The guys in Deep Purple are celebrating their 45th anniversary with another album and the latest round of tour dates. But if Metallica's Lars Ulrich had anything to say about it, they'd also have a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Ulrich got into it with writer Peter Makowski, who interviewed him about his long-standing love of Purple and posted the results on Facebook (via Bravewords). It's a fairly in-depth chat, in which Ulrich pays tribute to recently deceased former Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord and weighs the relative merits of some of the band's many lineup changes.

What really got Ulrich going, however, was a question about why the group hasn't been inducted into the Rock Hall. "What you’ve got to understand is that a lot of the people that have run the selection process are critics," he pointed out. "And Deep Purple, as you know, were never a critic’s band -- especially in America, because their influence was probably felt more in Europe."

But, Ulrich hastened to add, "it’s only a matter of time. Rather sooner than later. We’ve already lost one member. The fact that Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath are in and Purple is not is one of the crimes of that whole institution. We’ll get them in soon enough. I’m working on it."

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