Making ‘Machine Head’

“In Rock” and “Fireball” laid the groundwork for a recording project Deep Purple planned for December 1971 at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland. The day after they arrived, “some stupid with a flare gun” set the roof on fire during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers concert, forcing Deep Purple to relocate to the Pavilion theater, with the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording studio parked outside.

“We set up on the stage and the first jam we did was around midnight with the police banging on the door, stopping us because we were keeping the whole town awake. So we couldn’t do anything there, except we recorded this one jam with a loose kind of arrangement.” Back to that in a minute. A few days later, they ended up at the Grand Hotel, where they recorded “Highway Star,” “Pictures of Home” and “Maybe I’m a Leo,” among others.

“And then, at the end of it, we thought, ‘We’re a bit short,’ and we were short of time as well. We were like, ‘What about that jam we did at the other place?’ ”

Maybe it could somehow be paired with the image Glover had woken up with on his lips a few days after the fire: smoke on the water. “I must have been dreaming it or something,” he says.

“We went back to this jam we had and I said, ‘What about that title, “Smoke on the Water”? We could write about what happened to us here.’ And we didn’t have to think too much.

“The story was there, all we had to do was write it down. So Ian and I sat down to do the lyrics, probably took about 15 minutes. The words are very literal. We wrote what happened, albeit trying to make it rhyme and stuff. It’s all very conversational: ‘We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva border…’ You could talk it through and yet people don’t know what it’s about.

“When I was in Rainbow, I did an interview with a radio station, in San Diego I think, and he asked me, ‘So, were you in a band before Rainbow?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I was in Deep Purple.’ He said, ‘Oh, “Smoke on the Water.” Is it true you guys set fire to an island?’ ”

Maybe because it came so easily, they didn’t even think of “Smoke on the Water” as a single. Instead, they released the less fiery “Never Before,” which went nowhere.

“So, it wasn’t really us that picked ‘Smoke on the Water.’ A couple of DJs picked it up and that’s where it came from.”

It was a full year later in 1973 when “Smoke on the Water” was released as a single and went to No. 4 on the U.S. chart. It has since landed on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (434), VH1’s 40 Greatest Metal Songs (37) and 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs (11), among other accolades, along with putting Deep Purple in the conversation of the godfathers of metal.

“I take it with a pinch of salt, really,” Glover says of the title. “I suppose it’s meant as a compliment, although quite frequently I’ll go, ‘Oh, sorry about that. I apologize.’ What Purple had, which the other bands didn’t have so much, was elements of different kinds of music. Of course, it was rock ‘n’ roll, and pop was in there, but it had classical overtones and jazz. In fact, when I first start playing with the band I realized what a jamming band they were.”

With “Machine Head,” Deep Purple went to the next level, headlining arenas like our own Civic Arena, which they played in August 1972 and May 1973.

By the time they returned in 1974, Gillan and Glover, fed up with the breakneck pace and the internal struggles, left the band, followed in 1975 by Blackmore, leading to what would become one of rock’s most entangled musical trees.

There would be Deep Purple with David Coverdale (later of Whitesnake), Rainbow with Blackmore and Glover, and Gillan in Black Sabbath — for starters.

Deep Purple then dissolved in 1976 and was revived by the original lineup in 1984 for a pair of comeback albums — “Perfect Strangers” and “The House of Blue Light” — before Gillan left from ’89 to ’92 and Blackmore departed for good in ’93. The clear pattern was Gillan and Blackmore having a hard time staying in the same band, in both the musical and personal dynamic.

So, Deep Purple has persevered without the founding guitarist, filing in with Joe Satriani for two years and Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Kansas) for the last 23. Lord retired from the band in 2002 to pursue other projects, replaced by Don Airey, and died in 2012.

‘Infinite’ and beyond

“Infinite” is the fourth record with this current lineup and the second straight made in Nashville with legendary producer Bob Ezrin (best known for his work with Cooper), who helps give it a classic ’70s progressive rock feel. Glover says the sound comes naturally to them.

“We start jamming around and getting ideas and whatever turns us on becomes a song. There’s no forethought. The songs start doing themselves. We don’t sit down and have a board meeting and decide what the album is going to be.”

Upon its release in April, “Infinite” hit Top 10 on the charts all over Europe, a change for the band that had its initial success in the States.

“The album was [big] all over Europe and then we come here and we’re only thought of a classic rock band,” Glover says. “People only think of the past. It’s been that way for decades, really.

“Americans are fed their music, initially by the radio stations and God knows what by now. A lot of people have the radio on in the background, they listen to the same station all the time and we’ve become, whether we like it or not, an oldies band. We don’t feel that, but we have to acknowledge that’s the way it is. America is a huge place, and so is Europe, but it’s all dotted with countries. We’re not seen as an oldies band there. We’re seen as a band.”

How much longer Deep Purple will be a band is undefined, even with a Long Goodbye Tour that runs through the end of the year.

“Hard to say,” Glover says. “We just know that we can’t go on forever, and there’s got to be some line somewhere between playing and not playing. None of us are really keen on that. But certain little medical ailments keep cropping up and you know sooner or later, it’s going to happen, but we can’t say, ‘Right, it’s going to be Los Angeles in 2000-whatever or London or Frankfurt.’ To name a date is difficult, so we’re just going to keep going and see how long it lasts.”

Gillan just turned 72 and Glover has that same birthday coming up in November. It’s a ’70s band now playing into their 70s.

“Oh yeah, it’s all going according to plan,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t think a day goes past when I don’t marvel at the fact that I’m still in a band, doing what I was doing when I was 15.

“It is a charmed life, a very lucky life. Back in the ’60s when you joined a band, if you had a hit you might be around for a couple of years, but you have to follow that hit with another hit and another album and another tour. You never thought about the future, it was always the year ahead. For it to go on this long, albeit with a few peaks and valleys in between, it’s just amazing.” DEEP PURPLE IN PITTSBURGH May 3, 1969: The Book of Taliesyn Tour, Carnegie Mellon University

July 16, 1971: In Rock World Tour, Syria Mosque (opening for The Faces w/ Rod Stewart)

Aug. 25, 1972: Machine Head World Tour, Civic Arena (Fleetwood Mac, Silverhead)

May 31, 1973: Machine Head World Tour, Civic Arena (David Blue, Billy Preston (surprise) )

March 6 1974: Burn World Tour, Civic Arena (Savoy Brown, Tucky Buzzard)

Jan. 16, 1976: Come Taste The Band World Tour, Civic Arena (Nazareth)

Feb. 24, 1985: Perfect Strangers World Tour, Civic Arena (Giuffria)

April 29, 1987: The House of Blue Light World Tour, Civic Arena (Bad Company)

April 22, 1991: Slaves and Masters World Tour, Syria Mosque (Winger)

July 31, 1993: 25 Years Anniversary World Tour, aka The Battle Rages on Tour, Star Lake Amphitheater

Dec. 6, 1996: Purpendicular World Tour, Palumbo Theater (Wild T and the Spirit)

Aug. 28, 1997: Purpendicular World Tour, Station Square Amphitheater

June 22, 2001: Star Lake Amphitheater (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent)

June 15, 2002: Star Lake Amphitheater (Dio, Scorpions)

June 10, 2005: Bananas World Tour, Station Square Amphitheater