Paice Ashton Lord
Biography Paice Ashton Lord
Paice Ashton Lord
After Deep Purple broke up in 1976, drummer Ian Paice and keyboard player Jon Lord created a new band, Paice Ashton Lord, with friend Tony Ashton, a British keyboardist and singer of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. After extensive auditions they chose Bernie Marsden to play electric guitar and Paul Martinez as the band's bassist.
Tony Ashton had previously played with Lord on the 1974 album First of the Big Bands and on Lord's Gemini Suite project in 1971, singing lead vocals on one track. He collaborated on Lord's solo work and Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover's solo projects.
Soon after Ashton broke his leg falling off a stage in the dark at a London concert, the group was wound up. Lord, Marsden and later Paice joined David Coverdale's Whitesnake. Martinez joined Stan Webb's Chicken Shack for a short time, before joining John Otway for one album, and going on to play with Robert Plant. Later on, Paice played in Gary Moore's band before he and Lord joined the re-formed Deep Purple in 1984.
Tony Ashton died of cancer on 28 May 2001, as did Jon Lord, of pancreatic cancer, on 16 July 2012.
