Though he replaced Steve Morse two years ago, Belfast native Simon McBride is still Deep Purple’s “new” guitarist. The band’s latest album, =1, is his first with the hard-rock legends.
Did songwriting for =1 work differently when you joined?
The format was pretty much the same as when they worked with Steve. We had three writing sessions – first in Hamburg, then one in Nashville, and the last in Toronto with (producer) Bob Ezrin, which was more of a sit-down to see what he thought. We’d play stuff and he’d make a few suggestions for arrangements and whatnot, then we’d go into the studio and start playing.
I think it’s different for those guys, working with me. Obviously, I play and think differently, so that was new for everybody. I’ve written with [keyboardist] Don Airey before, so I know how he works. But it was really just five guys in a room playing and jamming. There was no pressure to write anything. A lot of the stuff came out of that first writing session in Hamburg.
I think the key with writing is not to stress much about it. It was all very relaxed. That’s the best way to do any sort of songwriting. If you don’t, it sounds stressed and forced.
The ideas kept flowing.
It was different for them, as they told me, because Steve works in a different way. He probably thinks more like a guitarist and plays more what a guitarist thinks, but because I’ve done songwriting and producing for other people for such a long time, I think like a songwriter or producer. I don’t think like a guitarist. I think about guitar solo afterward. My thing is always about getting the song, and they weren’t used to that, but everybody has their own way of doing things. They still got great results with Steve and (original guitarist) Ritchie (Blackmore). With me, again, it’s just different personalities.
Did you adapt your style to Deep Purple, or was it already a good fit?
I think part of the beauty of Deep Purple over the years is they never really had a fixed “sign.” They have that ability to adapt. It was, “Let’s just play and see what happens.” I had ideas, which I pre-constructed in my studio; we all are always writing stuff. There’s a track called “Sharp Shooter,” which is from a riff I had. I thought, “That’s too heavy, they’re never going to use it.” But here we are. They’re using it! There are no rules.
The songs on =1 came together very quickly. Would you call them improvisational for starters, but fine-tuned?
Every song that you do or any idea that you have, it’s all improv, really. When I pick up a guitar and play, it’s improv. I have no clue what I’m going to play. It’s just the way it naturally happens. We come up with an idea and maybe we’ll say, “Let’s tighten this up. Let’s play it with a little bit of fire and see how it’s starting to feel.” There’s always a bit of a process in that regard. The key thing is to get the basic structure of the song and all the parts there.
=1 was recorded primarily live in the studio, correct?
It’s tight, but it has that live thing. Bob’s very good at capturing that in the studio, even though there’s overdubs and stuff like that. I did re-play a lot of guitars, but I’m a perfectionist. I did quite a lot of overdubs here in my own studio and re-played a lot of guitars, just because I wasn’t happy with certain things. A lot of stuff was left live; I’d say 50 percent of the solos were one take in the studio, but the other 50 percent, I wasn’t that lucky.
Which guitars did you use on =1?
It was mostly my Paul Reed Smith Private Stock signature guitar that Paul made for me. It’s a single-cut semi-hollow with a 408 vibe. I used that for most of the record. I also used a custom-made Smitty guitar on some stuff. The acoustic was Bob’s, and I’m pretty sure it was a Martin.
How about amps?
I use Engl heads, their Artist series, and I got them to custom-tweak it for me.
This article originally appeared in VG’s September 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
