During an August 26 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, DEEP PURPLE bassist Roger Glover spoke about the band’s ongoing tour, “The Long Goodbye”, which started in May 2017. Asked if he and his bandmates will “just keep moving forward” with live shows while they are still physically able to, without ever announcing a final concert, Glover replied: “Well, I see a lot of bands doing the farewell tour or the farewell gig — BLACK SABBATH just did it recently, and other people have done it before — but it doesn’t appeal to me, and I don’t think the rest of the band either. To actually put a date on the final show, now where’s it gonna be? The pressure is too great. I’d much rather just play and play and play, and suddenly we’re not playing. We don’t need to go out with a fanfare — I don’t think, anyway. It’s possible other people disagree with me, but that’s my feeling.”

Asked if the other members of DEEP PURPLE feel the same way as he does about the idea of not announcing a final gig, Roger said: “Quite a few years ago now, at the start of ‘The Long Goodbye’, (then-PURPLE guitarist) Steve Morse, he said, ‘Why don’t we finish on a high and name the last tour and we’d make a lot of money because it’s the last tour and then kiss it goodbye?’ And that didn’t go down well with the band, which is why we called it ‘The Long Goodbye’, because we knew it was gonna happen sometime, but, of course, we didn’t know it was gonna go on and on and on. And thankfully so.

“This year is a bit of an off year,” Glover explained. “We’ve been writing and stuff, and there’ll probably be an album next year. And the last — actually, the last two or three years have been so busy. We haven’t stopped touring and working. So it’s good to have a little bit of a breather. We did one gig in Brazil — a festival in June — and there’s a couple of gigs coming up at the end of the year, but it’s not really a touring year. It’s a resting year.”

Asked by host Eddie Trunk if he thinks the final DEEP PURPLE concert will just happen without it being “a pre-announced thing,” Glover said: “Yeah. I think that would be the way to do it. I mean, who knows? The business side of things, we all disagree. We haven’t talked about it. It’s just we assume we’re just gonna carry on. Bop till you drop.”

After Trunk noted that so many artists have announced farewell tours, only to come back for select shows or extend their farewell tours indefinitely, Glover said: “It’s all about the money. See, it’s all about the money. And then we’re more about the music. Yeah, money’s important, but music is more important. And having a big finale like that for DEEP PURPLE … of course it may happen, but it wouldn’t be my decision.”

Regarding the health and physical fitness of the PURPLE bandmembers, Roger said: “Well, I don’t think anyone, when they’re around 80, feels like they did when they were 20. We all have aches and pains and stuff like that. But so far, certainly playing live and playing in the studio, we’re still on top of the game. So, I don’t see any problem coming up. Ian (Gillan, PURPLE singer) turned 80 this year. I’ll be 80 later this year. It’s a horrible number. I still haven’t quite got used to it. I’m hanging on to 79 as much as I can.”

Glover also talked about DEEP PURPLE‘s insistence on still putting out new music, with the band’s 23rd studio album, “=1”, having arrived in July 2024.

“That’s what we do, isn’t it?” he said. “We write music. Even if there was no band, I’d still be writing music, certainly for my own pleasure. It’s one of the things you do. The idea is not to try and repeat yourself, to find new ways of being a hard rock band. And we seem to do that. I don’t know how we do it. We just do it. It’s kind of a natural thing.”

Elaborating on why it’s so important for him to stay creative as he approaches his 80th birthday, Roger said: “I’m working on my book right now, writing about my life, and the more I write, the more I realize what an amazing journey that we’ve been on, and certainly I’ve been on. And you kind of owe it to yourself to sort of not squash it, just to continue as much as possible. Working on my book keeps reinforcing what an amazing — almost against the odds of joining a band and having been going for 60 years, or 50-whatever it is, years, I mean, just it doesn’t make sense. We were just very lucky or just in the right place at the right time, or just the right mix of people. I don’t know what it is, but we kind of owe it to our legacy to not give up.”

In July 2022, Guitarist Steve Morse officially left PURPLE to care for his wife, Janine, who is battling cancer. He has since been replaced by Simon McBride.

On August 15, 1972, DEEP PURPLE took the stage in Japan for the first of three shows that would give rise to one of rock’s most celebrated live albums, “Made In Japan”. Universal Music announced a new Super Deluxe Edition of the landmark release, out August 15 — exactly 53 years after the first performance was recorded.

“Made In Japan (Super Deluxe Edition)” features new stereo and Dolby Atmos mixes of the original by acclaimed producer Steven Wilson, all three concerts newly remixed by Richard Digby Smith, and several rare single edits. It will be released as a 5CD/Blu-ray set at retailers nationwide, and a 10LP black vinyl edition, available exclusively from the official artist shop and UMG D2C stores.

A 2LP black vinyl version of Steven Wilson remixes will be available on August 15. The digital companion will also be available everywhere on August 15.

Originally intended as a Japan-only release, this double live album became a surprise global phenomenon. Released in the U.K. in December 1972 and in the U.S. the following March, “Made In Japan” went platinum in America and several European countries.

Singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, keyboardist Jon Lord, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice — DEEP PURPLE‘s famed Mk II lineup — turned studio staples like “Smoke On The Water”, “Highway Star” and “Space Truckin'” into explosive live statements. “We came halfway around the world and found the audience singing every word. It was magical,” Glover recalls in the collection’s liner notes.

The band enlisted engineer Martin Birch — who had worked on several of their best-known studio albums — to record the shows to eight-track tape at Festival Hall in Osaka and the Budokan in Tokyo. The performances on “Made In Japan (Super Deluxe Edition)” capture DEEP PURPLE at full throttle, powering through songs from their then-new album “Machine Head”, along with fan favorites like “Child In Time”, “Strange Kind Of Woman” and “Speed King”. The collection also includes rare single edits, like the German version of “Black Night” and the Mexican edit of “Space Truckin'”.

The live album garnered widespread critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone declaring it “PURPLE‘s definitive metal monster, a spark-filled execution of the typical PURPLE style.” This recognition led to its impressive ranking at No. 6 on their “Readers’ Poll: The 10 Best Live Albums Of All Time”. AllMusic also praised the album, stating that “DEEP PURPLE pushed its music into the kind of deliberate excess that made heavy metal what it became.” Additionally, the album achieved commercial success, landing at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Wilson harnesses the raw energy of the original tapes in his new stereo and Atmos mixes. “It’s all completely as it happened on the night,” he says. “The album has a power and sense of abandon that they never quite captured in the studio. Hopefully this new mix makes it feel even more like you’re there.”

CD 1: Original Album (2025 Steven Wilson Remix)

01. Highway Star
02. Child In Time
03. Smoke On The Water
04. The Mule
05. Strange Kind Of Woman
06. Lazy
07. Space Truckin’

CD 2: Osaka, August 15, 1972

01. Highway Star
02. Smoke On The Water
03. Child In Time
04. The Mule (Drum Solo)
05. Strange Kind Of Woman
06. Lazy
07. Space Truckin’

CD 3: Osaka, August 16, 1972

01. Highway Star
02. Smoke On The Water
03. Child In Time
04. The Mule (Drum Solo)
05. Strange Kind Of Woman
06. Lazy
07. Space Truckin’

CD 4: Tokyo, August 17, 1972

01. Highway Star
02. Smoke On The Water
03. Child In Time
04. The Mule (Drum Solo)
05. Strange Kind Of Woman
06. Lazy
07. Space Truckin’

CD 5: The Encores

01. Black Night (Osaka, August 15, 1972)
02. Speed King (Osaka, August 15, 1972)
03. Black Night (Osaka, August 16, 1972)
04. Lucille (Osaka, August 16, 1972)
05. Black Night (Tokyo, August 17, 1972)
06. Speed King (Tokyo, August 17, 1972)
07. Black Night (German Single Edit)
08. Space Truckin (Mexican Single Edit)
09. Smoke On The Water (U.S. Single Edit)

Blu-ray: Steven Wilson Atmos Mix