They said, “Oh if you believe so we’ll put it on the album.” It’s actually the very precise description of the fire in the casino, of Frank Zappa getting the kids out of the casino, and every detail in the song is true. It’s going to be a huge thing.” Now there’s no guitar player in the world who doesn’t know. It’s a tune called ‘Smoke On The Water.’” So I listened to it. One day they were coming up for dinner at my house and they said, “Claude we did a little surprise for you, but it’s not going to be on the album. Finally I found a place in a little abandoned hotel next to my house and we made a temporary studio for them. Poor Claude and there’s no casino anymore!” They were supposed to do a live gig and record the new album there. The British rock band Deep Purple, shown here in 1971, wrote the hit song 'Smoke on the Water,' after watching the casino in Montreux, Switzerland, go up in flames later that year. How did the Deep Purple song evolve out of the ashes?ĭeep Purple were watching the whole fire from their hotel window, and they said, “Oh my God, look what happened. And the people were watching the fire thinking, “Oh, you know, Frank Zappa is just doing an incredible ending to his show.” The people went out through that exit, and within about five minutes, the 2,000 kids were out. Then a lot of people could go out through there. Frank Zappa took his guitar – a Gibson, a very strong one – and he smashed the big window down with his guitar.
It was actually not that difficult because we had big bow windows in the concert hall overlooking the swimming pool. There’s even a lyric about it in “Smoke On The Water.” That’s how one of the most popular songs in the history of rock music came to be – if you listen closely to the song, the lyrics is the story in itself.You helped get people out of the burning building. Glover and singer Ian Gillan wrote the lyrics of the song that told the story of the chaotic disaster that went on in Switzerland as the band was about to commence their recording sessions. Smoke On The Water (7', Single, Red) Purple Records, Purple Records. Even during the chaos of going on outside, the band recorded their first track with the simple four-power chord riff inspired by a classical influence, the intro to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Smoke On The Water chords Deep Purple Open or Capo I E G A E G B-A E G A G E 6x G F G We all came out to Montreux F G On the Lake Geneva shoreline F G To. The band then moved on to record their album at the out-of-season Grand Hotel. We thought it would be cool to stay in the hotel where Deep Purple recorded Smoke on the Water without thinking it through. Bassist Roger Glover had a eureka moment when he saw a layer of smoke from the fire cover Lake Geneva and came up with the title “Smoke On The Water”.
Thankfully, nobody got seriously hurt but the Casino along with all of Frank Zappa’s equipment and instruments were burned down.ĭeep Purple evacuated to the nearby restaurant where they watched the fire die down.
The whole Casino complex was set ablaze prompting the show to be stopped immediately and the audience to exit the concert venue. The concert was interrupted mid-performance when a flare gun was fired by an audience member and broke fire into the venue’s highly-flammable rattan ceiling. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention band were performing one night at the Montreux Casino and Deep Purple was in the audience. They were to use the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio located at the Montreux Casino where they have performed at previously. It all began when Deep Purple came to Montreux, Switzerland in 1971 to record what was to be their breakthrough album, “Machine Head”. The irony of the popularity of Deep Purple’s iconic single is the fascinatingly dark and disastrous story behind the creation of the song that not many people know about. Deep Purple performing Smoke on the WaterFrom the album Machine HeadLyrics:We all came out to MontreuxOn the Lake Geneva shorelineTo make records with a mobi.