DEEP PURPLE

Grandfathers of Heavy Rock Deep Purple have spent a majority of their 37-year career constantly redefining their genre without a hint of the pretense and pose usually associated with it. Constantly touring and out living thousands of other bands during the course of their existence, the Rock Legends have carved themselves a place beside Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in creating music history as well as helping millions of kids learn guitar by recording Smoke On The Water in the first place. Beat sat down with bassist Roger Glover for some enlightenment on the world Of Deep Purple.

There are a million and one variations of the story on how Smoke On The Water came to be. Mind telling us yours?

“In a nutshell, we were attempting to make a studio recording in a live setting because we wanted to try and capture some of that excitement that comes from playing live. The place that we picked was a casino in Montrose, Switzerland but it wasn’t just a casino. It had restaurants, a disco, bars and a 3000- seat venue. We’d played there before. Most bands playing a tour of Europe would have played at the casino in Montrose. Before we could move our equipment in there was one more concert to go, which was a Frank Zappa & The Mothers Matinee show. We were invited so we went along and about 50 minutes into the set somebody fired a flare gun into the bamboo ceiling. It didn’t look too much like a fire at first but just as a precaution the music stopped and everybody had to leave. Basically it started a huge fire and the whole place burned down. It burned all through the rest of the afternoon and all through the night. By the next morning all that was left was a ruined mass of blackened timbers and smoking rubble.
About a day or so later I woke in our hotel room, we were staying in a hotel about a quarter of a mile away and said the words ‘Smoke on the water’ out loud to myself…before I’d even woken up. We had this song we didn’t have lyrics for so we decided to write about our adventure in Switzerland and the place burning down. We recorded it in a deserted hotel called The Grand under dire circumstances, little realizing of course that something that was so specific could ever become something so universal.”

There’s a small army of Deep Purple Cover bands scattered across the globe, a personal favourite of mine being Fireball from Brazil. Have there been any that have caught your attention?

“I’ve heard of Fireball. There’s one in Germany called Demons Eye. They gave me a live CD of theirs a few months ago. I was quite amazed at how close to our sound they were…they’re probably closer to it than we are! I mean, we don’t actually listen to our own records and you forget how they go after a while.”

After touring hundreds of times and playing the same songs over and over again, how do you keep it interesting for yourselves as a band?

“Well by actually playing the music, not just going through the motions. We’re not a cabaret act or a cover band. We’re a musical band who loves to play music. The caliber of musicians like Don Airey, Ian Paice and Steve Morse. That’s what keeps it fresh. That, and when you look out into the crowd and see an ever -younger audience with big smiles on their faces and everyone having a good time…it’s just a magical thing. Australia is one of the places we play where the audience is a lot older. I hope that’s gonna change. It certainly has around Europe and America.”


You produced an album for Judas Priest (1977’s Sin After Sin). Metal bands like Judas Priest were targeted during the 80’s for being Satan’s Pin Up boys and even inciting murder but over the last ten years it seems the media has turned it’s sights on the likes of 50 cent and Eminem as being the new corrupting influences on today’s youth. Would it be fair to say metal and hard rock has lost its edge?

“It’s become mainstream. When we started, we were playing and writing music that didn’t get played on the radio and didn’t sell records. It wasn’t recognized as any kind of viable or commercial prospect. We made that music despite all that because that’s the way we felt. When you have that attitude and you make it you end up creating the rules rather than following them.

Getting back to the original question, the whole satanic thing is a joke. People have to write something and it spreads around the world. If you play Judas Priest backwards you hear ‘I like Satan’ or something like that. What stupidity! I mean I mean I know the guys from Judas Priest and they’re far from anything like that.

Having seen music evolve from Vinyl to tape then to CD and now to MP3, what’s your opinion on the whole iTunes revolution?

“I think all progress is a double edged sword. It’s made things worse in many ways. CD sales have slumped. It’s almost gone back to the way things were in the 50’s where the song is the most important thing, not the album. Now you have the ability to buy a song from an album without having to buy the album and I think that’s probably a reaction to the 80’s where people had to buy an album with one or two songs on it and the rest of it being filler. I think record companies gouged the public as well. When CD’s came out they had the ability to re-release albums all over again with virtually no costs involved at a higher price than what the original vinyl cost. They’re paying their dues now in many ways. Record companies did have their uses though and that was to work as filtering system. There’s so much new music around it’s impossible to keep up with it all.


What are you listening to at the moment?

“Theres a lot of new bands that I like. Radiohead were probably the last real band that struck me. I kind of appreciate a band like Jet who come up withy catchy songs and have lots of fire and enthusiasm but not a lot of finesse. It’s fun to listen to but I don’t think see a future for it. But then again, what do I see?”