legendary guitarist Jo Satriani did a brand new interview with Vintage Rock. Satriani performed with Deep Purple to complete the group Japan and European Summer to visit in 1993 after Ritchie Blackmore left the group. In the interview, Joe Satriani explained why he did not want to be part of the group in the future despite his proposal.
Considered one of the pioneers of heavy metal, Deep Purple was founded in England in the late 1960s. Dark purple has changed line-ups several times since its formation. The most successful of these formations are Ian Gillan singing, roger glover on bass, Jon Lord on keyboards, Ian Payment on the battery, and Ritchie Blackmore on the guitar.
Launched in 1968 with Shades of deep purplethe group had many breakups within the members, including one with one of the founding members of the group, Ritchie Blackmore. Blackmore leave the group for good during their Japan to visit. Deep Purple finished the tour with the famous guitarist Jo Satriani.
In a long interview with vintage rock, Joe Satriani he was asked why he did not use it when he had the chance to join Deep Purple. While Satriani stated that his solo career is his priority, he admitted that it is difficult to replace the legendary members of a group before him.
“I was inspired by those players who laid the foundation for the kind of things I do, like Jeff Beck“, Satriani said. “I saw the freedom he had to play with interesting players who inspired him to do different things. I thought that was really great.
“I love watching him live and I love his albums and he keeps you guessing and he’s always progressing as a guitarist. He just keeps moving forward. I like that attitude of moving forward all the time.
“It’s not really embarrassed like a legacy band where they’re going to have to play their hits. Like when Aerosmith fate, they will just have to play those songs that are their hits. They have to play “Janie Has a Gun”they must [play] ‘Dream’. They can’t do a concert without it.
“But Jeff Beck really has nothing to do that he doesn’t want to do. [Laughs] He can say, ‘No, that’s where I am right now. Look at this. Nobody else can do it. I can do it.’ [Laughs] I love this attitude. It’s a dangerous move. You miss all that input from a band and you miss the chance to go mainstream.
“It’s very difficult for Jeff Beck become mainstream as AEROSMITH or any other pop group where you talk about billions of streams and TV appearances and all the awards and that sort of thing. However, everyone knows and respects Jeff Beck as a performer, as a musician, as a composer, and they wouldn’t dream of him changing his attitude. We love that he’s the iconoclast that he is.
“I had this choice to make when Roger Glover asked me to join Deep Purple”
While Jo Satriani states that he will always feel guilty for not taking the opportunity to join Deep Purplehe admits that another reason for making this decision is that he doesn’t feel like he belongs Dark purple.
“I had this choice to make when Roger Glover asked me to join Dark purple“, Jo continued. “I just thought I was Jo from Long Island. I don’t belong to that British royal metal band. I knew I was out of place. I was a big fan of Ritchie Blackmore and I thought I would never be able to rectify it. I will always feel guilty for having to copy Ritchie and I didn’t want to do that.
“I had friends who managed to replace famous people in bands”, Satriani added. “But I remember what they always said at the end. I remember Steve Vai told me once, ‘Joif you can avoid it, never replace someone famous in a band because the fans — they never let you forget it.
You’re always compared to the first guy, the original guy. So I thought I’ll give it a shot. I have a good relationship with my fans, and we will stick together and try to make better and better albums.
Last March, the legendary drummer Ian Peace recalled those difficult times during his appearance on Hangin’ & Bangin’: confined artists. At first, the 73-year-old drummer began to describe the recording location as a blackened ruin. Then, he shared the difficult story of how Deep Purple ended his album Machine Head.
“When we started recording the album, the casino had already burned down” Payment mentioned. “And that’s where we were going to make the record… It was just a blackened ruin, and so we had to try to find another place to record. And the guy running the festival said, ‘Look, you can follow in this ballroom.’
“So we settled into the ballroom. And we were just trying to create a sound together. And Ritchie had this riff. ‘Let’s try the dah-dah-dah song.’ “So how are we going to start?” I said, ‘Try the riff and I’ll just do a hi-hat thing and let it ramp up.’
“And it was a banging old ballroom. Montreux, at this time of year, had kind of fallen asleep. It’s a resort — no skiing there; it’s too low. But there is the lake and all the rest. So at 10 a.m., the whole village is in a coma.
“And then this rock band kicks off in this banging old ballroom. Anyway, we had been there for about 10 minutes and then the police… We saw these blue lights flashing near the door. We were just finishing one take; I think we did two takes or something. Anyway, [producer] Martin Birch said, ‘Don’t let anyone in.’ The roadies held the door until we finished the take. The cops came in and said, ‘This is it. you can’t do [that] more.’ So we had to move again.
“And we finally went to the Grand Hotel which is a hotel that was closed for the winter. And we forgot about that track. We were just getting a sound.
In his further remarks, Payment mentioned the time they finished the record and realized it wasn’t long enough. Saying they got space to fill with new music, Payment touched the bass player of the band Roger Gloverlooks at his notebook and sees things that ignite in relation to Smoke on the water. According to him, it was the story of how Dark purple finished Smoke on the water.
“When we finished the record, we found we were a few minutes behind; it wasn’t long enough for an album,” he continued. “We had a lead that could have gone on; it was the ballad “When a blind man cries”. But Ritchie wanted the slowest song on the record; he wanted it all to be over.
“So [we thought]’And that piece we did in the ballroom? [Let’s have a] listen to him. It sounds good. It sounds good. There were no words yet, so Ian and roger left.
“And roger looked at his notebook and he was writing down his impressions as we watched the flames rise. The downdraft from the mountains pushed the smoke down across the lake. ‘Smoke On The Water’ is where the title comes from. I said, ‘Why don’t we write a song about the making of the record?’
“And that’s how ‘Smoke On The Water’ ended, and that’s how it ended up on the record. Otherwise it would have just been lost as a soundcheck.
