Don Airey

The Deep Purple keyboard player, go-to session guy and solo artist on his new album, touring, Purple, Blackmore...

- Mick Wall

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?