Uhum, the resident Deep Nerd contributes herewith comprehensively:
Glenn: After decades of belittling DP's music and his participation in it, Glenn has realized that DP royalties, not Trapeze ones keep him warm and fed. He's the main instigator of this Mk 3 reunion talk. Until he reconsiders, thinks better of it and wishes again to become a white soul rock star that is. Never mind that nobody outside the DP fan circle buys his solo CDs. Glenn still is an overly excited puppy that pees here today and there tomorrow. Not the most steadfast character even without produce from the Andes. But he would do it if the chance came up (and his profit share good enough). For a while at least.
Jon: The good Lord is a wonderful man, but sometimes smalltalks without too much strategic thinking. He has raised the possibility of Mk 3 reunions before and then backtracked diplomatically just like he did in that interview. He would do it though. As a moment of closure of his rock career. Gets along with all the others - as is his nature. Has forgiven Coverdale that he paid Cozy Powell in Whitesnake days a higher wage than him which John saw as tantamount to insult of rock royalty when he found out.
Ian: Little Ian would do almost anything for his buddy Jon - being married to 50% of the same set of identical female twins teaches you to you share things. Ian's big regret is that "Blackmore left Mk 3 at a time when he really didn't need to". And in his heart of hearts he probably knows that even a coke-fueled Glenn motivated him to the best drumming in his career with his funked up sense of timing and leaving space. Ian would do it if the current DP line up granted him leave/a sabbatical for it. Ian is a thrifty money investor (Ian Gillan: "In hindsight, I should have sometimes gone with him window shopping at financial institutions!") and doesn't need any more of it, but he certainly still enjoys making it. Has forgiven Glenn that he embarrassed DP in the Mk 4 line up and David that he fired little Ian from the classic Brit Whitesnake line up, which had poor Ian fall into an identity crisis (furthered by Pete Townshend turning him down after auditions for The Who in favor of the less talented Kenny Jones) from which he only recovered when he joined Gary Moore as the elder statesman drummer and finally rejoined DP in 1984.
David: Coverdale is at peace with himself and his career. After Whitesnake conquered the US with the 1987 album, DP no longer casts a long shadow. Glenn might forever be the technically better singer, but a look at their respective post-DP careers reassures Coverdale that the album buying public doesn't care for the higher range, but for the larger than life, panoramic voice. Coverdale is vain enough to still view his relationship with Blackmore as unfinished business ("we could have done so much more together, had I been more confident and not the new guy ..."). With Purple, Coverdale pretty much covered the bluesy, Paul Rodgers baritone parts - he can still do those and Glenn will always gladly jump in for a trademark screech or two. Or three. Or four or five ... Jon's jab about Coverdale's voice is fed by his disappointment of David going helium/Robert Plant in eighties Whitesnake, Lord's preference (as all the singers on his solo work attest) is the gravelly baritone voice type. More Joe Cocker than Percy Plant.
David would do it to show that he still can, but only as an equal to Blackmore (perhaps not as regards money, but in having an equal say). The fact that the boy from Redcar beat up Blackmore one night in Munich post-DP after Blackmore, in one of his practical joke moods or being malicious, who knows, scrawled pentagrams and other black magic rubbish on a hotel suite door of Coverdale only to scare the then-Mrs Coverdale (his 1st and German wife Julia) to near death (no intention of Blackmore, he was after Coverdale) might still stand between them (Blackmore was fast and nimble as a young man, but never strong, Redcar won against Weston-super-Mare that night ...), they haven't spoken directly to one another since this fateful event in the late seventies. That said, Coverdale has in recent years only said profusely nice things about Blackers and even Blackmore's meanest swipe only was: "David now talks like Roger Moore, I hear, but he's from Redcar and we all know how they all really speak up there!"
Ritchie: The enigmatic Man in Black, shielded by his paranoid/over-protective manager/mother in law (little Ian: "Ritchie is now doing folk songs on acoustic guitar together with his talented girlfriend, who has never sung before, before audiences of several hundreds and they are being managed by her mother so I'm sure that it must all be rather professional ..."
). Blackmore called the ghosts for Mk 3, rowing out Ian Gillan and Roger Glover of the spectacularly successful Mk 2 line up in the process, and those two ghosts (David and Glenn) not only wouldn't go away, but all of the sudden wanted to play, as Herr Blackmore in less pc-conscious days put it, "shoeshine music". In recent decades, Blackmore hasn't been negative about either Jon or Ian (who he still rates as his favorite players in their instrumental domains and if truth be told no one has ever backed him better) or David (he prefers Coverdale's more conventional vocal lines to Ian Gillan's stream of consciousness off-the-wall stuff) or, for that matter, Glenn (who he doesn't take serious, comparing him to Joe Lynn Turner in character, but essentially a nice guy).
Problem is that Blackmore likes only about seven Mk 3 songs: Burn, You Fool No One, Mistreated, Stormbringer, Lady Doubledealer, Gypsy and Soldier of Fortune. This is the man that would have neither the grand Sail Away nor the equally classic (and originally slated for Mk 3) You Keep on Moving on seventies set lists. They wouldn't have much to play then (and Coverdale wouldn't do Gillan material today just as Dio didn't do Ozzy stuff at the Heaven & Hell reunion) and I don't believe that Blackmore has made his peace with white soul tracks such as Hold On or Holy Man yet. Perhaps the others could placate him by finally playing a cover of Quatermass' Black Sheep of the Family which he wanted on Stormbringer and then - vetoed by the other Purps who only wanted original material on the album - recorded for the first Rainbow LP.
Blackmore doesn't need to do it. Not for the money, not for the fame. He's left Deep Purple at the height of their respective fame three times (1972/73, 1975 and 1993) in three different eras. He'd make a lot of people happy if he played with Mk 3 (though, realistically, teaming up with Gillan again would draw the larger crowds with casual fans, liking Mk 3 is already a bit "purple nerdy", most people are not aware that the band who had hits with Hush, Smoke on the Water and Burn was actually only a core of a drummer, organist and guitarist with assorted various bassists and singers over the years, very few eighties Whitesnake fans are aware of David's Purple career and to this day many people believe that Ian Gillan sang on Burn), but making people happy has never driven him. At this point in his life, he is not looking for big audiences, keeping venues on his yearly summer tours in Europe tantalizingly small (and sold out quickly) to avoid any stadium or large hall reminiscence. And of course wifey Candice and her dragon of a Polish mum keep him secluded - he speaks to the other Purplelites only through them if at all.
That was a rather long post, sorry for boring non-stadium-rock-oriented minorities here, perhaps I should have inserted "as we all know" more frequently, ja?
