Ian Paice

Ian Paice — born in Nottingham, England, on 29 June 1948 — is Deep Purple's founding drummer and the only musician present in absolutely every line-up and every album of the band, from 1968 to today. That continuity is rare in any group, and in Deep Purple it is remarkable: the band went through ruptures, dissolutions, complete changes of singer and guitarist, and Paice crossed all of it. In practice he is what guarantees that line-ups separated by decades still sound like the same band. His style comes less from rock than from jazz and swing. He plays with a sense of bounce most hard rock drummers lack — fast fills led by a dominant left hand, constant off-beat use of the bass drum, and a lightness that sounds almost improvised even inside fixed arrangements. "Fireball" opens with a double bass drum pedal in 1971, long before that became routine in metal. He is left-handed and plays a kit set up in reverse, a detail that explains part of the characteristic asymmetry of his fills. He remains in the band, including on the group's most recent records.