{"id":799487,"date":"2026-10-11T20:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T20:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799487\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T20:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T20:46:12","slug":"how-deep-purples-filler-track-went-on-to-sell-25000000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799487\/","title":{"rendered":"How Deep Purple’s “filler track” went on to sell 25,000,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Deep<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Sun 11 October 2026 19:15, UK <\/p>\n

They never saw it coming, but one idle jam and a lightning bolt of lyrical inspiration would win Deep Purple<\/a> their defining smash.<\/p>\n

Headbangers around the world will all agree that heavy metal\u2019s core foundations were burnished by a certain Brummie quartet from the Aston suburbs. Yet, alongside Black Sabbath\u2019s pioneering leaden blues attack were the hefty guitar chops of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple\u2019s swallowing organ score. Taking cues from Cream and Vanilla Fudge, Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s classical-leaning fret melodies <\/a>and Jon Lord\u2019s amplified organs earned the London band their place in heavy metal\u2019s essential founding trinity.<\/p>\n

As fans know, Deep Purple have existed in countless incarnations over the years, currently in their Mark IX era, but the classic chapter is the second phase of the band\u2019s evolution, when Blackmore and Lord were joined by future Sabbath frontman Ian Gillan, later Whitesnake drummer Ian Paice, and Roger Glover on bass in 1969. During the lineup, the band would drop their lauded Deep Purple in Rock and Machine Head albums, plus the Made in Japan live double LP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid this electric unit, Deep Purple\u2019s signature number would be stumbled upon. \u201cI almost hate to admit it, but we wrote \u2018Smoke on the Water\u2019 as a filler track,\u201d Glover confessed to OnMilwaukee in 2019.<\/p>\n

The single\u2019s birth has become the stuff of rock and roll lore. In Switzerland, to commence the Machine Head sessions, the Montreux Casino Deep Purple had planned to record hosted Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention band<\/a> for a live show the night before in December 1971. Towards the end of the set, a fired flare gun impacted with the rattan-covered ceiling, engulfing the entire casino in flames.<\/p>\n

Deep Purple were now without a recording space as the fire\u2019s smoke descended over Lake Geneva. Hauling the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio to various spots, the bulk of Machine Head was cut at the nearby Grand H\u00f4tel de Territet, but a brief spell at Le Pavilion theatre saw Blackmore\u2019s bluesy four-note riff first rear its head.<\/p>\n

This was just a jam noodle, however. Little was thought of Blackmore\u2019s right until the end of their scheduled stay at the Grand H\u00f4tel, when an extra number was needed to pad out Machine Head\u2019s runtime. The riff was fleshed out, and, sparked by Glover\u2019s title suggestion, Gillan penned \u2018Smoke on the Water\u2019s lyrical narration, essentially a recount of that night\u2019s fire in Montreux. Job done, a rushed cut tacked on the record with little thought of any further life.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

In fact, it took a Warner Bros bigwig to push for \u2018Smoke on the Water\u2019s release. Machine Head was dropped in March 1972, but the label saw hit potential with Deep Purple\u2019s last-minute number, managing a single release as late as May the next year. Warner Bros knew the pop charts. \u2018Smoke on the Water\u2019 would crack the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 and stand as their signature theme, even if Glover and the band could never quite wrap their heads around such success.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can analyse it until the cows come home, and I still don\u2019t know why a song catches on like that,\u201d the bassist confessed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Sun 11 October 2026 19:15, UK They never saw it coming, but one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,191644,52312,96,39984,89073,11652,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-191644","tag-deep-purple","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-zappa","tag-hard-rock","tag-heavy-metal","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}