L.A. Guns Rock Deep Purple's 'Space Truckin'

09-17-2026

Cleopatra Records have shared L.A. Guns rendition of the Deep Purple classic "Space Truckin'", which comes from the forthcoming "Purple Storm - A Tribute To Deep Purple" album that is set to be released on November 13th.

The label had this to say: It's the kind of sonic collision you have always dreamed of - one of the heaviest metal anthems of the 1970s, reimagined in the hands of one of the mightiest metal bands of the decades that came after. But even in those dreams, it never sounded this great!

Taken from Cleopatra's upcoming Purple Storm - A Tribute To Deep Purple, L.A. Guns' balls-breaking take on "Space Truckin'" was something of a career-long ambition for the band.

"Deep Purple is one of our biggest influences," says Tracii Guns. "So any excuse to play one of their songs, we will take." And, he continues, "Phil [Lewis] and I chose this song because we just wanted something we could blast out on."

And they definitely do blast!

First heard back in 1972, wrapping up Purple's seminal Machine Head album, "Space Truckin''" was inspired, Ritchie Blackmore once remarked, by the theme to the Batman TV show. It developed, however, into one of Purple's most dramatic showstoppers, a cavalcade of soloing that was capable, some nights, of stretching to 30 minutes in length!

Or cut to Purple's infamous appearance at the 1974 California Jam, where Blackmore ended "Space Truckin'" by slamming his guitar into a television camera, and then lit his amplifier on fire!

There are no such shenanigans here, of course - L.A.'s finest bring the song to a halt just shy of five minutes. Nevertheless, Adam Hamilton's production keeps everything on the edge of its seat, and Tracii's incendiary guitar more than compensates for the absence of visuals.

Of course, there's a multitude of further Purple classics featured on Purple Storm - 11 of them to be precise, including "Highway Star," "Child In Time," "Smoke On The Water," "Woman From Tokyo," "Black Night"... each of them paramount among the songs that truly confirmed Purple's superstardom, both at the outset of their career ("Hush," their debut US hit single) and into later years too (the title track from 1984's Perfect Strangers).

The guests, meanwhile, represent several generations of rock glitterati - Chris Adler, Chris Poland and David Ellefson (Megadeth), Alan Davey (Hawkwind, Hawkestrel), Graham Bonnet, Ronnie Romero and Bob Daisley (Rainbow), Jonathan Cain (Journey), George Lynch (Lynch Mob), Pat Travers, Arthur Brown, Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Rod Stewart), Thor, Rick Wakeman (Yes, David Bowie), Mick Box (Uriah Heep) and more.

Hear them all on November 13!