Ian Paice

Ian Anderson Paice (born 29 June 1948) is an English musician who is the drummer and an original member of the rock band Deep Purple. He remains the only member of Deep Purple who has served in every line-up since the band's inception in 1968, as well as having played on every album and at every live appearance. He is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Deep Purple in 2016.

Deep Purple were broken up for eight years from 1976 to 1984, during which time Paice was a member of two bands that also involved other Deep Purple members, Paice Ashton Lord (also featuring Jon Lord) during 1976–1978, and Whitesnake (also featuring Jon Lord and David Coverdale) during 1979–1982. He was then Gary Moore's drummer from 1982 until Deep Purple's reformation in 1984. He has also played drums as a touring and/or session musician for other artists, including the Velvet Underground, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney.

Born in Nottingham, Paice's father was a civil servant and he spent his early years in Germany before moving back to live in Bicester, a town near Oxford, UK in early childhood. He got his first drum kit at 15 and began his professional career in the early 1960s playing drums in his father's dance band. The first band he was in was called Georgie & the Rave-Ons, which after being renamed the Shindigs released their first single featuring the 17-year-old Paice and George Adams.

In 1966 Paice joined the MI5, which soon changed its name to the Maze. Primarily a club band, the Maze produced a number of singles, recorded mainly in Italy and France.

The Maze featured vocalist Rod Evans, who alongside Paice was to form the original line-up of Deep Purple in March 1968. Evans had responded to an ad for a lead singer published by Deep Purple management, and showed up for his audition with Ian Paice in tow. Given that Deep Purple's first choice as drummer, Bobby Woodman, had expressed dislike for the band's musical direction, the group hastily arranged an audition for Paice, with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore leading the charge. Blackmore in interviews years later stated: "I had looked for Ian Paice for about a year after seeing him perform in Hamburg. He's an incredible drummer. And he was the motor of the band". Paice is the last remaining original Deep Purple member in the band in the present day.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.