Perfect Strangers

(Perfect Strangers, 1984)

“That sustained intro from Jon Lord, and when Ian Paice’s drum beat kicks in… Woah, what a brilliant song. I’m a long-term Deep Purple fan, and of Ritchie Blackmore in particular. They’re a band that we in Queensrÿche listened to a lot in our formative years. Their playing is always brilliant and they made so many timeless, classic albums.”

MICHAEL WILTON, QUEENSRŸCHE

“I consider Perfect Strangers one of Deep Purple’s most mature and finest works. It embodies all of the most positive aspects of the band. It has a great riff, and the lyrics are very poignant because they were talking about themselves.

“At that point Deep Purple were playing in Australia, as were we [Jethro Tull], and I met them at a hotel in Sydney. [Having just reunited] there was a great sense of unease. I remember taking to Ian Gillan at the hotel bar, and as soon as Ritchie walked in he vanished. They didn’t really communicate. I went to see them play, and there was a major tantrum on stage, Ritchie got really upset about something and smashed his guitar.

“My perception of Ritchie is that behind all of the bravado he’s a bit of a sensitive soul. He’s quite tormented because, musically speaking, his ambitions always lay in something that was far beyond the remit of Deep Purple. And of course he finally achieved that after finding a partner in the rather unusual form of Candice Night. I played on their first album [Shadow Of The Moon, 1997], and was happy to see that Blackmore’s Night gave Richie a whole new direction in life. It all worked out in the end.”

IAN ANDERSON, JETHRO TULL