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I hesitate to use Beethoven in the same breath as Deep Purple but Beethoven's Fifth [Symphony] took two notes – well, three notes but two of them are the same – and it's so instantly recognizable but it couldn't be simpler. That's the key, to be that simple AND that recognizable and original. "Smoke" actually comes up to that. To me, "Smoke" is every bit as good as what Beethoven wrote in those notes. -Roger Glover |
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What did you think of the guitar gathering in Kansas City this past June where they used "Smoke On The Water" for the largest gathering of guitarists in one place?
 Roger Glover |
We don't take it that seriously but it's certainly an honor to be associated with a riff that famous. Ritchie did come up with a real gem there. I've tried to analyze what it is about that riff that makes it so good, because I think it's the riff more than the song. The song is a very specific story about something that happened to us and didn't happen to anyone else. Usually when you write songs they're about love or redemption or another universal theme people can identify with. With "Smoke On The Water" who can identify with that story that happened to us? Yet, they do. But to be honest, it's probably more the riff than the lyrics. I'll give Ritchie his due.
The Zappa reference hasn't hurt its cult either.
It's brilliant because [pauses], I hesitate to use Beethoven in the same breath as Deep Purple but Beethoven's Fifth [Symphony] took two notes – well, three notes but two of them are the same – and it's so instantly recognizable but it couldn't be simpler. That's the key, to be that simple AND that recognizable and original. "Smoke" actually comes up to that. To me, "Smoke" is every bit as good as what Beethoven wrote in those notes.
That sort of inspired simplicity is right there in the band's name, which I've always thought was a perfect rock & roll name. It gets right to it but it's not a specific image. Are you still happy with that name? What does it mean to you now?
It's become a sound. But thank God it is that [name]. One of the original suggestions before I joined was Concrete God. Can you imagine us still talking about Concrete God [laughs]. Deep Purple is a good name because it's amorphous. Years ago in the early '60s I heard this band with this semi-hit, which I thought was really great. I really liked it and I saw their photograph in the music papers but I thought, "They'll never make it with a stupid name like that." The Beatles. And I actually thought that. What I learned from that was [a group's name] becomes a sound and you don't think of it anymore.
Their name transcended the insect culturally. My first experience with Deep Purple was as a kid discovering Machine Head in my uncle's record collection. In the midst of all the soft rock my family was listening to I felt this was really manly music. There's something sort of hirsute...
...and robust (laughs)!
I think that's something you've maintained over the years, too.
 Deep Purple |
My memories of it actually come from not many years before that. In 1968, at the sort of end of Flower Power when Jimi Hendrix and Creem were reaching their peak, the buzzword amongst musicians and fans was "heavy." Like, "That's heavy, man." It wasn't a genre so much as it was heavy. I remember an episode where we tried to be "heavy" by buying new, bigger amplifiers and turning them up. Turns out we were playing the same posh we were playing before just louder. It was really quite an exercise, a horrible noise, really. Then a couple things happened, one of which was I heard Zeppelin for the first time and I realized that "heavy" was not loudness, it was attitude. Within a week or so of hearing Led Zeppelin I met Deep Purple and was jamming with them. Then came the offer to join them. All of the sudden I was in a "heavy" band, without masses of gear. There was a feeling that [said], "We aren't a commercial band. The BBC don't play the kind of music we write, so why don't we do what we really want to do?" I picked this up from the other musicians. I was the new boy in the band going along for the ride, in a way. When we got into the studio and tried to capture what went on onstage, where things were pretty wild, we'd rehearse but nothing seemed to be anything like the concerts. People would just stop in the middle of songs and go off on a solo tangent then come thundering back in. It was chaotic and crazy and very exciting. One thing I'll always remember about trying to capture that in the studio was the VU meters were always in the red. There was a feeling of trying to play your instrument to its utmost limits. That was my overriding impression of those first few albums – how can I push this guitar this much further. I think that's what gives them that robust feeling.
Does it still have that feeling for you?
Yes it does. It's a magic thing. When I was 15, I went to a talent contest and didn't win. The people who won it were a four-piece band called The Men of Mystery. It was at a British Legion hall and the stage was small. I was by the side of the stage while they did their piece, and my overriding memory of it was that they wore Cuban heel boots and the stage was dusty. I was right next to the bass player's boot, and I could sync up his boot to the drummer's bass drum pedal. So, when the bass drum pedal went down his boot went down. They were together, and it was just such a wonderful sound! It was something that I would aspire to afterwards. That's one of those little snapshots that stays in my memory, and more than occasionally onstage I'll be playing away – and you might go to all different places when you're playing – and I'll think back to that. And I'll listen to Paicey's bass drum and I'll listen to me and we'll be bangin' it the same way. That same excitement is still there. It's definitely a passion that's not gone away.
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