Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn't even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.
The misunderstanding out there is that we are a 'hard rock' band or a 'heavy metal' band. We've only ever been a rock n' roll band.
When I was a very young kid, the first music that really turned me on was a new wave of British heavy metal - big, dumb rock music. There was a band called Diamond Head - they were basically the band that inspired Metallica. But I also liked bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden.
I just want to be considered a heavy metal band, because metal has always been around and will always be around. We're just a heavier version of metal. Heavy metal will never go away. It's like a cockroach. It's the best title, because we play metal that's heavy.
I don't think there's any music that you hear on the radio today that would be possible without Jimi Hendrix. Rock, blues-rock, heavy metal, any guitar stuff when you get right down to it - Jimi did it. He's certainly the guy who basically invented the blues-rock genre for guitar players.
I just like heavy music in general - from heavy rock and heavy metal and heavy rap and heavy everything. I've always been attracted to it.
Hopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.
With Pantera, we lived through so many trend-of-the-day situations - when grunge was huge, we were still a heavy metal band; when hip-hop started getting incorporated into metal, we stuck to our guns and remained a heavy metal band very purposefully.
No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star.
I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues. What we're trying to do is play rock 'n' roll, but other people call it different things.
It's really an orchestral piece featuring a group and it was quite revolutionary at the time and it in fact, it kicked Deep Purple off as a name in Great Britain because it made all the newspapers. Everyone was writing about us. And there was some confusion as to what kind of band we were after that, which is why Deep Purple in Rock is such a hard unbending album of really furious hard heavy rock. Heavy metal hadn't been invented at that point.
Rock and roll promotes a primitive and destructive lifestyle. Metal can be seen as a subgenre of rock and roll, and thus, metal is not much better.
Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.
There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?
Deep Purple definitely belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 'Cause they had great songs, great musicianship, they had an impact, and they're a huge influence on the heavy metal community as a whole.
We are a band that stylistically crosses a lot of barriers and generational gaps. The heavier portion of the band, the modern music elements, the visual part of the band appeal to a younger audience. For an older audience, we have chops and great songs that are reminiscent of the things that were great about rock and roll when they enjoyed it. We're the kind of band that can cross those lines.