Posted on by Nathan Beaudry

Episode #281 – Deep Purple – Now What ?! (Part 1)

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Lead up to the Album:

  • Bob Ezrin stated that Neil Warnock who managed Deep Purple’s booking had approached him about producing the album. He working with Pink Floyd and been a friend of Ezrin’ for a while. At first Ezrin didn’t want to do it because he was working with Alice Cooper and was afraid he was working with too many legacy acts.
  • Ezrin went to see them at Massey Hall in Toronto and was blown away by their improvisational jam. He agreed to do it but said he wasn’t interested in making a contemporary rock album and that they wouldn’t be getting radio play. But he was in if they were interested in making a musician’s album.
  • Ezrin described the band as lacking confidence so he made it his job to help them regain it.
  • Sunday, June 24, 2012. The band assembles in the rehearsal studio to begin work in Nashville.
  • Last day of rehearsals was July 5th.
  • July 7th they get together in Studio Room 2 which Roger describes as “huge but comfortable.”
  • On July 14th they got a call that Jon was not doing well.
  • On the morning of July 16th they got the call that Jon had passed away. Roger said that it was a very sad day. He said they all went into the studio but got very little accomplished. They took the following day off.
  • “Yesterday, I told Bob about an obscure Elvis Costello song called The Hoover Factory that I hadn’t heard since the 70s. So Bob texts Elvis, who immediately emails a version of the song back.  This is typical Bob; instant solutions! “
  • In Late July Roger and Ian go to his home in Portugal to finish up working on lyrics and writing.
  • “RZA changes my iPhone ringtone to Jon’s solo in Ramshackle Man.   Corky mixes the latest versions of several of the songs for IG and I to work on in Portugal.”
  • July 25th:
  • Roger: “Bob suggests a meal and I accompany him to a restaurant called Sambucca, a jazz place.  The air conditioning is a bit much and I am only in a tee shirt, so Bob calls Don, who is soon about to join us, and tells him to bring a jacket for me – another example of Bob solving problems immediately.  The food is good and the band – piano, bass, drums, guitar and trumpet – is very good.  Bob introduces himself and suggests that Don from Deep Purple get up for a jam.  It is a wonderful moment to see these jazzers drop their jaws and bury their misconceptions as Don effortlessly breezes though several standards.  In fact, he is brilliant, I am proud of him.  Bob is as impressed as the band.  Bob picks up the check and it has a 40% musicians’ discount!  Afterwards, we go to see 45RPM, a band featuring some of the finest country musicians in Tennessee. They are superb.  I sit there in a dream as this soothing, beautifully played music envelops me like a warm bath.”


Core Band:

Additional Musicians:

  • Musician [Additional], Backing Vocals, Percussion – Bob Ezrin

Technical:

Album Art & Booklet Review

Recorded at: The Tracking Room, Nashville, TN, USA,

Anarchy Studios, Nashville, TN, USA,

Additional Keyboards recorded at Rainbow Recorders,

Mixed at Anarchy Studios, Nashville, TN, USA,

Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, NY, USA.

Thanks to: Max Vaccaro, Michael Hedges, Kat Rallis, Sally Day, Jenny DiMauro and Kim Markovchick.

Roger Glover thanks: Vigier Excess RG Custom and Fender Precision bass guitars, TC Electronic Blacksmith amplification & effects, EBS pedals.

Ian Paice thanks: Pearl drums, Paiste cymbals, Remo drumheads, ProMark sticks, Protection Racket softcases, Hardcase hardcases, May mic system, AKG mics, Beyer Dynamic mics & headphones, HK Stage Monitors.

Steve Morse thanks: Ernie Ball, Musicman, Engl. Dimarzio, TC Electronic, Presonus.

Don Airey thanks: Keith Watson at Soundcraft, John Haburay at The Hammond Store, Clive Botterill at Hammond Services, Mike Swains at MLS Electronics, Hughes & Kettner.

This album is dedicated to Jon Lord.

Souls, having touched, are forever entwined.

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The Venue:

Setlist

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Album Tracks:

Side One:

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Side Two:

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Album Tracks:

All songs written by Don Airey, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Steve Morse, Ian Paice, and Bob Ezrin.

  1. A Simple Song
    • Working title was “Glover’s Fifth”
    • Gillan’s notes: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-77.html
      • Breathe in, breathe out; that’s all there is to it really. Oh, now I can walk; left, right, left, right. Look up, down, straight ahead and occasionally behind (just in case). Now, do I go left, right or straight ahead? Follow the crowd or take the scenic route? Conform or rebel?
      • It was all so easy to start with.
    • Steve Morse said the original idea was on the bass brought in by Roger.  He said they tried it a bunch of different ways and that Bob and Roger really liked the melody line he brought in.
  2. Weirdistan
    • Keyboards [Additional Keyboards] – David Hamilton (2)
    • https://hamiltonmusic.net/
    • Keyboardist, composer, arranger based in Nashville.
    • Worked with Shania Twain, John Legend, Josh Groban
    • Worked on this one with Bob Ezrin who helped them come up with a new melody.
    • Gillan’s notes: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-86.html
      • It’s not a country – it’s a state of mind, or rather – many states of mind. Each trying to reach out to the others but held back by convention, taboo and suspicion of the unknown.
      • Then driven forward again by the lust for life.
    • Steve Morse said he liked any Eastern influence mixed with rock music.  He said he didn’t know the phaser sound was going to be in it until he heard the mix but that he loved it.
  3. Out of Hand
    • Working title was “Pint of Heavy”
    • Gillan’s notes: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-81.html
      • A friend wrote to me…’Ian, is this song about the music business?’
      • I replied…’Oh dear, you mustn’t think that…’
      • Of course that’s the problem with being enigmatic, everything is open to interpretation.
      • It seems obvious to me that Francesco del Giocondo’s wife had haemorrhoids when sitting for Leonardo da Vinci and that Eric Cantona’s famous quip – “When seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.” – was rhetoric at its finest. The media has never been insulted so cleverly – most journalists publicly chose not to understand it – Ha!
    • Morse says this was inspired by English rockers like Page and Blackmore.
  4. Hell to Pay
    • Roger says in his diary that they tried multiple different tuned down version but end up going back to the original key.
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-84.html
      • Eddie was an armchair revolutionary; always whipping us into a frenzy of anti-establishment activity. When I say activity it was really just animated talk, fuelled by alcohol and the need to impress our fellow revolutionaries. Eddie was ‘All talk and no trousers’. At the first sign of trouble he’d be under the table or out the door like the proverbial rat up a drainpipe. But he had a Che Guevara T-shirt, a wispy moustache and a flinty stare that gave him a manic edge over his impressionable coterie. His hair was never right though, I think his ‘two-tone’ soubriquet came from the comb-over; his pale skull showed through in stripes beneath his greasy barnet (Barnet Fair = Hair; rhyming slang) as the evenings wore on.
    • Morse said: “The choices that the core members made in terms of what sounds too weird, or what works, were very well done. I really like the way I play with Don on this one.”
  5. Body Line
    • Percussion – Eric Darken
    • https://www.ericdarken.com/
    • Worked with Amy Grant, Michael Sweet, Barry Maniolow, and many others.
    • Working title was “The Bubble.”
    • Roger said there was a “slight disagreement” about the main riff but does not elaborate.
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-82.html
      1. When I was a kid we played a game of silhouettes; basically you had to empty your pockets of string, marbles, keys, candles, coins, book matches etc (don’t look at me like that) and throw the contents on a sheet of paper, then draw around the edges of the items creating a single line perimeter inside which you had to use your imagination to create a picture.
      • Roald Dahl’s TV series Tales of the Unexpected had the silhouette of a naked woman dancing in the flames. Well, she seemed to be naked but she may have been wearing modesty items of the sheerest gossamer or possibly a rubber leotard; both of them a risky bet so close to the flames.
      • So, this is an erotic three-dimensional game of silhouettes. Feel free to let your imagination take the reins but don’t get too close to the fire; you’ll lose all perspective.
  6. Above and Beyond
    • Keyboards [Additional Keyboards] – David Hamilton (2)
    • Working title is “Over and Overture” and is referred to as “Steve’s” by Roger Glover. Roger said Ian was confused by it at first and then he loved it.
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-76.html
      • It was during the writing of this song that Ian Paice brought us the news of Jon Lord’s death. Jon was the nearest thing we ever had to a leader and – along with Ritchie and Ian – was the founder of Deep Purple in 1968. Roger and I were the new boys (we joined in ’69). But the house is still standing and here we were in Nashville with Steve and Don, in the summer of 2012. After a period of quiet reflection we shared some old familiar anecdotes about Jon and before long his spirit filled the room. I scribbled the line ‘Souls, having touched, are forever entwined.’ And then he sang these words to us all…
  7. Blood from a Stone
    • Working title was “Sweet as a Nut”
    • Roger describes it as “an idea from El Cortijo, a year and a half ago.”
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-78.html
      • This is a withering attack on the world of usury and banking (the collective noun for bankers is ‘A Wunch’).
      • I think it is fair to say that the perceived image of bankers has changed from the rock-solid financial advisor, friend of business and family alike; up there with doctors, priests, magistrates and other dignitaries (we’ll come to all of them eventually); reliable enough to counter sign official documents, to their current identity as parasites who profit from the misery of others.
      • Describe them as you will: Scum of the Earth; Chancers; Jack the Lads, Thieves or whatever, there are no more friendly bank managers, all bankers are tarred with the same dirty brush; they have become untrustworthy.
      • On a lighter note – a very close musician friend of mine thought this was not a generalised attack but aimed at a specific person; she is not a banker but fits the descriptions perfectly.
    • Morse told Don that it had a “Riders on the Storm” vibe to it in reference the Wurlizer and the sustained notes.
  8. Uncommon Man
    • Keyboards [Additional Keyboards] – David Hamilton (2)
    • Partially inspired by “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland.
    • Bob said when he saw the band in Toronto he loved they way they improvised int he studio and wanted to capture that on the album.
    • They decide to try with an intro to this song.
    • Roger said that Steve and Don did the intro to the song in one take.
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-85.html
      • Sometimes writing lyrics is akin to creating an impressionist water colour whilst sitting at the bottom of a pool. All those legs are very interesting but it’s a challenge to capture them as the paint is all over the place. When you look at the results a few days later it’s hard to know what to call it. Then a title leaps from your Inbox and you gratefully explain to a bemused audience that you meant it all along, even if it is now the story of a lame mermaid caught in the ideological struggle for control of Ruislip Lido.
    • When asked about “Uncommon Man” by Goldmine Roger Glover said: “It is very difficult with Don Airey and Steve Morse, who are such great musicians, to play anything simple. They come u with ideas I would never have through of, and, wheter it’s prog or jazz or classical, it doesn’;t really matter to us.”
    • When asked if this was a reference to Emerson, Lake & Palmer Morse said that he, Don, and Keith Emerson are all fans of Aaron Copland’s writing and that he had a huge influence on Dixie Dregs music. He also states this is a play on “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
  9. Apres Vous
    • Working title was originally “Big Riff” then changed to “Slow Burn,” then “One Way.”
    • Song was almost abandoned as Gillan b _________________———-
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-79.html
      • You’ve heard of the famous Michelin Man no doubt; he’s the front man for the tyre company.
      • One evening, somewhere in Germany on the Rock Meets Classic tour in January 2012, I was confronted by Michelin Girl. We were preparing for the encore; all the performers were to join me in a mass murder of ‘Smoke on the Water’. Steve Lukather was strapping on his banjo as the audience rushed forward, led by Michelin Girl who was dressed (just about) in erotic threads that barely contained her wobbly bits. Throw in some big hair and a faceful of scarlet lipstick and you can imagine a scary figure lusting after me or Steve. I wasn’t certain which of us she was aiming for but to be on the safe side I whispered in his ear ‘Steve…You saw her first…après vous’.
      • That was the inspiration for an ‘imaginary’ night on the town that ended with my ‘imaginary’ friend making a complete arse of himself – as always.
  10. All the Time in the World
    • Acoustic Guitar – Jason Roller
      • Worked with Kristin Chenoweth, Alice Cooper,  and many others
    • Percussion – Eric Darken
    • Steel Guitar – Mike Johnson (4)
      • https://www.mikejohnsonproductions.com/
      • 4x ACM Award Winning guitarist
      • Mike was voted the Academy of Country Music “STEEL PLAYER OF THE YEAR” for 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2020.
      • Worked with Faith Hill, Juice Newton, Kenny Chesney, The Charlie Daniels Band, and many more
    • Glover says that this song just came out of thin air in July while they were working on other songs in Portugal. He described it as “One from nothing!”
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-75.html
      • There’s something about old Zeno.
      • The idea that a tortoise cannot be beaten in a race is of course really ridiculous but mathematically possible if you allow the finishing line to be moved – and the pursuer to be elastically challenged – with every stride. How small (or large) can a space or time be?
      • Each is a moving number consistently defined by our ability to measure it.
      • Such wondrous thinking can be done sitting down just as easily as when out chasing reptiles.
  11. Vincent Price
    • Steel Guitar – Mike Johnson (4)
    • This was the first song they worked on when Roger and Ian returned from Portugal in late September.
    • Gillan’s thoughts and lyrics: https://www.gillan.com/wordography-80.html
      • As musical idea rose from the depths and began to coagulate it was given the working title of ‘Vincent Price’; it sounded like the sound track to a horror movie. When Roger and I were tackling the lyrics we started with a list. Something we imagined would be drawn up by the director of a Hammer Horror movie; a list of essential ingredients for any self-respecting Vincent Price movie of the 1960’s.
      • So: Creaking doors, dungeons, rattling chains, howling dogs, dripping blood, vampires, thunder and lightning, sacrificial virgins and zombies to die for, etc.
      • And there you have it; the lyrics in a casket…manic laughter…fade.

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Bustin’ Out The Spreadsheet

Reception and Charts:

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  • The album appeared at No. 104 on Sputnikmusic’s list of the “Best Progressive Rock Albums of 2013.”[14]
  • Now What?! sold 4,000 copies in its first week in the US.[15] Six months after its release, Now What?! was certified gold in Germany (100 000 copies sold).[16] It was the first Deep Purple studio album to enter both the Billboard 200 and the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart since The Battle Rages On… in 1993.
  • An acoustic song called “No End To This Party” was worked on during sessions.
  • From Roger’s diary: “ Bob doesn’t think it belongs on the album.   I, Don and IP agree.  Steve and IG hold out for it but are outnumbered.”
  • Roger says that Bob asked him to stay behind a few days for the mixing as he would like his input. Roger said he didn’t want to be involved and that he trusted Bob and Corky to do the mix.
  • Bonus Track “It’ll Be Me” written by Jack Clement appeared on the deluxe version
  • Songs that didn’t make the album include:
    • Mentioned in Roger’s Diary:
    • No End to this Party, Bob thought it didn’t belong on the album
    • First Sign of Madness, Roger said it wasn’t quite ready
    • Roger Glover: “It’s very difficult to come up with good hard rock without sounding like a parody of yourself. I think we have achieved it.” 

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Lothar

What is this??? Luge

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