Last Interview.

Excerpts from Jon Lord's last interview have been published in Classic Rock magazine.

A week before former Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord passed away in July from the effects of cancer, he gave what turned out to be his last interview to England's Classic Rock magazine, which has been published in their September issue. He was optimistic, saying, "I'd like to get to my father's age. He was in his late 80s and he'd led a good life. I don't want to limp to that milestone. I don't want to drag myself over that line. I want to be active and well."

He also added that his outlook for living with pancreatic cancer was good. "When you get to my age, the cancer is very slow moving. It's containable. My oncologist has had patients who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 15 or 16 years ago. They still have treatment and they still have cancer -- but, crucially, they're still here. They found my cancer early and the size of the tumor has reduced."

Lord was 71 when he died.