Deep Purple’s Ian Paice on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction: ‘At Last!’

We’ll do a show where we’ll have a wonderfully mixed audience of kids in the front, then people that are slightly older until you get right to the back. In other countries, you just have an audience of more mature people or just kids. It’s been broken up in a way, which is so sad. The best shows are where everybody, of whatever age, are experiencing the same thing and getting the same buzz out of it. You need the kids to kickstart it, and once they get it going, the old folks remember why they went to a rock & roll show in the first place. It’s a wonderful feeling when it all kicks off like that. In the U.K. and the States, the media has cut the generations in half away from each other. It’s very sad.

I know many of your hardcore fans were very angry at the Hall of Fame and very insulted that it took so long for this to happen. It doesn’t seem like it bothered you quite that much.
Yeah. The problem with Purple is there has been so many incarnations, so many lineups, that I almost thought a couple of years go, “Why don’t they forget doing a Purple one? Why not treat the guys individually?” We’ve been so fortunate to not just have band members, but to have virtuosos. They warrant their own place individually in the Hall of Fame, people that have influenced whole generations of people who play that instrument, and singers. That would have been the easy way out of it. That’s just my little thing on it. But it looks like we’re in. That’s very nice. I’m pleased.

You’re going to come and perform, right?
I have no idea. All I’ve heard is we’ve got the thing. I just learned this two nights ago, and I’ve kept my big mouth shut. This is the first time I’ve discussed it with anyone. Whatever else is decided, we’ll make a decision on that when it comes through. 

I see the list of members that are getting in here. It’s Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, Rod Evans, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Jon Lord and you. Do you think that makes sense to bring in those people?
I suppose it does. Realistically, you’d like to think that anyone who was ever in the band made a contribution and should really be listed. It doesn’t matter if they were there for an album or two; everyone who was in the band actually contributed to the fact we’re still there. All these people, from the very beginning to the current lineup, [have] helped maintain Purple as a viable touring entity that a lot of people around the world really enjoy. So to pick some over others, I wouldn’t have done it that way.

Bands tend to perform with former members at these ceremonies? Do you think that might happen?
I have no idea. I haven’t even thought about it. No idea. We have to accept that there are personalities that don’t see eye-to-eye in our history. How that would work, I have no idea. Whether that could be put aside, I don’t know. It’s definitely one to contemplate and think about.