Deep Purple revealed that the recording of the hit song "Smoke on the Water" was interrupted by the Swiss police. The discovery came through the new edition of Classic Rock, which collected both recent and old interviews regarding the recording of the album Machine Head (1972).
The track was produced in a mobile studio that lacked soundproofing, resulting in a "very noisy" sound. "We played 'Smoke On The Water' there, and the riff I came up with in the heat of the moment. I just played along with Ian Paice . Roger Glover joined us. We went out to the mobile unit, we were listening to one of the takes, and there was some knocking on the door. It was the local police, and they were trying to stop everything because it was too loud. We knew they were coming to shut everything down. So, they were outside banging on the door and pulling out their guns. It was getting quite hostile," said guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (via Guitar World ).
The late Martin Birch added at the time of the interview: “It was about two in the morning, the neighbors were complaining. We locked all the doors. It was literally 'da-da-da! Bang, bang, police , police ! Get out!' So, we had to stop recording before the police stormed in and kicked us out.”
This wasn't the only episode recently recalled by the group. In November 2021, Paice said that Blackmore's departure from Deep Purple in 1994 was "traumatic" .
"Smoke On The Water" reached the fourth position on Billboard and is about the fire at the Montreux Casino in 1971 caused by a fan's flare.
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