The band's 2015 release, "The Purple Album", saw the singer re-recording classic songs from the three Deep Purple records he appeared on - 1974's "Burn" and "Stormbringer" and 1975's "Come Taste The Band" - and performing the material on tour this year has re-energized him.

"The songs don't feel old when we perform them," Coverdale tells Macedonia's Metropolis Radio. "Yesterday, I was listening to some of the live recordings from the U.S. tour, and they're f***ing amazing. This band is great. They play Whitesnake music, of course, fantastic, but they play Deep Purple music fantastic. It's definitely even more so than on the record. It's very powerful and you can tell the musicians are enjoying themselves and you can see it and you can hear it. And hopefully you can feel it too."

The singer's original plan was to wrap up his career with the Purple tribute as a way of closing the circle with music from his early days, but he discovered something while making the project.

"Well, it's interesting, because when I was mixing 'The Purple Album' with my co-producer Michael McIntyre and Reb Beach," he explains, "You know, I was 63 years old, and I'm going, 'Man, how long do I have to do this? This would be a perfect closure for me - to finish as I started.'

"But it's just kind of…In essence, it's re-energized me. I still write new music. We'll be recording some new music next year. But it's just revitalized me - re-renergized. That's all I can say.

"So any ideas that I had six months ago of retiring…I was totally honest, when I was making interviews, that I thought, you know, 'This is probably it.' But I had an incredibly good time on this U.S. tour with my musicians. It was incredible."

"Everybody contributed to this project in the most positive way, and even now that we've been performing these songs, it's even better than when we were recording them," adds Coverdale. "And it just makes it more inspiring to look at the future for new stuff, with these guys. They are fabulous musicians, great people. I have no desire to hang up my rock and roll sneakers just yet." Listen to the full interview - here.

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