MOSCOW: President Dmitry Medvedev, who has made much of his penchant for rock, shared memories of his Soviet-era youth with Deep Purple and let his teenage son play guitar with the legendary British band. Meeting the band at his Gorky residence outside Moscow Tuesday night, Medvedev, 45, gushed about his love for rock and said he used to spin rock music at school parties where he was a deejay. “It was an unusual discotheque because hard rock was the main music there,” Medvedev said in televised comments broadcast on Wednesday afternoon. The Kremlin chief met the musicians including the band's lead singer Ian Gillan, showing off an impressive collection of music equipment including a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a vinyl record player as well as the group's top albums, Russian news reports said. Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice presented the Russian president with a set of drum sticks. The Russian leader, who wore a black suit jacket with jeans but no tie, said he had been a Deep Purple fan for the past 33 years. “When I started listening to Deep Purple, of course I could not imagine that I would be sitting with you at this table just like that,” Medvedev said. The Kremlin chief has said he also occasionally listens to alternative rock bands like US rap-rock group Linkin Park favored by his son.
