Did Steve Morse 'Sell Out' by joining Deep Purple?

Did Nuno Bettencourt sell out by playing for Rihanna?!

I don't think Morse sold out at all - NOR DO I THINK the current iteration of Purple is a Covers band either! I get sick of hearing that label when some of those out there simply cannot tell the difference. Heck, I got annoyed when some people out there label Queensrÿche a Covers band WHILE 3 original members are still involved with the band! Is AC/DC a Covers band with Angus still involved?! Absolutely not! It's like Whitesnake with David Coverdale or Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson fronting different personnel. Rainbow, Dio, Black Sabbath and their many iterations. Even Billy Corgan is also doing the same thing with Smashing Pumpkins. You know what?! I loathe the term Covers Band now that I think about it...

 

Interpretation: "I've just replied in a half dozen Beatles threads today, and my mind is on auto pilot."

 

I thought he sold out when he joined Kansas.

 

You could ask the same about Vinnie Moore joining UFO i suppose.
I'm surprized both Morse and Moore have stayed in their bands for so long as i would of thought they are so technical in their playing and knowledge that they'd of gotten bored by now. Steady money helps.

 

Agree 100%..........and I consider Ritchie a virtuoso as well..... Morse is technically better...
but Ritchie is Ritche, who I'm a waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy bigger fan of.

 

Good point. I think Morse eases the pain of playing Smoke On The Water for the billionth time by playing an extended solo beforehand.

 

"Deep Purple became the anchor in my life." ~ Steve Morse

Some of you judging Steve about joining DP, should watch the first 2:15 minutes of this (2012) clip...

 

Here the setlist from their tour with Alice Cooper this summer/fall.

Deep Purple Setlist:

1. Highway Star
2. Fireball
3. Strange Kind of Woman
4. Uncommon Man
5. Lazy
6. Knocking at Your Back Door
7. The Surprising
8. Keyboard Solo (by Don Airey)
9. Perfect Strangers
10. Space Truckin’
11. Smoke on the Water
12. Time for Bedlam
13. Hush (Joe South Cover)


Read more at Alice Cooper and Deep Purple at Jones Beach Theater (August 26, 2017) at We All Want Someone To Shout For

Perhaps they dropped all the songs Gillan can’t sing anymore for his snazzy new Vegas style.

 

Three new songs there, and they've added two more for the current European tour, where they apparently get a longer set.

 

This sentence grabs my attention.
Did you speak to Steve Morse? During that conversation did he tell you he gave up his goals and dreams to take this job?

 

On most shows, they dropped The Surprising and replaced it with Pictures of Home...you know, another Blackmore era song.

 

Yeah I think he loved being able to play arenas regularly. He wasn't doing that with his solo band. Also, half of the Morse era albums are actually really good. Also, the breaks between playing with Purple he has been doing side bands, solo albums, and now he is reactivating the Dixie Dregs. Sounds like a great gig to me.

 

True, but in America it's a Live Nation world and most veteran bands don't get to play new material at all-- On that tour Alice also played just three newer songs (two if you don't count the seventeen-year-old "Brutal Planet"). Purple will always play more new stuff on European dates-- On the start of the tour behind this album they were doing six songs from it, nearly half the set.

 

To be perfectly frank, I thought that when Steve Morse joined Deep Purple that he was indeed selling out, doing it because he knew it would be a well-paying and busy situation and that it probably would have burned itself out after a couple of albums and a half-dozen tours. I'm surprised that it's lasted this long and been this productive, and that must say something for the appropriateness of Morse in the band. If he wasn't challenged and they weren't satisfied, he'd have made tracks a long time ago.

On the other hand, I actually met Steve Morse backstage at a gig in Atlanta back in 2003 or 2003 (just after Airey joined) and I asked him something about being in Purple - can't remember what specifically but it was some general thing like how do you like being in Purple or whatever. His response was, and I quote. "Well, it's a weird gig." He didn't elaborate, he just went on to talk to the many other people who were circled around him. It always struck me as a weird answer, and like he still didn't feel like a plugged-in member of this group that he'd been in for about ten years at the time. He was quite matter of fact and didn't seem put out by the question. He did seem a bit separate - he was the only member surrounded by people and while Don Airey came out and stood with Roger Glover while I was visiting with him, Morse was holding court all on his own. Gillan and Paice never appeared - I was told that they were in the dressing room drinking wine and playing chess, and they were happy to sign stuff that got handed back to them but they weren't going to appear to greet fans.

But of course 25 years of writing, recording and touring speak much louder that anything he says to a stranger backstage at a concert. It obviously works, whatever it is. Bands of men in their 60's and 70's with 45 years of miles behind them aren't bloodbrothers, they're a professional corporation which happily enjoys to sell a creative and successful product. And you can't fault them for that.

 

He can make music, fans can enjoy it, he can eat and pay his bills. People that accuse others of selling out are usually independently wealthy or like to starve. Starving for your art isn't noble. It sucks.

 

Well, The Who sold out 50 years ago and clearly stated that

 

Morse always seemed like a strange fit for Deep Purple. I'm not sure his style meshing that well with the older stuff, but it certainly does for the material that he had a hand in writing and recording. I don't particularly care for the way he approaches the Blackmore material, but it is what it is. Morse is an extremely talented player who has done far more complex music with the Dixie Dregs and his solo stuff. I would imagine the Deep Purple stuff is rather boring to him. That might explain his comment that it's a "weird gig". Plus the fact that he's the only American in the band and comes from a completely different headspace in terms of a music background. That said, it's worked for years and I'm sure he makes far more money doing that than anything he could do on his own or with the Dregs.

 

Joe did indicate in his autobiography that the reason he couldn't sign on long term with DP is that he felt his own career was just starting to take off and that he didn't feel he could pursue that as well as be a 'role player' in another band. In Chickenfoot, he's a driver, not a passenger.

Rush would play nearly the entire album with each new release up through Clockwork Angels. They would mix in a tour here and there that was 'nostalgia', but when they released new material, they played the heck out of it.

 

They played more of Clockwork Angels live than they had with any album since the Mercury days. Usually they played about half of each new album. Of course they also did 2-1/2 hour shows, so they could get plenty of oldies in as well. But Rush has/had an audience that would give a careful listen to anything they did; Purple may have some of that but probably not to the same extent.

 

Steve was paying the bills as a commercial pilot when he joined Deep Purple, so if quitting the day job is "selling out" I'm all for it!!!

 

I bet he makes more money from one week of Purple shows than a year of touring with the Morse Band or the Dregs. There's only so far you can go with instrumental prog/jazz fusion music. Obviously as a live entity they have to play mostly old stuff, but he's written six respectable-to-excellent records with Deep Purple, which is a pretty impressive output given the working pace of many of their contemporaries. Hardly selling out...Morse was obviously a Purple fan before he joined the band, and his guitar playing gets seen and heard by hundreds of thousands of more people than it ever would have if he'd exclusively remained doing his solo/Dregs stuff.

 

Sold out by joining Deep Purple? Not at all
Letting go of x amount of artistic freedom by joining a well established band, compared to his own Dixie Dregs? No doubt.

The way I see it, it's a double edged sword for him; from 1996, he has been integral to all of the new material they have produced, and live he is a rock. 100 % reliable, and he delivers every night on a super high level. He is an amazing player.
The other side of this; Purple tours all the time, and a majority of the set is usually the golden era feat. Blackmore. Has never changed, will never change. So Steve will always have a foot in the past of Purple, which he wasn't a part of.

Incidentally, at the moment they're doing 4 songs from their new album, and one song from the previous album. That's 1/3 of the set. Not bad imo. Furthermore, again imo, these were some of the best songs on the night when I saw them less than two weeks ago.

(the set list comparison on a package tour of the US is not relevant, sadly. )
Also; the comparison of Purple to Whitesnake, Dio, Ac Dc and other bands mentioned above, is no good either. While I agree that DP Mk8 is in NO WAY a cover band or a cheap copy of Mk2, I think generally speaking, music fans will recognise the names Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice before Phil Rudd, Cliff Williams, Vivian Campell and Rudy Sarzo for instance....

 

It's MKII era. They're entitled.

 

The reason Steve Morse joined DP.... the monthly paycheck

At the end of Deep Purple's long career... he was only an average replacement for Blackmore. Even Tommy Bolin and Sateiani were better at that time. Steve Morse was good for the remaining members, but the worst guitarist for their legacy.

 

Morse is a giant. For me he shines best with the Dregs or his own trio but you can hardly complain about a day job as guitarist for Purple where he still gets to play a lot and do instrumental passages and compose. The new piece Birds of Prey for example is a prog tune.

I'm a jazz and fusion guy but I'd also enjoy playing with Purple and I'd don't see any problem in doing my own thing in the downtime.

The upcoming Dregs tour will be awesome.