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EXTENDED INTERVIEW FEATURE |
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DEEP PURPLE: Fans Go “BANANAS” For “MACHINEHEAD” Tour
by Tom Lounges
Every high school house party seemingly required the spinning of Deep Purple’s masterpiece, Machinehead, as part of the evening’s soundtrack. Guys would play “air guitar” as “Smoke On The Water” and “Highway Star” blasted forth from the stereo speakers. It was like a “coming of age” ritual. On February 24, those youthful memories will live again for Seventies survivors, as Deep Purple –– Roger Glover, Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and Don Airey –– hits Chicago Theatre to play their Machinehead album in it’s entirety. While taking that musical stroll down memory lane makes this tour a “must see” for so many of us, it seems less of a thrill for original member Roger Glover. Understandably, Glover is much more excited about the part of the show where they kick out the songs from Bananas, their latest release on Sanctuary Records. That album is a worthy addition to the proud D.P. catalog with such powerful numbers as “Picture Of Innocence,” “House Of Pain” and “Walk On,” numbered among its dozen cuts. Midwest BEAT caught up with
Glover, the group’s founding bass player and sometimes producer, just
prior to their kicking off the North American leg of the tour. Here are transcripts from that conversation M.B: Hi Roger...Tom Lounges calling for our scheduled interview... Roger: Hello Tom...good of you to call. What's on your mind today? M.B: What kind of touring is planned behind your new album, "Bananas"? Is it strictly North America right now or are you going to be going overseas? Roger: We've already been overseas, actually. We just did a huge tour of Europe. We started in Spain, then went up to Germany, Scandinavia and did Italy a little while ago. And then we went over to various odd places –– Poland, Czech Public, Serbia, etc. We have had a fantastic tour actually. Now we're in America and next we go to the Far East. We'll do Japan, China, and other parts. We're also going to be going to places like New Zealand, Australia and others, so it's really an ongoing tour. Most of this year is going to be spent touring... M.B: Is Thin Lizzy on board the whole North American leg of the tour? Roger: Yes, they're with us for the whole run. Great band! It seems like a very good bill to me. M.B: American rock fans have always been very fickle-quick to sell out their heroes in favor of the current trend-current flavor of the day. Comparatively speaking...How does Deep Purple's music fair overseas at both radio, retail, and box office when you guys tour as opposed to America? Roger: Actually we do far better around the world than we do in America. And the European markets very good for us. The new album, "Bananas" has been a huge hit over there. We got to #2 on the German charts, I think. So yeah... it's a different kind of kettle of fish really. We are comparatively struggling in America. Probably because we are typecast as "classic rock". And therefore, it's very difficult to get new music played on a regular rock station, because we are a classic band and boxed into a genre that is very limiting really. That's the kind of 4 walls, which we find ourselves in over here in America. So the only thing we can do to get our new music out to people is tour, and the in the last few years we've toured quite a bit. M.B: You are performing the entire "Machinehead" album in its entirety on this tour. Roger: That's correct M.B: But you are only doing the “Machinehead” segment on the North American tour. Why is that? ROGER: “The whole reason for doing Machinehead is to try and use what we’ve got working against us, for us. What we need to do is play Bananas to people. That’s the one we really want to play to people. But in order for them to hear the new songs, you got to do something to get them to come and listen. Doing something like Machinehead will attract a bigger audience. I don’t know that we’d do something like this anywhere else in the world.” M.B.: By doing Machinehead in its entirety, does that leave enough stage time for you to get a fair share of Bananas material presented to the fans? Roger: “Oh yes. Machinehead wasn’t really that long of an album. Back then; you could only get like 40-50 minutes of music on vinyl. Machinehead is roughly about half of our set on this tour. That still leaves a good deal of time.” M.B: Are you doing your show as one long set or splitting it in two halves? Roger: No. We're going to do it as one long set but with a very special kind of introduction. And "Machinehead" will appear as sort of a set within the set. M.B: Are you doing "Machinehead" songs faithful to the studio versions or jamming out like the "Made in Japan" album from that year's live tour? Roger: A bit of both really. I know in the past, we've always played "Highway Star" with the wrong arrangement in the solos. There's four extra bars on the record that we have never played live. Little details like that we will probably stick back in for the purists and also just because it's fun for us. So, yeah we'll go through the record-we'll tidy up the arrangements. Of course there's going to be jamming... we can't possibly just repeat the same thing night after night. Deep Purple has always been a jammin' band, ya know? So there will be that element too. M.B: How long were you in the studio with “Bananas”? Roger: 3 weeks and 4 days. M.B: Is that typical length, or are you learning to basically work quicker? Roger: Well, no it's not typical length at all. We usually take much longer. We've been producing ourselves with the last few albums. I've been in and out of the control room for the last couple of records producing the band. It's very difficult to be a producer and produce a band like Deep Purple who are pretty strong willed...every last one of them. Without that kind of authority... to them, I'm the bass player and not the producer, so it was always a very difficult hat for me to wear. I've been meaning to stop it [producing] for a long time and finally managed to do that this time. Michael Bradford was our producer and what a fine producer he was. He was great. He moved us right along. To the point where he made us work like a well-oiled machine. We’d come in the studio, do one or two takes...nail it and move on and do over dubs. Then the next day we'd come in and do the next one. All the songs where done live and in one or two takes, even though we protested. I remember ‘Haunted’ was done late one night. It was to have been just a ‘run through’ to see if we got the arrangement right. We came in the next morning to do the proper version and Michael said – ‘Nah..you got it down right last night.’ We protested a bit, but he was right and that is the one on the album.” I remember the song, "Haunted," was done very late one night. It was to have been just a run through to see if we got the arrangement right. We all had the intentions of coming in the next day and doing the proper version. So we came in the next day ready to do the proper version and Michael said –– "Nah...You got it last night." We were like –– "But we were not even trying!" He said... "Nope..that's the one!" And that was it. That's the version that's on the new record. M.B: I'm not familiar with Michael. How did you come to work with him and what did he bring in as producer that most affected the music? Roger: He's best known for working with Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker. Two of his successes. He's worked as the bass player for Aretha Franklin and comes from Detroit. And Michael is a huge fan of the band. I guess he came by us through some connection with a higher up publishing or record company executive, I'm really not sure, but we're glad to have worked with him. He was/is a big Deep Purple fan and so there was a connection made very quickly. He came to see us and we talked to him and he was great. He just said all of the right things. He's a lovely man...very intelligent. Very sharp. And we trusted him. What he brought to the table really was a sense of what Deep Purple was to a fan. It's very difficult to see yourself when you are in the band. There's always that kind of unconscious desire not to be a parody of yourself, to move on and do something new all the time and not go back. For all these years we'd been afraid to repeat ourselves I think. But he kind of gave us the courage to just relax and not worry about it so much. He encouraged us to just be who we are –– Deep Purple. That's why this new album, "Bananas," sounds so much like vintage Deep Purple. M.B: Obviously happy with the end result, is it safe to say Deep Purple will work with Michael again? Roger: I think that's safe. We plan actually going back at the end of this touring year...probably in December... and meeting [with him] in Los Angeles and having a writing session... M.B: You mentioned earlier how American audiences have pigeon holed the band into the classic rock format. That said, how has classic rock radio treated newer Deep Purple music? Roger: Well it's hard to tell. We've had several albums out now. None of which got much of a play really, which leaves you to wonder whether it was the wrong record or the wrong sound, or just because they didn't like it, or whatever. I don't kind of follow it really to be honest. M.B: This past year -- Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and even Lynyrd Skynryd charted new hits. Did "Bananas" enjoy anything like that out of the gate? Roger: Not as far as I know. "Bananas" has actually been out in the States a number of months now, but we’ve been off touring… I don't think there has been any real promotion behind it here until now. I think the promotion is actually starting up now that we're touring here, so it makes sense I guess. So, I think...at least I hope... we will see a lot more attention to it now. M.B: A song like "Walk On" or "Haunted" could probably have impact at "classic rock" radio and even "Picture of Innocence" for stations looking for a heavier, rockier sound. Roger: "Picture of Innocence" is actually a song I would love to see have a chance on American radio. I like that track a lot. I think it commensurate the times as they were. We tried doing it live and it didn't really quite click, but I'm going to talk to the band. I think we should actually try again. M.B: "Bananas!" The title and the Third World cover graphics are NOT very traditional Deep Purple. Any significance of story on how either of those came about. Roger: I don't know. It was just a whim actually. We did it because we can, I guess. The title "Bananas" came from a chance conversation Ian Gillan and I had on a plane in Australia one Sunday. It was a long flight and we were sitting there bored, reading the Sunday newspapers. There's this photograph of a guy pushing a bicycle with an enormous amount of bananas on it. And I turned to him and joked, "There's our next album title...we'll call it Bananas!" And he loved it. Ian thought the photograph was really reflective of lots of different things. And so it kind of stayed there, until about a year later, when we were touring in India and found ourselves in a traffic jam in Bombay. Which if you are in Bombay, you will always find yourself in. We found ourselves right behind a truck full of bananas and these two guys in the back holding them in. Ian quickly took a photograph and that became the album's title, theme and cover. It's actually reassuring to have a theme before you start. It's a real drag when you finish the album and you can't think of a title. It's actually a great thing to have a title first and everything falls into focus. So with a title like "Bananas" you can do anything you want. And it took a certain amount of guts to call the album, “Bananas.” We looked at each other wondering –– "Can we actually really call an album, 'Bananas?'" Ian Gillan was the only one that was unshaken. He said –– "Yes we can! Because we can, we can!" So we did. People started getting angry about it though and started writing on the Internet things like –– "How dare they insult us with an album with the name, 'Bananas'… a band with such a great legacy...blah, blah, blah…” That’s when I knew it was a good name, because it generates passion and makes people pay attention" M.B: The instrumental "Contact Lost" that closes the new album is a beautiful number, dedicated to the lost crew of the Columbia. What was it about the loss of the Columbia crew that affected the band so profoundly as to pay them this tribute? Roger: Well, we met them. They were actually fans of the band. They came to a show in Houston a couple of years ago and came backstage. We met them all and then Jean-Pierre Harrison, who was Kalpana Chawla's husband started writing to us emails and was regularly sending in bulletins of news about what the astronauts where going through, building up to the big day. We were actually invited to the launch, but we couldn't go. We were actually in Los Angeles at the time of the launch, making the record. So that early part of our Los Angeles trip had us getting new stories everyday from what was happening in space. It was cool knowing someone up there knew us. It was just a nice connection. We even got an email from Kalpana, three and four days into it. Of course that Saturday when the thing burned up and they lost their lives…it was just a cataclysmic event for us. Steve wrote “Lost Contact” as he was watching the television that morning. When we convened in the studio to work that day, Steve was already in there. He said –– “I wrote this song this morning as I watched the Colombia and I just wanted to get it down.” And it was just utterly beautiful...we decided to all add on parts to it and include it on the album as a tribute to the crew. M.B: Was the album pretty much completed at that point? Roger: No. I would have to look at the dates to find out when, but it was sometime in the middle of the album. M.B: Tell me about the special plaques from the Columbia… Roger: In Mexico City, a few months ago, Kalpana's husband, J.P. Harrison, came down and presented us with three CD's that they found scattered over the wreckage site. There were thousands of miles of wreckage site, and they somehow managed to find these three Deep Purple CD's [“Machinehead,” “Down To Earth” and “Perpendicular”] which were then framed and presented to us. Kalpana took them into space. It was all very touching actually. M.B: So those were the actual discs that were on board the Columbia that J.P. presented to you guys? Roger: Yes. And J.P. now goes around the world doing lectures. He relives his wife's death daily. He is a wonderful man. A wonderful, calm, and very nice man. He is dealing with this tragedy in the way he knows best, and that's to keep Kalpana alive in everyone's memory. M.B: Steve Morse definitely added fresh dimension to the Deep Purple sound in. What’s the story on Ritchie Blackmore’s leaving, Joe Satriani’s guest slot in the band and Morse ultimately joining? Roger: Ritchie gave his notice in while we were on tour in Europe. In the form of a letter. And we had actually six dates in Japan booked after that tour finished, before we were to take a long break. The only time I spoke to Ritchie about it… I said –– “Ritchie, will you stay in the band and finish the Japanese dates? He said – “No.” I said –– “Well, that leaves us in a bit of a spot you know. That leaves us in a very difficult position, because if we cancel the Japanese tour, that means we are gonna get sued. It's gonna be nasty. Can you just do the Japanese tour?” Again, he said – “No.” So, that forced our hand and that's when we got Joe Satriani to fill in for us. We spoke to the promoter in Japan and said, “Look… We’d like to do it without Ritchie.” And he said –– “Well...it can't be with just anyone. It’s gotta be someone who is very well known to Japanese people.” And he gave us his choices. One was Jeff Beck and the other was Joe Satriani. We called them both because we were desperate, and Jeff said, “Thanks, but it’s not my cup of tea.” Joe Satriani said –– “Yeah, I'll give it a go.” And that was really the stepping stone into a whole new era of Deep Purple. And it worked really well. Joe was fantastic. And in many ways we would have liked to continue with Joe, but Joe didn't or couldn't see it that way. So we had to look for someone else. I'd been a big fan of Steve Morse for many years...never thinking that I would ever play alongside of him. We invited Steve and things have worked very well. We fit together like hand in glove. M.B: In the 70's and 80's both you and Ian Gillan both did solo projects and even an album together... any plans for any of the members to do side projects outside of Purple at this point in your lives? Roger: Ummmmmm... I just did a solo album called “Snapshot.” It just came out this last year. It's at the bottom half of the charts at number 5,764 I believe (laughing). It’s a damn fine record. And if no one's checked it out yet, they really should.
M.B: Is it available on the Deep Purple web site –– www.deep-purple.com? Roger: Yes! I think Ian Gillan's always working on a solo album somewhere. M.B: Yeah.he's got quite a wealth of them out there. Roger: Yeah...so, there are always side projects. Steve will always have his side projects, Ian will have his and I’ll have mine. That's part of the nature of this band, it doesn't weaken the band in anyway for us to do these albums. If anything, it strengthens it, because it gives us all a chance to expand musically and play with other people. That allows us to come back to the band refreshed and with new ideas. The more you do something, the better you get at it... M.B: Founding member Jon Lord retired from the band recently. How strange is it to not see Jon on stage with you at this point? How did you hook up with Don Airey and is he a full fledged member or a hired gun? Roger: Don's a full fledged member. He's one of our old friends actually, we got to know him back in the 80's through Rainbow. He's got an amazing reputation and I know he's certainly a great keyboard player. It all really happened when John was ill. John had a bad knee and couldn't do the start of the tour and we really didn't want to cancel the dates. They were big festival dates in Scandinavia and so we figured maybe no one would notice. Don came in at two days notice and learned the stuff. He actually played great and ended up doing the entire tour with us, because Jon was more ill than he thought. So, when John finally retired, Don was our natural choice and he came to the project with an enormous amount of enthusiasm. I think he really helped a lot with this album. The band on stage is playing great. In fact, I think we're playing better than ever. M.B: The band's been around 36 years. You've been a part Deep Purple for most of that time. Looking back, what albums or events would you rank as personal high water marks? Roger: To me, it was the “firsts” of everything that stand out. “Deep Purple In Rock” is where we found our sound. Then, I would have to add to that… “Perfect Strangers,” because that is where we refound our sound. And then I would say it would be… “Perpendicular,” because with that album [with Steve Morse on board], we changed the sound. M.B: And last question....was there any particular artist or album that most impacted your life as a musician? Roger: Well...there’s been a lot really. Anyone from the Beatles to Bob Dylan... too many to name really. The first was probably Lonnie Donnegan, who in my early years was a huge musical influence. M.B: So you were a British Skiffle fan as a youth? Roger: Oh yes! That's what I grew up on. I was and still am a skiffle fan! M.B: Thanks for your time Roger… I wish for you that the whole world soon goes… “Bananas!” Roger: (Laughing) Thank you Tom. I hope your wish comes true. See you in Chicago!
DEEP PURPLE and THIN LIZZY perform in concert on Tuesday, February 24 at Chicago Theatre in Chicago, IL
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Few
bands are regarded as highly in the classic rock realm as British heavy
metal pioneers, Deep Purple, who along with Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath, defined the sound of heavy rock of the 1970s. 