Paice, Ashton and Lord was a British rhythm and blues, funk-soul, rock band founded in 1977, after the break-up of the British band Deep Purple in 1976. Ian Paice and Jon Lord, Deep Purple's drummer and keyboardist, joined Tony Ashton, a British keyboardist and singer, for this project; the band was completed with Bernie Marsden on guitar and Paul Martinez on bass.
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Lord had joined Ashton previously to record the album The First Of The Big Bands in 1974. There was a BBC Radio Live in Concert recording of this event that year. Ashton also collaborated on Lord's Gemini Suite project in 1971, in which he sang lead vocals on the first song. He took part in more of Lord's solo works and also in some of Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover's solo projects. One album was recorded by Paice, Ashton & Lord, and also a video in which the band were shown recording their first album in the studio recording sessions. Called "Lifespan", they explained what were the inspirations and meanings of some of the songs. A follow-up was planned but never released.
The first album was Malice in Wonderland which was released in 1977. It was re-released on CD in 2001 by Purple Records, and now includes thirty minutes of demos from the unreleased second album. A live DVD was released in 2006.
Despite some critical appreciation, the album was not a great success. After Ashton broke his leg falling off a stage, the group was wound up. Lord, Marsden and later Paice enlisted in 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, where Paice remains to this day. Ashton died of cancer on 28 May 2001.