It’s definitely a valid part of their history and I think it should be embraced by the band. There’s line in this book that says something like ‘This is an interesting story because Deep Purple are a great band. Without Deep Purple being as great as they are then this story would be nothing’
I found the most negative opinions of the The New Deep Purple come from people who didn’t attend the shows. I spoke to folks who went to the shows and had a great time (as well as those who thought it sucked!)
I think the resulting court case was the first time the Deep Purple members had all worked together in any capacity for years. Probably the first time Blackmore had anything to do with them that wasn’t through third parties. I would say the court case did a lot to defrost the atmosphere between everyone. It’s weird to say this but I think it was the first step on the road to the reunion and without it, who knows, the reunion may not happened or might have been a few more years away.
I get why fans are reluctant to embrace this part of history. It’s stirs complex emotions and the book highlights the darker side to the musicians we love. As mentioned above, I spoke to a few fans of the band who attended the shows, plenty had a good time (a match in number for those who had a bad time). One person went to a show with her brother and that was her last memory of him before he passed away and another person met a girl at the show, they dated, got married, had kids and now have grandchildren… his whole family is thanks to that show. As I ask in the book, who are we to take that away from them?
There is a lot of stories and photos from this tour online; what gems have you dug up through your research? (people you’ve interviewed, photos or video you came across, etc…)
Most of the stuff I acquired were memories and clippings from newspapers. That said I came across a few ticket stubs and such. Norm from the Whisky River Band sent me a lovely colour version of a poster from the Northland Summer Jam II. It was a grandly titled small festival, akin to a county fair and it was the ideal stomping ground for the New Deep Purple. A rural small town that didn’t get much in the way of entertainment that attracted mainly a casual fan who had little idea of what the band was supposed to look like. In such an environment, where there was no pressure from a partisan crowd, The New Deep Purple seemed to put on a good show.
One of my other favourite bits I came across was Jim Dandy’s performance supporting the band in Mexico. It’s on Youtube, The clip was also great for contacting people who had been to the show and had first hand accounts of the gig. History has remembered the trouble in Mexico as being down to the New Deep Purple’s performance but the reality is somewhat different…
Did you search out fans for stories and memorabilia or did you get enough that simply came out with previously unwritten recollections of shows and encounters?
There’s a lot of accounts online already but yes I actively sought out fan accounts, mainly from the larger shows. The problem with this is that memories are fuzzy and it was 45 years ago, so I had to be wary of what to trust. One excellent bit of information I found out from a staff member from the Baby O bar in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The show didn’t actually go ahead, even though there a previous reports saying it did. It was cancelled not long before the band went on stage. I’ve read online that people had attended the show but that’s not true according to the door staff. Now, once again, that’s not to say that a show at the Baby O didn’t take place on a different date or that there wasn’t a show in Seaside Heights on that day. If you read the book you’ll read about a string of cancelled shows and postponed dates and moved venues. It was hard sorting out false memories for actual fact, but I think I’ve done a decent job in piecing it all together.
The band, at the time had said they were recording an album. This obviously never came out, but did you find any truth to this and what do you think the impact of this might’ve been had it come out back then?
I honestly don’t know what to believe here. I know that the same claims were made by the versions of Steppenwolf (and the Zombies etc),
It seems to me that if I wanted to give legitimacy to a band trying to convince the public they were the read deal, then I would certainly say ‘we’re recording an album’ or ‘we’re in talks with a label’ as it’s the kind of thing a legally-sound band would say in an interview.
That said Mike Curb was reportedly interested in the band and he wasn’t a fool. It’s likely Warners-Curb paid for some demos until they realised the legalities of trying to release a record as The New Deep Purple.
Did you find yourself feeling sympathetic for Rod Evans after all this? I was always under the impression he was simply duped into this whole situation.
The book started out as an investigation but evolved into a document of understanding and perhaps a plea for clemency.
I don’t however think he was ‘duped’ into what he was doing. It’s a popular fan opinion because, fans being fans, don’t like to think that the people that they love would behave in any way we wouldn’t like them to, but to say Rod was duped is a bit of insult to his intellect. He had been involved in the industry for about a decade before his 1974 retirement, I think it was an idea that he was fully onboard with but I also think it got away from him.
Part of the reason that it got away from him was that I think he thought he was legally in the right, to begin with at least. I think he thought he had, if not the blessing from the Deep Purple management, then the begrudging verbal agreement from them. There’s enough evidence in the book to suggest this.
Reading between the lines of the statements that came out from the band and management, it reads to me very much like a lot of non-denial denials. A lot like when Mick Fleetwood commented on the fake Fleetwood Mac.
Personally, I think he had some rights to the band name, but not the brand, if that makes sense. Put it this way, if he’d gone out a Rod Evan’s Deep Purple or Rod Evans From Deep Purple and just played Deep Purple Mark 1, I don’t think he’d have been hauled through the courts in the same way.
If taken in the context that Deep Purple had broken up and they weren’t really bothered about playing together again, then the prospect of licensing revenue, (perhaps unbeknownst to the Lord, Paice & Co) would have once again seemed like free money to Deep Purple’s management, just as it may have done to John Kay.
Although for balance I should probably point out that Purple’s management team moved a lot quicker than Kay to put a stop to things… The Steppenwolf saga may have even changed the Deep Purple management’s minds. By that time the damage to the name of Steppenwolf was highly evident for the whole industry to see.
The whole mystery of Rod Evans, and what became of him after this period has quite a following of its own online. Did you find much on Rod and those that knew him after the court case and all?
I spoke to a couple of people who claimed to know him but I after a few questions it turned out they were probably talking shit. There’s one guy going around various Facebook comments section claiming to know Rod and his movements, but it seems to be a desperate cry for attention. Bobby Caldwell, Captain Beyond’s drummer says he is in touch with him and guards his phone number like ‘Fort Knox’ I sent Bobby a message asking if he’d put me in touch but I got no reply, If you’re out there Rod, I’d love to hear from you. I’m happy to amend anything in future editions of the book if you think I’ve got it wrong, please get in touch. One of my main goals of this book was to ‘open the story out to the floor’ …which it has already done. I’ve had few people get in touch, nobody has contradicted me yet but I’ll be happy if someone says ‘you’ve got this bit wrong…. I know because I was there’
It’s been heavily reported that Rod has lost his Deep Purple royalties, I wonder if that only means officially and that they band are in fact ‘looking after him’ and making sure he gets his share. It would make sense based on their comments that they felt he was in with bad people and that the only way to stop him was to sue him. But then maybe that’s what I want to believe.
How is the book been made available at present? Will it be available via Amazon, etc..?
It’s available through my site Deeppurplebook.com and through Lulu Publishing. I’m trying not to use Amazon… mainly because of the disgustingly low fees they pay authors. Can you believe they uploaded my book to their in-house publishing without my permission? And then paid me pennies for the copies they sold. I was several emails before they’d take my work off of their website. The more authors I speak to the more I hear of how Amazon seem to behave like gangsters.
What other books have you authored? Any details of rock books of interest?
This is my first book! I’m a stand up comedian and in a previous life I was a development producer for documentaries. If you’re reading the book and you think it’s paced like a documentary film, that’ll be why. I’ve previously written reviews and opinion pieces for magazines and websites.
Are you planning on or working on any other rock n roll books?
So, my next project is to turn Stealing Deep Purple into some kind of show. I envisage it being a multi media presentation that’s funny and informative.
I’d quite like to pull at the threat of the numerous fake Iron Butterfly bands that existed in the late 1970s, so that might be my next book.
LINKS:
Outsider Rock 