Roger Glover

Roger Glover was born on the 30 November 1945 on a farm near Brecon, Wales. He has one younger sister, Christine.

His musical career started in 1960 when he was living in Pinner, Middlesex and going to Harrow County School, where he helped form his first group, The Madisons. Personnel changes led the group name to be changed to The Lightings and eventually to Episode Six.

In 1963, he attended Hornsey Art College, still playing in the group.

In 1965, as Episode Six turned professional, they lost their lead singer and invited a local singer called Ian Gillan to join. Over the next four years they toured and recorded, achieving modest success. Roger and Ian became songwriting partners.

In 1969, Roger and Ian were invited to join Deep Purple, which very soon became one of the biggest bands in the world with albums such as Deep Purple In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, Made In Japan and Who Do We Think We Are.

In 1973, after their huge success with songs like Black Night and Smoke On The Water, Roger left the band and continued working as a record producer, one of his first successes being Nazareth’s Razamanaz. For six years he worked as a producer, with two more albums by Nazareth, three albums by Elf (Ronnie James Dio’s band), two albums by David Coverdale, and such artists as Judas Priest, Status Quo, Rory Gallagher, Michael Schenker, etc. before becoming the producer for Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore’s band. In 1979 he joined Rainbow and recorded and toured with them until 1984, when Deep Purple had a reunion. He has been in Deep Purple since then.

His solo records are The Butterfly Ball (1974), Elements (1978), Mask (1984), Snapshot (2002) and If Life Was Easy (2011).

His daughter Gillian resides in London and has her own career in music, releasing Red Handed (2007) and Still Life With Music (2011).

Roger currently lives in Switzerland with his partner Myriam and their two daughters, Lucinda and Melody.