We all know the song. We all recognise the classic riff and the huge impact it had on future musicians. I’m almost certain you can’t find a guitar player who doesn’t know how to play it. Even the ever-loving turbo folk fans know the melody. But there’s more to the song. Actually, the lyrics of the song are telling a true story.
On December 4th, 1971, Deep Purple were in Montreux, where they went to record an album using a mobile recording studio at the entertainment complex that was part of the Montreux Casino.
The evening prior to the recording session, a ”Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention’’ concert was held in the casino’s theatre. This was to be the theatre’s final concert before the casino complex closed down for its annual winter renovations, which would allow Deep Purple to record there.
During Zappa’s performance, the place suddenly caught fire when somebody in the audience fired a flare gun toward the flamable material covered ceiling, as mentioned in the “some stupid with a flare gun” line.
The resulting fire destroyed the entire casino complex, along with all the Mothers’ equipment. Predictably, the “smoke on the water” that became the title of the song referred to the smoke from the fire spreading over Lake Geneva from the burning casino as the members of Deep Purple watched the fire from their hotel.
“It was probably the biggest fire I’d ever seen up to that point and probably ever seen in my life” said bass guitarist Roger Glover, “It was a huge building. I remember there was very little panic getting out, because it didn’t seem like much of a fire at first. But, when it caught, it went up like a fireworks display“.
Left with an expensive mobile recording unit and no place to record, the band was forced to scout the town for another place to set up. One promising venue was a local theatre called The Pavilion, but soon after the band had loaded in and started recording, the nearby neighbours were annoyed by the noise, and the band was only able to lay down backing tracks for one song before the local police shut them down. Luckily, the band found a new place and finished their most successful album: ”Machine head’.
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