Deep Purple's Magnum Opus: Machine Head
I have a propensity for nostalgia at this time of year. 'Tis the season for reminiscing after all. My sentimental longings, however, aren't of the holidays-gone-by variety, but coalesce instead, naturally, around music. Specifically, music that has impacted my life. As we enter the year the Mayans prophesy will be our last here on Earth, Machine Head, the quintessential Deep Purple album, topped the list of music (and books on music) that made up my Christmas wish list this year. With a vinyl copy in my record collection but no turntable to play it on, and my Machine Head CD having gone missing over the years, I simply couldn't fathom living out what may be the end of days without the album that pretty much started it all for me.
I first heard Machine Head in its entirety when my cousin played the album on his basement stereo, well out of parental earshot. A couple of budding headbangers he and I, with nary a pimple between us yet, we marveled at Jon Lord's dramatic organ on the intro to Lazy, like something out of a Vincent Price movie, and at lyrics that were so simple they were cool: "Lazy, you just stay in bed / Lazy, you just stay in bed / You don't want no money / You don't want no bread." Heck, we could've written that. We also imitated Ritchie Blackmore's riff from Smoke on the Water, the both of us standing in a wide-legged lunge, plucking air guitars. When the Machine Head tour came to town in August 1972, I was in attendance. Deep Purple would be my first ever rock concert. The band sparked in me my love of rock and forever changed how I heard and experienced music. Under their chord bashing and wailing vocals, I blossomed.
Once credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the world's loudest band for their guitar-dominated heavy metal, Deep Purple is probably best known for Machine Head, their sixth studio album and third with the classic lineup of Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Ian Gillan (vocals), Jon Lord (keyboards), Roger Glover (bass), and Ian Paice (drums). Released in March 1972, the record has aged brilliantly. Start to finish, there's not a dud in the bunch. I cranked it up in the kitchen whilst preparing a Christmas Day feast, and for someone who sometimes can't recall why she entered a room, the nonsensical lyrics just rolled off my tongue: "Remember when we did the moonshot / And Pony Trekker led the way / We'd move to the Canaveral moonstomp / And every naut would dance and sway."
The story of Machine Head is fraught with drama. It begins late in 1971 when Deep Purple were preparing to cut another album after a punishing year of touring and recording. Their first studio effort with the classic lineup, In Rock, was released in mid-1970 and was followed by Fireball in July 1971. Within weeks of Fireball's release, the band were already performing songs planned for their next album. One song, which was to become Highway Star, was performed at the first gig of the Fireball tour, having been written on the bus to a show in Portsmouth in answer to a question put to Blackmore by a journalist traveling with the band. When asked how they wrote their songs, Blackmore picked up his guitar and replied with a rhythm that vocalist Ian Gillan ad-libbed words to. Upon arriving at the concert hall, the band worked the rest of the parts out during soundcheck and put it in the set that very night. "Lazy," was also being road tested at the time, having originated during a rehearsal for the tour.
Under pressure to cut their next album, Deep Purple were advised by their accountant to write and record anywhere but in England for a more favorable tax situation. They opted for a place called The Casino in the tranquil, dignified town of Montreux, Switzerland. Situated on the shore of Lake Geneva and at the foot of the Alps, Montreux was large enough to have a few decent restaurants, yet small enough to ensure the band's privacy. The Casino, who played host to big conventions once or twice a year, was a fair sized hall, had good sound, and was available for a month. The band were familiar with the place, having played there as guests at the annual Montreux Jazz Festival, and knew Claude Nobs, the man in charge, who seemed eager and willing to steer the band around any obstacles that might impede them. Thus the sleepy town of Montreux became host to the heavy metal pioneers.
Deep Purple were looking to try out some new ideas on their follow up to Fireball, namely, to record in a live setting and capture a more open and immediate sound. The band planned to set up their gear on The Casino stage and record the tracks, almost in a live situation, via the Rolling Stones' Mobile, a studio on wheels, which was hired specially for the job.
The Mobile arrived from France and Deep Purple's gear came over by truck from London, arriving in Geneva in early December. The Casino was booked for a performance by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, a final show before the place was to be turned over to Deep Purple. To avoid confusion, the band decided not to unload their equipment until Zappa's was out of the building, a fortuitous decision as it would turn out.
Deep Purple attended the Zappa show. To hear Gillan tell it, they were seated "in some really nice seats right in front of the stage. Towards the end of the show, which was spectacular," he says, "some guy came in with a flare gun and shot it into the roof." Sparks were seen high up by the decorative bamboo ceiling over the audience. According to Roger Glover, "The band stopped playing. Hurried whispers took place before a deadpan Frank announced that no one should panic but there was a…FIRE! With that he rushed off the stage followed by his amused and bewildered band. There followed instructions for the building to be evacuated and people started filing out in a fairly orderly fashion."
Unable to locate his bandmates outside, and unaware of any danger, Glover reentered the building. "I still remember standing in front of the now empty stage in the deserted auditorium and inspecting Zappa's gear. The attraction was that he had synthesizers and since these strange new instruments were then the cutting edge of music technology, I was interested to see what they looked like. I was impressed," he says. "[Zappa] had two of them." Minutes after Glover wandered back outside, The Casino was an inferno. All the band could do was watch it burn through the window of a nearby bar. With two weeks booked to cut an LP, Deep Purple had suddenly lost their recording venue.
But even smoke clouds have a silver lining. "We were sitting in this bar restaurant about a quarter of a mile from The Casino," Gillan recalls, "and it was blazing. The wind was coming down off the mountains and taking the smoke and flames across the lake, and the smoke was hanging like a curtain over the lake." That vision would inspire the members of Deep Purple to write their biggest song ever, and as a result, give the world one of our most instantly recognizable—and widely covered—riffs.
With The Casino burned to the ground, the search was on for an alternative place to record. The band chose a theatre in the center of town called the Pavilion. Used mainly for summer family concerts, it was a splendid place, full of ornate art nouveau decoration and design. With the Stones' mobile studio parked outside, the band set up on the stage. "We started fine-tuning the sounds through the afternoon," says Glover. "After dinner, we started jamming round a new riff of Ritchie's that for now would be called 'Title #1.' With no idea about what the lyrics might be, we sketched out a quick arrangement, organizing verses, hooks, and solos. It was well past midnight when we started going for actual 'takes' and after two false starts, we finished the first, and as it turned out, the only complete take." What Deep Purple didn't know was that outside in the mobile studio, roadies had been desperately holding the doors closed against the police, who were attempting to enter and stop them from working. Apparently the noise level was such that it was keeping the entire town awake.
As the band were accustomed to working from early in the afternoon through breakfast, they were forced to abandon the Pavilion and go in search yet again of a venue that could accommodate them. Days passed. Band and crew whiled away the time (not to mention their per diems) in a bar while the mobile studio they were paying for sat idle. If they didn't find somewhere soon, there wouldn't be enough time in which to complete the album.
What Deep Purple needed was difficult to find in Montreux: enough space in which they could set up, a decent enough sound, a parking place for the mobile studio, and somewhere they could make a lot of noise late at night. They checked out an atomic shelter and local vaults used to store art treasures during the war before finally settling on the Grand Hotel. Situated on the road out of town, the hotel was closed for winter. It was empty, echoey and cold. Negotiations were quickly completed to rent some space. It was during these lost and searching days that Glover awoke one morning with a gift from the muse. "In that moment between sleep and wakefulness," he says, "with eyes still closed, I heard myself say the words 'smoke on the water' to the empty room. Opening my eyes I wondered if I had actually said it out loud or had I been dreaming?"
Having no time to lose, the band made some minor changes to the space which included the installation of a temporary wall to close off the foyer from the corridor. Mattresses from a couple of the hotel rooms were used as further insulation for both sound and heat. Gear was unloaded and set up, and an industrial heater was brought in. The mobile was parked as close to the front entrance as possible with wires and cables snaking their way all over the place. The final touch was the addition of red lighting for some much needed atmosphere.
With the exception of "Highway Star" and "Lazy," most of the songs on Machine Head were written in the corridor of the Grand Hotel. Days were spent writing, recording, jamming, and overdubbing solos. The pressure, the sense of purpose and shared hardship, only seemed to enhance the process. Despite overwhelming obstacles, Machine Head was completed on time and the Deep Purple entourage were home for Christmas.
Machine Head was written based mostly on Deep Purple's experience in Montreux. At some point in the proceedings "Title #1," the only track recorded in the Pavilion, became "Smoke on the Water." Every line in the lyric is true. Machine Head hit record stores in March of 1972. It landed at #1 on the British charts within a week of its release and reached #7 in the US. The album remained on the charts for two years.
And one final piece of Machine Head trivia for you, this concerning the original album sleeve. The cover shot was achieved by die stamping printing type into a sheet of polished metal, which was then propped up as a mirror and photographed with the band reflected in it. If you look close enough, you can even see the camera man!
It takes so little sometimes, I swear. Happy New Year, guys!
