Come Taste the Band Purple in 1984. When Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, there was uncertainty over whether the band would continue, as they did when Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left in 1973. It was David Coverdale who asked Jon Lord to keep the band together, and Coverdale was also a major factor in recruiting Tommy Bolin to take the guitar slot after hearing Bolin's work on the Billy Cobham solo album "Spectrum". Rehearsals for the album were recorded by Robert Simon, who was originally engineering the album. But after a dispute with the band over scheduling, the band left Simon's
Ian Gillan due to the smaller workload the band had compared to his own. However, the pair did jam together for three nights at Marquee Club – the first time the two men had shared a stage since 1973. Gillan continued, releasing "Glory Road" in 1980, which resulted in the band making the first of several appearances on "Top of the Pops". He considered the album to be his best work since "Machine Head" nearly a decade earlier. Following subsequent album "Future Shock", Torme was fired after missing an appearance on "Top of the Pops", and was replaced by Janick Gers. Gers