Deep Purple may not even have released Splat! yet, but the band is already looking past it. In a new conversation on the Rockonteurs podcast, drummer Ian Paice said the group has already started discussing another studio album for 2027, making it clear that the legendary rock outfit is not treating Splat! as a one-off stopgap.
Paice’s reasoning was blunt and practical. Deep Purple are in the middle of what he called a “heavy touring year,” with “almost 100 shows or something” on the calendar, so he said next year would have to look different. But if the band has ideas, he made the case that recording remains the easy part. “If you have ideas, making a record’s easy. If you don’t have ideas, making a record’s impossible,” Paice said, adding that if the band finds ideas they all like, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t put together another record sometime next year.”
That outlook fits the way Deep Purple has approached its late-career output in recent years. The band’s new album, Splat!, is due out on July 3 via earMUSIC, and the official announcement describes it as the group’s newest studio album, following 2024’s =1. The record is also Deep Purple’s sixth collaboration with producer Bob Ezrin, who has worked with the band on every studio album since Now What?! in 2013.
The current lineup behind Splat! remains the same core that has powered the band’s recent resurgence: Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Don Airey, and guitarist Simon McBride. The official label materials say the band is continuing with “renewed vitality,” while recent reporting has described Splat! as one of the heaviest Deep Purple albums in years and a project that leans back toward the band’s classic hard-rock edge.
Paice also gave a glimpse into how Deep Purple still writes in 2026. According to his comments, band members typically arrive with rough ideas they may have woken up with in the middle of the night, then build songs collaboratively. If a sketch is interesting, the others join in; if not, the silence is immediate and someone else starts something else. That process, he suggested, is why the band can still move quickly when the chemistry is there.
The bigger takeaway is simple: Deep Purple do not sound like a band winding down. They sound like a band measuring its energy, choosing its battles, and already keeping one eye on the next project. If Splat! lands the way the band hopes, 2027 may not just be a possibility — it may be the next chapter.
