No, he was sued for harassment by a (former) employee. It’s only rock’n’roll.
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Poor Doug is going to be sorely disappointed with me then, pun intended.
One more thing about the lyrics on Bananas.
Doing It Tonight is actually a subversive lyric. The title already immediately sets the tone for a rock star lusting after someone and then “doing it” with them. Given that the said rock star is in their late 50’s, it’s giving “uncle, please no”-vibes. And then it turns into said uncle just doing the thing inside their head, and with all the “doing it” songs in the genre (here’s looking at you, DC cough), that felt like a really refreshing take at the time - and still does.
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Yep - my thoughts as well.
Are you sure Slaves and Masters is a Deep Purple album?
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It’s as much a Purple as Come Taste the Band 
You may not like it, but it is what is is
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Slaves and Masters has one more 70’s mk2 alumni than Bananas. And Bananas is definitely a Deep Purple album!
How about The House of Blue Light. Isn’t it also more “poppy” than Bananas?
Hi Marcus,
In my opinion it is. I love instrumental mixes and I hope that one day Deep Purple’s albums will also be released as instrumental mixes like Yes and The Who did it the last years with some of their albums and Jethro Tull will do it the next weeks with Aqualung and Warchild (on standalone Bluray releases). Instrumentally Slaves & Masters fits perfect between The House of Blue Light and The Battle Rages on and even thinking about Gillan singing the songs of this album with his vocal lines and lyrics, I say yes.
Btw., Joe Lynn Turner came up with the idea of a follow up album of songs written with external songwriters, like Aerosmith did in the 90s. Maybe this wouldn’t have been anymore a Deep Purple album.
I’d say THOBL is more artsy than poppy. Call of the Wild, which sounds like something even ELO might have rejected as too blatant (but is fun nonetheless), isn’t really typical for the album. It is perhaps the most “adult” (no, not because of the ballistic nature of those ping-pong balls) albums in Ritchie’s oeuvre with ze Purps, alongside Fireball and WDWTWA me thinks. There was always something a little adolescent about Ritchie’s writing - maybe that is why it appealed to us all when we were that age. In THOBL that adolescence is very much toned down, it is a “serious” album.
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Actually, a lot of songs - the better ones - didn’t sound on S&M like real DP, but they didn’t sound quite like Rainbow either. Neither King of Dreams nor The Cut Runs Deep sounded like something off the earlier Rainbow albums with Joe. That non-grooving stiffness Rainbow always had through all line-up changes (save for the debut) was gone thanks to Jon’s and Little Ian’s respective contributions. The album is evidence how important the two were (and in Paice’s case: are) for the DP sound, even as non-writers.
S&M is Ian’s stiffest performance on record?
Maybe so, but still a lot less stiff than all the Cozy Powells, Bobby Rondinellis and Chuck Burgis mashed together!
The only Rainbow drummer who ever found grace with me was the very tasteful and groovy Gary Driscoll. All the others were stiff.
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Contracts and their fine lines are an important part of that job.
I think Bruce Payne mostly did a good job managing Rainbow and DP. Like all things it had to eventually end.
The drummers in Rainbow were there for a reason. Powell perfect for Rising, Rondinelli for DTC and Burgi for BOOS.
Everyone of them heavy-handed, unfunky, uncreative, with lame kick drum work and sans any swing, Driscoll excepted. DDD - dumbed down drums
I will forever prefer how either Duck Dowle or Mark Nauseef played, hell, even Mick Underwood was preferable to those Rainbow guys. The drums were always - by a stretch - Rainbow’s Achilles’ heel. I could never understand how a man raised with Ian Paice could err so much in his choice of drummers.
But perhaps my real issue is that I don’t really like heavy drums, period. I will always lean more to players like Little Ian, the great Mark Nauseef, Simon Phillips, Les Binks, Levon Helm, Stewart Copeland, Chris Slade (with MMEB), Bill Brufford, Phil Collins, Neil Peart or Jeff Porcaro. I like drums to be kunstvoll rather than loud or brutish. For the life of me I find what Jeff P drums in Rosanna or Africa more musically impressive than Cozy’s hilariously cartoonish drum intro to Stargazer - and that was true for me even as a teenager, I thought that drum intro holzhackerig. (Now watch the Tasmanian intervene/erupt with something inane! Alas!, even with his undeniable drumming experience, he has yet to point me to a bass drum pattern by the gentlemen who played with Rainbow that was actually interesting.)
Am I a musical snob or just a very poor edition of a heavy metal fan? 
Do you wish Porcaro would have been on the Rising record in place of Powell? Not sure I follow…
I think it would have been a better album for it, yes, is that a problem? While Herr MacGregor + Rubber Haddock and their cohorts always claim to know what I must have thought when I first heard Rising (on the stereo of a friend who had bought it before me), I was actually there. And my first thought after Carey’s pleasant synth intro was: OMFG, those drums sound like Mick Tucker! And much as I enjoyed Sweet I never saw Mick Tucker as a serious contender for a “musical” drummer. (Karin says he’s good with his fingers though, I wouldn’t know.)
The rhythm section work on Rising - both Powell and Bain are to blame (rhymes!) - was in a word primitive. I never saw its appeal. It cheapened the music no end for me.
I mean do we really have to seriously discuss what the more musical drumming here is?
If you take away Cozy’s cool haircut, the race car driver image, the volume and power, the 1812 silly cannon roar circus act, what is left of his drumming that is so awe-inspiring? Bonham at least had nuanced moments and idiosyncratic ideas. Cozy played drums with Rainbow like Dee Dee Ramone played bass with the Ramones. That has its undeniable entertainment value, but let’s not get carried away. Or has the Deep Purple Forum all of the sudden not only morphed into a Ritchie Blackmore one, but also a Cozy Powell site of worship?
you keep worshipping your beloved Judas Priest Uwe, enough said there. However please try to be cooler, as in dress for the occasion, you are not in the office or court for that matter at a metal concert. All that noise, banging and clanging, crashing and burning, sheesh, one would have thought Cozy had an influence there, plus another one of your nemesis, Tommy Aldridge. The comedy continues folks, oh and the hypocrisy. Cheers.
Neil Peart??? The first time I have EVER noticed you mention Neil in a positive manner, is that a typo Uwe? And I am talking about his drumming. Usually it is, he is too rigid, angular and has no swing etc etc. Sheesh folks, the world has just turned on its axis. Cheers.