Steve Morse on closing the Deep Purple chapter and new instrumental album, Triangulation | Interview

"I think there's a couple guys in the band that were really glad for me to be gone… and I think: 'Same here.'" Steve Morse on closing the Deep Purple chapter and new instrumental album, Triangulation | Interview

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For Steve Morse, getting back into the studio this year wasn't just about making another record — it was about putting himself back together. Speaking to Guitar Interactive, he reflects on recent years marked by grief, stress, and the whiplash of walking away from a job that had become part of his identity. After decades in Deep Purple, it "evaporated… instantly," he says.

Given that context, you might expect the Steve Morse Band's new instrumental album, Triangulation, to lean into sombre territory — but it couldn't be further from reality. Instead, it plays like a reset: the buoyant "Breakthrough" arrives first, setting the tone for a record that's more charging ahead than reflective.

Elsewhere, Morse teams up with fellow guitar great — and longtime Morse superfan — John Petrucci on the title track, with a chemistry that's immediate and effortless. And while he's candid about how "huge" it felt to earn the seal of approval when he first stepped into Deep Purple, he's equally direct about where things stand now.

Below, Morse talks about rebuilding his musical identity, the ethos of jamming, the impact of seeing John McLaughlin live, and why Triangulation feels like the start of something new.

Steve, it's always a pleasure to hear new music from you. Triangulation feels genuinely uplifting — and "Breakthrough" sets that tone straight away. Given everything you've been through over the last few years, was that something you actively set out to capture from the start?

"Yeah, it was. I was mired in all these problems and recovering from losing my wife and the years of stress. And just constantly being on edge, trying to think, is there something we haven't done? We're going to try — try to see about this other therapy, and looking on these lists of experimental drugs pretty much every week… and there was a lot of daily routines and cares. And anyway, yeah.

It was weird losing this job that had just become part of my life — for half of my musical career I was in Deep Purple, and that just evaporated instantly. So, yeah, there wasn't much left of my musical identity. And it just felt really good to get back with my old friends. Yeah, it was definitely time."

Was the track "Breakthrough" the actual breakthrough — and did it feel like the moment where you thought, "I'm ready to write something new"?

"Well, we already had a lot of ideas going. But sometimes you come across one and it just feels like, yeah, this is straight down the middle. This fits us. And it's not experimental. It's not too much of a statement of anything. You're not ramming anything down people's throat — it just feels natural.

And I like to do one or two tunes like that as well. It's where there's more writing involved, or maybe more stuff that we find interesting… some of the busy licks that really challenge us — Dave and I especially. I think those are an important part of the mix in the recording too, because that is kind of who we are — we're trying to redefine what the bass can or should do and just feeling it out and jamming."

Was that something that always came to you quite naturally, even early on — that jamming mentality?

"To me, there was a sort of pervasive ethos for rock players back in the sixties and seventies: that's what you do — you jam, you jam, and you make sure that every bar is not the same as the jam. That was the thing to do. It was like going hunting for some people, or going shopping, or watching a game. We would go jam, and the goodness of the jam depended on how many new or unplayed ideas you could do during that time and work in with the other people.

And then in music school, I ended up by default being in the jazz department because they didn't know what to do with me in the classical department. And of course, in jazz it's the same thing.

And then when I met Deep Purple, John Lord was in the band. We were setting up for our first and only rehearsal before the first show. We were at the gig, and I played something while tuning up and John Lord played it right back. I played something else — he played it right back. One more thing, he added to it. And I heard what he did and then brought it back… and we were communicating like two jazz players. And I said, are you kidding me? I was worried if these guys could play or not. You know what I mean? That's why we only did four shows — they didn't know how bad I was going to suck, and I didn't know if they were living off the name.

But we were all smiling at the end of that. So it was cool. So the jamming thing is a big deal.

But when I did my band, the Dregs, back in the seventies, we used to play for free a lot. And I noticed what made people stop and listen as they walked by when we were playing outside — what made people stop and listen was the melodies, and the risks: moving from something complicated to something simple, and capturing them with melodies. And what made them walk away was the long solos. So that was my big lesson, seeing that over and over.

And then also for decades, hearing the record company say, "Oh, this will never work. Nobody listens to live music that's instrumental." And me saying, "Yeah, but watch. Just let me play for some strangers and watch." I know how to make the list and people can tolerate variety — you just have to do it artfully.

That's why you go to a craft show or something and you see something you've never seen before, because people have creativity and as human beings we appreciate it. Even if we're not going to buy whatever it is that guy just made, you can look at it and say, "That's awesome." Who would have thought you could do that out of a coconut shell or whatever?

And if everyone always did the same thing or presented the same styles, nothing would evolve as well."

Keeping things back in the early days: can you speak about seeing John McLaughlin live in the early seventies for the first time — and how much that impacted your musical development?

"Well, that was huge. I was in the jazz department and I hadn't yet found a place. I was in my freshman year and I was in these ensembles, but it was very jazz-oriented and I was not a natural jazz guy.

I appreciate the feel of swing jazz and the appeal and the vibe of improvisation, but the bebop playing over standards and all that stuff just wasn't me. It was like trying to… tell a kid today that the only music that was any good was Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page — you know, "Back in my day, you kids get off my lawn." So yeah, I wasn't feeling it then.

And I didn't just see Mahavishnu play — I saw what was happening with the weather. It was an outdoor concert in Miami,

and I knew it was going to rain. Sure enough, it rained out. They decided they were going to perform inside the cafeteria.

Well, guess what? I always miss dinner because of my schedule. So I was making my obligatory peanut butter sandwich — the bread's already been opened and sitting out stale, and the peanut butter has all kinds of blobs of jelly floating in it… it just looks like hell every day.

But I was talking to the roadies setting up a stage in there and I said, "Hey, can I be here?" They said, "Yeah, just get out of the way when something comes." Okay.

So I stayed right where I figured… I could see where the amps were being placed, and I said the only person playing through that Marshall stack was going to be the guitar player. So I set myself right in front of John McLaughlin.

It was totally immersive and totally amazing. They were so good. He got super-experienced guys that had sort of a rock-type approach — especially Jerry Goodman — but the drums were super powerful. Billy Cobham was a freight train. And Jan Hammer with his melodies, playing with John… and the melodies with Goodman — I was blown away. I said, "This is awesome."

And then I found out that some of the people in the jazz department thought it was cool because John McLaughlin had come from legit jazz — playing with Miles Davis and all that. So suddenly he was branded as a jazz player, but now here he is reaching a new generation of huge fans by doing this semi-rock approach.

Yeah, of course. After his band, my writing diverged almost instantly away from it, but the sound that he had of the ensemble is something I always remembered and always wanted. I could never play like him — I write differently than him — I knew that. But yeah, that was a big influence."

You recently made John Petrucci's entire year by describing him as one of the best players alive today. Has a player you idolised ever said something incredibly complimentary about the play that just blew you away?

"Well, John McLaughlin did, in a way. It was the early '80s that I actually got to know him because we went on tour together — he's a guy that I think leads by example. He doesn't waste words. I think he thinks talk is one thing and walk is another; at least that's the way I choose to think about him.

When I first met him, we had just finished a gig and Billy Cobham's band was opening up, so he came to see Billy Cobham's band — not us. He saw us play, and he knew how much I was influenced by Mahavishnu just from the arrangement and the instruments of the songs. And I said, "Hey man, will you sign my guitar?" I was a young guy.

So he took the guitar, went like this, and he kissed it, and handed it back to me. That was totally unorthodox — you know, just: "How do I deal with this kid? I don't want to sign his guitar, but I'll try to make it something that he'll remember." Like I said: unorthodox. An innovative way of looking at everything.

And when I met Jimmy Page as a young kid, it was just: "What kind of strings do you use?" He told me Ernie Ball strings. All right — my first endorsement sale. It was Ernie Ball's first endorsement sale of 1968 or '69, whenever they came out… they were playing Macon, Georgia. It wasn't when they first came out — it was their second tour maybe. I don't know."

And you've stuck with Ernie Ball since?

"Yeah, sure enough. That was a great endorsement for sure."

When Blackmore said you were an incredible player not long after you joined Deep Purple, did that have an impact on you?

"Oh, that was huge. That was huge because part of what I was stepping into is… I'd seen it before where a guy gets replaced. I experienced it with Kansas when the band reformed with the original singer and Kerry Livgren didn't want to do it, and I was, quote, "taking his place."

You're at odds with a certain percentage of the audience — they want the original guy back. That's what they want, what they remember that turned them on to the band. So everything I did in Purple had to be done, in my mind, with an appropriate level of respect for the old and the inevitability of somebody new doing it. So it was a delicate dance.

Hopefully Ritchie saw that I appreciated and admired his work. A large part of our set, especially in the beginning, was playing his parts. I took some from Joe Satriani's live performances as well and modeled my approach for those tunes that were in the set list at the time.

And then I started my crusade to get the band to play the songs that I thought they should be playing, like "Hush." And I began my natural thing, which is to try to widen the horizons — like when I heard Zeppelin doing "Gallows Pole" and "Black Mountain Side," I thought this is cool — I like the fact that they're spreading out. And Yes on Fragile did that — "The Six Wives of Henry VIII," the Rick Wakeman solo piece, and "Mood for a Day" with Steve. All that stuff made me think it's totally natural that Purple should branch out.

So I was bringing in ideas and we got them to happen — things like "Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming," "The Aviator," those acoustic-y sort of things John Lord would gravitate to. John was very keen on melody and surprising harmonies. He was a composer — he did the orchestra stuff. So that was sort of the golden age of writing.

But back to your question: having Ritchie not stomp all over me was such a relief. Because it seems like there's a lot of people talking negative stuff about musicians that aren't in the room, and I'm really sad to see it happen — especially when it's a band you used to be in and used to be proud to be in.

I never actually met Ritchie, but in my mind he was able to see the level of respect I had for his work. And… you know, I remember making tapes because my brother would borrow a record and I'd make a tape of it and give it back. And I remember the exchanges between John Lord and Ritchie Blackmore on "Child in Time" when they're doing the fast triplets or sextuplets back and forth — I thought, this is really cool. This is heavy. I like this stuff.

And that's what really got me into it — besides hearing the treatment of "Hush." Deep Purple was doing what every band was doing at the time in the '60s: take a song that existed and make a heavier version of it, make it fun to play and listen to. So I thought it was really cool."

You're working with John Petrucci on your new album's incredible title track. Did you notice straight away how well your voices on the instrument were blending on the track?

"Well, that's due to John — he got it immediately. He's a musical giant. Twenty years ago he was as good as you could get, and then each year he keeps getting better somehow. That's why I think he's not actually 100% human — there has to be some kind of alien blood in there.

But you know, he's still gotta arrive and crush it and then get out of it. That's the main thing that we absolutely loved doing.

I heard him just a few months ago — Dave LaRue was playing with him and Mike Portnoy — and I was like, let's see what these guys got up their sleeve now. Of course it was incredible. I found myself saying, "John, I don't know how you got better, but you're at a ridiculous level."

You've always championed the album format — with music changing now, singles and EPs… do you still feel it's important to have that cohesive chapter put down onto a record?

"Yeah. I think it's more memorable to have a folder of this point in time — if it's photos, or notes, or ideas… that's how I group my ideas, I put them in folders with like things.

And for listeners, I think it's good to have everything come at once, and hopefully you'll find something that draws you in enough to listen again. And it's only then that you hear the second layer of things you missed. I try to put enough in there to where it can bear the repeated listening — because you're always finding more things, for sure."

Please don't tell us this is going to be the last album, Steve. Are you planning on getting back into the studio sooner rather than later?

"Oh yeah — but, you know, I have some physical limitations now. I've got to be mindful of those and work around them.

So after my commitments this year, coming up very soon, I'm going to start working on a new technique that doesn't involve alternate picking everything, in order to buy more time. So I've got a lot of work to do on that frontier.

Meanwhile I'm still going to be writing and recording stuff. And I'm getting my son more involved — maybe get him to do some of the heavy lifting on the recording stuff that we're doing."

Do you feel like that chapter is fully closed with Deep Purple, or is there anything unresolved from your perspective? Would you accept doing another show?

"Yeah… I think if the band felt differently, I would feel differently. But I think there's a couple guys in the band that were really glad for me to be gone because they were sort of heading back to their roots and wanted just to be a rock band — "Don't give me any of that fancy crap."

And when you look at me as a writer, I definitely give you that fancy crap — I can't help it. So I think the band's happier the way they are. And it would be kind of a step back for them to want to do something like that.

But we did have plans for me to play on something and actually do another gig on the boat, but that didn't happen.

That was when my wife was in remission. Everybody knew it was a wild card whether I was going to be able to be around or not, but we could schedule that boat thing, and we were looking forward to it.

We were on that tour — that boat — the year before when it got cancelled from COVID. The whole band got bumped off anyway.

They're happier and better off… and I think "same here."

Steve Morse's new album Triangulation is out now.

For more information, visit stevemorse.com.