Deep Purple Reflect on Machine Head and “Smoke on the Water”: Interview + Giveaway
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The post Deep Purple Reflect on Machine Head and “Smoke on the Water”: Interview + Giveaway appeared first on Consequence.
The full interview with Deep Purple’s Roger Glover and Ian Paice about Machine Head and “Smoke on the Water” is available as an episode of the Consequence UNCUT podcast. Listen ahead or wherever you get your podcasts.
Many rock albums receive a “deluxe edition” treatment nowadays, but few are as deserving as Deep Purple’s 1972 tour de force, Machine Head.
While the UK band – whose lineup at that stage was comprised of singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, keyboardist Jon Lord, bassist Roger Glover, and drummer Ian Paice – had already issued two stellar LPs that helped trail-blaze hard rock and heavy metal (1970’s In Rock and 1971’s Fireball), Machine Head was an undisputed, front-to-back classic.
The album is getting a super deluxe reissue on March 29th, and you can enter to win your own down below.
Win Deep Purple's Machine Head: Super Deluxe Edition Box Set
Ahead of the collection’s release, Heavy Consequence caught up with Glover and Paice to discuss Machine Head, its iconic hit “Smoke on the Water,” and much more.
“A lot of people want to know what was our mindset at the time,” explains Glover. “‘Did we think we’d written the ultimate rock album?’ We just made an album. You can only really look at it from the point of view of time. And you look back at it and you go, ‘Well, yes it was.’ But at the time, it was just another album. We didn’t know what was ahead.”
Rather than capturing the group’s sixth studio album in the sterile confines of a traditional studio setting, a decision was made to utilize a remote setup at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland, which also served as a venue for rock concerts. As has been well-documented over the years, a fire at the venue that occurred during a December 1971 performance by Frank Zappa nixed Deep Purple’s original plan.
Luckily, the band found another suitable location to set up shop: the Grand Hotel (also in Montreux). What’s more, those fiery events would go on to be lyrically documented in a classic Machine Head tune that features one of the greatest guitar riffs ever: “Smoke on the Water.”
“I thought we did two takes, but it might have only been one complete take,” recalls Paice about the tune. “I remember the main thing about that – because it was so long ago and it was such a short period of time – was the road managers keeping the police out, because we were making so much noise in this sleepy little Swiss town. They’d come to shut us down. But I really don’t remember much about the riff before Montreux, I really don’t.”
The album would also include other Purple favorites (“Highway Star,” “Lazy,” and “Space Truckin'”), plus oft-overlooked tunes (“Maybe I’m a Leo,” “Never Before,” and especially “Pictures of Home”).
While the band would solely be listed as the LP’s producer, a then-largely unknown engineer by the name of Martin Birch – who would soon oversee the creation of classic albums by Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden – also was a major contributor.
“What he brought to the band became really apparent when we were doing [our fourth album, 1970’s] Deep Purple in Rock,” remembers Glover. “We’d worked in a few different studios with a few different sound engineers, and it wasn’t until we met Martin that we felt we’d found the right guy. And we said right then, ‘Martin is going to be our engineer from now on.’ Because he was very good. ‘Production’ is a very odd word, because it’s all part of the process. And although Martin at that time was the sound engineer – and of course he did become a producer later on – in a way, he was becoming that.”
Released on March 25th, 1972, Machine Head was a sizable hit. But interestingly, it was well over a year after the album’s release that “Smoke on the Water” was released as a single – which put the album over the top.
The reason the song wasn’t issued as a single was, according to Paice, quite simple: “Well, it was too long. It was five and half minutes or something like that – the original album version. It took some guy at Warner Bros. to say, ‘It’s a great song, but we can’t get radio play.’ And without consulting anybody, he just got it in the studio and edited it down to three minutes, sent it out to the radio stations, and they started playing it.”
As a result of the success of Machine Head (peaking in the US at No. 7) and “Smoke on the Water” (peaking at No. 4), Purple became one of the world’s top hard rock bands. However, right around the time “Smoke” was hitting, the lineup that recorded it was coming apart at the seams; Gillan and Glover would exit in ’73, Blackmore in ’75, and Deep Purple finally called it a day in ’76. Different incarnations would reform under the Deep Purple banner over the years, but there were nine years between 1975’s Come Taste the Band and 1984’s Perfect Strangers.
However, according to Paice, all was still jolly good within the band’s ranks during the creation of Machine Head. But it was the breakneck work pace after its release that wound up doing them in.
“The more baggage you carry around with you and the longer you stay together, the more chances you have of personal differences becoming or seeming more important than they are. We were working so hard then, we didn’t really have time to think about anything else,” Paice remarks. “We’d gig, gig, gig, gig, gig, a couple of days off, go in the studio, make a record, two days off, gig, gig, gig, gig, gig.
“It was labor intensive,” continues the drummer. “But you didn’t have time to think about what somebody else thought about the world, and if his opinion was different than yours. These are all little things. But over the course of a couple years, they can turn out to appear to be big things. They really aren’t, but you can’t go back. It’s a real sad thing – but once something is said it can’t be unsaid, and when something is done it can’t be undone.”
Fifty-two years after its original release, Machine Head still rocks ferociously – as exemplified by its new deluxe edition from Warner Records and Rhino Entertainment, which includes three CDs (including vintage live recordings), a Blu-ray (with a new Atmos Mix and the original 1974 US Quad Mix), a vinyl LP, and booklet. In an amusing twist, Zappa’s son, Dweezil, is responsible for both the set’s Atmos and stereo remixes.
Looking back today, there’s no two ways around it: Machine Head is a stone cold classic.
“You can’t hide from the fact that it’s become basically ‘the album’ that has defined Purple,” admits Glover. “It didn’t feel like that at the time, but it’s only through the passing of time and decades and reissues, etcetera. It’s still the blueprint of what Deep Purple is all about.”
Enter for a chance to win the super deluxe edition of Machine Head above, or guarantee yourself a copy by pre-ordering it here ahead of its March 29th release date.
Deep Purple Reflect on Machine Head and “Smoke on the Water”: Interview + Giveaway
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