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As we left off in our “The House of Blue Light” episodes Ian and Roger were drained after recording the album and Glover had the perfect idea to recover from studio burnout: recording another album!
Glover: “I was living alone in my house in Connecticut and Ian came over and stayed for quite a long while, I think it was a large chunk of the summer of ‘86. It was a long, hot summer and I don’t think we quite achieved the objective but along the way we realised that we liked writing odd stuff together. In Episode Six, in the sixties, we were a songwriting partnership but when we joined Deep Purple we sort of gravitated to our own particular areas; although we still wrote some lyrics together, he developed his own direction and style of writing and singing while I concentrated more on the bass guitar and writing music. To a certain extent, that summer we rediscovered our former selves again.”
Glover described the experience as being very freeing, exploring their musical roots, and consuming large quantities of alcohol and other sorts of ‘inspiration’ around. Of that Glover says, “I’ll say no more.”
They brought very little with them to Monsterrat. Ian brought harmonicas and they both brought acoustic guitars. Glover also brought his Hondo LLonghorn bass, a Fender Strat, a Linn drum machine, a Yamaha QX-1 sequencer and a Yamaha DX-7. They had no computer.
Glover, in Kerrang: “Our reason for making the album was to have a good time and to do something people wouldn’t expect from us, and do something we couldn’t within the confines of DeepPurple.”
Ian, in the same Kerrang article: “When you think about it, Purple have always thrived pretty much on diversity. Jon Lord did his Concerto and I did ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’ It’s good because it keeps the frustrations away. You can let loose with your own ideas.”
All tracks written by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover except where noted.
The first phase was recorded in Montserrat including Clouds and Rain, Evil Eye, She took My Breath Away, Dislocated, Via Miami, and I Thought No (as well as some tracks later released as bonus content).
The second phase was done at The Power Station in New York where they assembled musicians and recorded “I Can’t Dance To That,” “Can’t Believe You Want To Leave,” and “Telephone Box” as well as bonus content.
Side One:
Clouds and Rain
Done in the first phase of recording.
Evil Eye
Done in the first phase.
Built over an African-inspired chant. Glover said it was the first song that was inspired by their surroundings while recording.
She Took My Breath Away
First phase.
Virgin wanted to make this the first single on it but Gillan didn’t like the idea and favored Dislocated instead.
Dislocated
This was written the very first day in Montserrat.
Glover said this song set the mood for their time in Montserrat.
Glover described this track as “wacky.”
Gillan said, “It has one of the best bass lines I’ve ever heard, so simple and wonderful. Lyrically it makes no sense at all, but as the whole concept was ‘off the wall’ we thought it would be a reasonable representation of the whole album.”
Via Miami
First phase.
Glover compares this to Stray Cats as being “Elvis-inspired.”
Side Two:
I Can’t Dance To That
First song recorded during second phase in New York.
Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave (R. Penniman)
Featuring Dr. John
Cover of a Little Richard track.
They said Dr. John was supposed to show up at 3pm but didn’t show up until almost 6pm. They were getting annoyed because he lived very nearby. Dr. John explained he’d been in New Orleans and just got back the night before.
Song was recorded live in the studio. Gillan said it “still sends shivers up and down my do-dabs.”
Lonely Avenue (D. Pomus)
Appeared on the “Rain Man” soundtrack.
Telephone Box
Reached No.l 15 on the US Billboard charts
Ian tells a story of how on the last Purple tour and Roger decided to take a luxury bus instead of a plane. He sid a friend went to use the toilet on the bus and there was a phone in there. He asked if he could call home but they told him it was an internal phone and could only call the driver. The friend said, “Who wants to live in a telephone box!” That gave them the idea for the song.
I Thought No
First phase.
Everything on this is played by Glover and Gillan. Gillan on guitar and harmonica, Roger on bass, piano, and drums.
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After all of the recording they flew back to Montserrat to mix the album then went on tour. They weren’t happy with the mixes they had so at the end of the tour they returned to the Power Station with Nick Blagona and mixed the album.
Gillan said there was a lot of skepticism or cynicism about their motives behind doing this album but both said it was just some fun.
They went back to New York to work on overdubs when Ritchie broke his thumb.
Accidentally on Purpose probably kept Ian and Roger sane at the time. That has to be why it sounds so gleeful. They needed this. Does a Deep Purple fan “need” this? No. But they’d find some good times here regardless.
Gillan in Kerrang: “I’m sure we will piss of a lot of Deep Purple fans who will buy our album thinking they’ll hear watered down Deep Purple, or something, but we don’t want to do that.”
From liner notes:
Gillan: “We kind of moved on after this record. However I look back on it with great affection and certainly consider it one of the top five records of my career.
“It’s the chemistry or more accurately the alchemy that turns the ingredients into gold. When you remove Paice, Lord and Blackmore from the equation and put two old mates together on a Caribbean Island (Montserrat) to write and then to NYC to record, and then add maestro Nick Blagona into the mix, it’s like getting time off for bad behaviour; you don’t necessarily deserve it, but what wicked fun it can be!”
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I want to hear all the things! Best moment is John not getting murdered by the suspicious woman, your text-review of Whoosh! Of course the first part of the new album and all the other moments.
Excited for the 50th anniversary of Machine Head! March 25, which is also the same date that I’ll be seeing them in Turkey! Looks like the stars align for an amazing show (if it doesn’t get delayed that is) And I suppose the 40th anniversary of Straight Between the Eyes, Magic, Saints An’ Sinners, Hughes/Thrall as well. Also not to brag or anything, but in 2021 I had listened to over 3,000 minutes of this podcast just on Spotify alone (and apparently my favorite song was “King of Dreams” but that’s besides the point). I’m definitely looking forward to more episodes, and seeing as there is so much ground to cover it’s gonna be a fun ride!
The one that sticks with me is the Straight Between the Eyes episode, I’d forgotten how good the album was, cover aside, and realised that it’s aged really well too.
My favorite moment isn’t from any particular episode. It was the fact that the episodes I listened to have turned my opinions around on several records. Also, I enjoy screaming at your ratings in the car – “How the frick can you rate that a 5? What’s wrong with you?” 🙂
A fine year of episodes overall – enjoyed being part of some of the live episodes, however the “Maine Pizzeria Reviews” stands out – as a “5 Dirty Grinder” episode. What a coincidence – ordered out some Japanese tonight – a LOL moment when I saw this menu item -“not rude”
The Turning To Crime originals stream was the highlight for me, that was so much fun! I also enjoyed the variety in the episodes this year, like the Burn isolated tracks or Roger on MTV as well as the recent one on Ritchie’s ES335
I really liked the 2 episodes on The House of Blue Light and the Turning to Crime originals live chat.Getting to comment in real time along with you guys was fun.Oh,it’s always good to hear Nate’s impression of the record label boss.
We finally get to hear the early Whitesnake Albums, which I love. I liked the episodes that are a little outside the box like the Doors smackdown, The Who did it better episode and Blackmore’s Gibson.
The shows about the live albums had just a great atmosphere.
Kev Roberts – (courtesy of his wonderful children: Matthew, Gareth, and Sarah)
Will Porter
Zwopper The Electric Alchemist
Tim “Southern Cross” Johnson
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Universally Speaking: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Podcast
“We are Ben and Sam Townsend, Two (young) Brothers (on a hovercraft) who love to get together, have a beer and talk about all things Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
The podcast dedicated to discussing all things Judas Priest. Your hosts George and Tom are two crazy fans who love drinking beer and talking about metal. Join us every Friday as we dive deep into the songs, the albums, the live performances, the history, and the memories. Stay locked in, and keep defending the faith!
Featuring Joe Lynn Turner, Bruce Kulick, Bob Kulick, Rudy Sarzo, and Simon Wright.
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Well, it looks like I’m on my own.
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Ah, just a spur of the moment thing to add you to my patreon tipees – been listening and and enjoying several of the all album run throughs since the Randy California Purple gig drop. If this reaches you in time, you could use my goth sounding anagram alter ego of – Ashen Lionel Thanks, keep up the good work… looking forward to more Gillan & Whitesnake
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Postcards from the Edge . . . of Maine!
Peter Gardow writes in to follow up on his travels in Maine, searching for lobster and “dirty grinders.”
Worked extensively with Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers,
Most recently, and oddly, he has been working as a missile defense consultant. He also works on the NASA advisory board.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of the Doobie Brothers.
In the Connoisseur Collection liner notes, Simon Robinson says that someone saw this album in a Manchester HMV with a sticker on it saying that the vocals were by Glenn Hughes. The sleeve did not back this up so it must’ve seemed suspicious.
Information on this album is very hard to come by. Simon Robinson writes that he wonders how the Manchester HMV knew Glenn was on it.
In 1978 Al Kooper began working with a group which was going to be named The Hollywood Horns. Richie Hayward of Little Feat was going to be on drums and Jeff Baxter on guitar. Elliott Randall was also going to play guitar in the group.
Glenn Hughes was brought in for vocals.
Hayward was injured in a bike crash three weeks before going into the studio and had to be replaced with studio musicians.
This project fell apart and there was music written by Kooper, Hayward, and Baxter that was never recorded.
Casablanca, the label who bankrolled this project, decided to clean up some of the tapes from the sessions and release them to recoup some of the losses they suffered from this project.
Hughes was unhappy with the way this was handled and asked to remain uncredited on this album.
There wasn’t a huge release with Hughes’s name off the album and it soon became difficult to find.
Dominic Frontiere (born June 17, 1931, New Haven, Connecticut, USA – died December 21, 2017, Tesuque, New Mexico, USA) was an American composer, arranger, and jazz accordionist. He is known for composing the theme and much of the music for the first season of the television series The Outer Limits (1963-1965).
American drummer, Hayward dropped out of art school in the mid-sixties & moved to California. He joined The Fraternity Of Man & then The Factory where he met Lowell George. In 1969 he joined George in the fledgling days of Little Feat, which he remained a member of. Hayward also did a lot of session work, backing diverse artists like Tom Waits, Joan Armatrading, & Robert Plant.
Paulinho Da Costa is a percussionist and started his career playing in various Brazilian ensembles and samba groups. Arriving in the USA in 1973, Paulinho played in Sergio Mendes’ band for four years before becoming one of the most in-demand percussionists of LA’s recording studios in the 1980’s. He has recorded with Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson (on the multi-platinum trilogy of “Thriller,” “Bad” and “Off The Wall”), the multi-platinum and biggest selling soundtrack of all time Various – Saturday Night Fever (The Original Movie Sound Track), Toto, Madonna, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Diana Krall, Claus Ogerman and countless others. Paulinho Da Costa has also sporadically released solo albums for Pablo Records and A&M Records.
Robinson speculates that the title “Four on the Floor” is that there were four tracks left on the floor. That being said Robinson admits to being unaware that this was how manual shift cars are referred to outside of Europe: four (gears) on the floor.
My understanding is that this refers to a 4/4 time signature in electronic, pop, and disco music.
Connoisseur Collection Liner Notes by Simon Robinson
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This week’s episode appears to be blocked in many countries. Oddly Part 1 was not. Click the link below to listen to the audio episode.
But these surprises are surprisingly convincing. Guitarist Steve Morse gets to employ some different playing techniques, Don Airey rolls out a little barrelhouse piano on some of the tracks and drummer Ian Paice sounds assured in the different rhythmic approaches. Gillan, meanwhile, can sing just about anything, so his voice winds up being the best ambassador for this unlikely fare.
The closing “Caught in the Act,” meanwhile, fuses together bits of five ’60s favorites – Jeff Beck Group’s “Going Down,” Booker T. & the MG’s’ “Green Onions,” the Allman Brothers Band‘s “Hot ‘Lanta,” Led Zeppelin‘s “Dazed and Confused” and the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin'” – into a mostly instrumental medley that shows why Mark VIII is one of the group’s best lineups and more potent than most of its Purple predecessors.
My one gripe with Turning To Crime is that the selection of songs was rather predictable in the sense that it makes perfect sense for Deep Purple to cover a track like Cream’s “White Room”. It’s obvious that Deep Purple is targeting their efforts to their most prominent demographic whom they’ve already won over long ago, but I wish the band would’ve taken a different approach — maybe even covering songs from an artist or era that we wouldn’t have necessarily expected.
Despite wanting the band to step a bit outside of their comfort zone, the band’s latest efforts have continued to surprise fans with their level of quality; and I am still incredibly elated that 53 years after the band’s debut in 1968, Deep Purple are still recording and releasing music new (or in this case old), for rock fans of multiple generations to continue to enjoy.
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After listening to the podcast for such a long time, I thought it was time for me to put my money where my mouth is. I’ve just enlisted at the Fielding Fowler level as I thought he could use the company !
I do listen to other podcasts too (none are quite as enjoyable) but one of the other podcasters told me it’s a bit like sending a message in a bottle, which is a good way of putting it. You probably only hear from a fraction of the listeners but I’m sure there are a lot like me who look forward to their Monday DPP episode and your chats about food, drink etc. Oh and the music too.
As an avid Purple fan and connoisseur of their extended family, this podcast is a treat for looking in depth about things I know about and introducing me to new wild bands and meeting of minds that I never would’ve even thought about. (Thought I could wait as long as it takes for the Hughes Turner Project episode to come around because I have no clue how that band was even conceived to be a good idea) But ramblings aside, the hosts are perfect in encapsulating that feeling of listening to a record you heard about for a while but could never find in your stores or just buying a new record and listening to it for the first time and I love that. On top of that THEY’RE HILARIOUS!!! My highlights are Nate’s story about the dog that had muffins fall on it and the James Gang song about being Norwegian. Keep up the god’s work you two are putting in, it’s so dearly appreciated.
Social Media Update:
Sent by Marcelo Soares via Twitter:
The guys from @DeepPurplePod hardly know @GalCosta , but I love her singing since I was a teen and heard this. For me, there was an immediate reference.
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The Gibson ES-335 was the world’s first commercially available semi-hollowbody guitar.
Selmer London began distributing Gibson in the UK. The list of prices for tohe Gibsons were listed in guineas. Converted to pounds the ES-355’s list price was £306.60 ($420.93). That would convert £9.924.71 (or $) in today’s money.
From: (https://meandguitar.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/hush-money/): When Blackmore bought the guitar used in 1962 , its stock stop tailpiece had already been replaced by a Bigsby B5 tremolo, which is actually designed for solidbody guitars. It also still had a short pickguard typical of early Sixties Dot neck ES-335 guitars, although Blackmore remove it a later date, as well as its original black metal-top control knobs, which were swapped for gold knobs sometime after he stopped playing the guitar.
Blackmore used this guitar to record everything from Screaming Lord Sutch’s 1965 cover of “Train Kept A-Rollin” to “Child In Time.
History of Ritchie’s Gibson ES-335:
Ritchie bought the guitar used at Jim Marshal’s music shop in London in 1962. Gibsons had only become available in England in 1960 when they lifted a ban on importing American guitars.
Right from the start of the Deep Purple Mk1 era in 1968, Ritchie Blackmore used his trusty 1961 cherry red Gibson ES-335 TD as main guitar alongside his Vox AC30 and a Hornby Skewes germanium fitted treblebooster. Midway sixties Ritchie modified this guitar with a Bigsby-Vibrato. The Gibson guitar was usually fitted with 2 Gibson PAF Humbucker pickups. In one of the Humbucker’s coils there are 6 adjustable screws installed, one can balance the volume of strings among each other via varying the height. Ritchie now turned the screws uncommonly high so as to get a more P90-like sound. The coil with the screws picks up more voltage than the other. Ritchie will use this guitar on stage until midway 1970. In the studio the guitar stayed with him even longer, at least until the December 1971 “TOTP” TV session.
At the end of 1968, Deep Purple Mk1 was the opening act on the “Cream” tour in the USA. At this time Deep Purple was well known in the USA, but not in their home country England. It was the last tour for “Cream”, before the band felt apart. For Eric Clapton the situation was hard to handle, after Ritchie opened the concerts with his aggressive guitar show, the guitar orientated audience wanted to hear more Blackmore. So after only a few shows, Deep Purple were paid out to leave the tour. During these days, a retired Fender Stratocaster from Eric Clapton was given to Ritchie, and he soon fell in love with the sound. Especially the tremolo caught his eye, Compared to the Bigsby on his Gibson ES-335, this was a real enhancement. Not that Ritchie wasn’t satisfied with his ES-335, even Dave Edmunds (Love Sculpture) the shooting star of the upcoming Hardrock scene played an ES-335 with a Vox AC30. Edmunds by the way left behind most English Hardrock-guitar players with his ultra fast and enormous fluidly played version of “Sabre dance” in 1968.
The combination of ES-335 and Vox AC30 was a “top act”. But since Hendrix arrived on the scene, everyone knew what could be done with a vibrato-system. In spring 1969 Ritchie bought a stock 1968 black maple neck Stratocaster. The 68 Strats still had the two-piece old tremolo construction with the steel inertia bar and the stamped vintage steel saddles. For this tremolo, Ritchie used a special custom-made ¼” (6.3mm) heavy weighted steel arm, to attack the tremolo real hard. The value of the tonecap was stock 0.1uF.
With the entrance of new members Ian Gillan & Roger Glover (better known as the Mk2 formation) as replacements for Evans & Simper Deep Purple’s rise to stardom began. Approximately for a year ES-335 and Strat were sharing equal rights. Typical live songs for the ES-335 were for instance the new “Child in Time” or the old “Wring that neck”. Midway 1970 the ES-335 disappeared from stage. The legendary “Child in time” was recorded in the studio using the ES-335.
At the end of 1970, early 1971 the worn-out frets of his Strat were replaced with the higher Gibson jumbo frets. The maple fretboard was not lacquered afterwards, so it became noticeably darker with time.
2:00 solo trading off with Jon and sweep arpeggios
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Where is the guitar now?
After attending a Hednrix concert in 1970 Ritchie made the decision to try using a Fender Stratocaster, purchasing one from a former roadie for Eric Clapton.
Live Ritchie continued to play the guitar live when they performed “Wring That Neck” until the summer of 1971 when that song was replaced in the set with “Lazy.”
According to Jerry Bloom he did use it once last time to perform “Fireball” on Top of the Pops in December of 1971.
Ritchie claims that his ex-wife Babs stole the guitar from him.
Barbel sold it at an auction at Christie’s in 2004 to a vintage guitar dealer named Laurence Wexer.
Ilhan Akbil purchased the guitar from FrettedAmericana (David Brass) in Calabassas, California. They may have purchased the guitar from Wexer at some point previously.
Huge appreciation to Ilhan for joining us on the show to tell his story of his passion for Deep Purple, Ritchie, and about the guitar.
Blackmore: “The 355 was a good guitar, but it didn’t have the same sound: it was warmer, fuzzier. It would gloss up the notes a bit. With the Strat, if you played a wrong note, everybody heard it. Ultimately, it was a beast well worth taming.”
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I found out about this excellent podcast by accident and I absolutely love it. It’s a great fun listen. I’ve only played a few episodes so have loads to catch up! The House of Blue Light review was interesting. I saw Purple on this tour at Wembley London UK. On that eve Blackmore refused to do an encore! So Lord and Glover played lead. It was definitely an interesting version of Smoke on the water! Having seen Gillan in mind blowing vocal form (the band) live in 81, it was noticeable Ian had sadly lost some of his range/power by 87/88. Overall he was still great. Keep up the great work, thank you!
Lead up to the Album:
This album saw the departure of Ged Peck on guitar with Pete Parks joining the band. Peck left to pursue classical guitar playing.
We talked on our last Warhorse episode about how Rick Wakeman was very briefly in the band but did not make it to any of the recordings. Rick left in April of 1970 to join the Strawbs.
The Warhorse Story Volume 2 liner notes states that the album was released (or as Nick Simper puts it “escaped”) in 1972. There were no singles from this album.
The head of A&R for Vertigo gave the band a 1,500 budget and said “Take your time, do what you want.”
At the end of 1971 they headed to De Lane Lea to record the album.
Part way through the recording Robbie Beck came into the studio to tell them they only had 500 worth of time left. It turns out that the head of A&R had left and not told anybody the budget he’d promised the band.They were able to get a little more money to finish the recording.
The label wanted the album finished head of Christmas so they had to rush to get it done.
Nick apparently went into a tirade about the budgeting issue with some of the “big wigs” at Phonogram and were soon dropped after the album came out in June of 1972.
From The Warhorse Story liner notes: “Red Sea, as the second album was titled, also sported a Vertigo sleeve that was as poorly executed as the first one had been brilliant. The original concept of an ironclad warship had sounded great but the less than professional results look amateurish today.
Ashley Holt’s performance on “Back in Time” was criticized as having been the “unconscious model for the kind of singing” that they parodied in Spinal Tap according to Richie Unterberger on AllMusic.
WARHORSE: “Red Sea” (Vertigo). “. . . this second album cannot fail to establish them in the hierarchy of Europe’s greatest groups” pompously declare the liner notes. That’s a very hard tag to live up to — and Warhorse don’t quite make it, I’m afraid. “Red Sea” is like the curate’s egg: good in parts. But when they’re good, Warhorse are as good, if not better, than most of the bands working in the hard ‘nd heavy rock field. Their greatest asset is lead guitarist Peter Parks who works hard all the time to lift the ordinariness. He’s really missed on tracks like “Feeling Better” where he has to takes backseat. But his long solo in “Back In Time” is a treat; inventive and exciting, sounding at times like Richie [sic] Blackmore’s work on “wring That Neck” on Deep Purple’s “Book Of The Taliesyn” [sic] album. In fact, “Red Sea” does bear comparison with early Purple albums; hardly surprising, as bassist Nick Simper was on of the founder members of that band. Both he and organist Frank Wilson are content to provide backings which gives the other members of the band something to work on. Vocalist Ashley Holt has a hard, gravelly voice which sometimes doesn’t have sufficient punch to carry some numbers — like “Feeling Better” — on its own. Nevertheless, he can do it if he tries: just listen to “Confident But Wrong” and “Sybilla” — the stand out track, with everybody boogieing along like there was not tomorrow, Drummer Mac Poole provides a solid beat throughout, coming into his own on “Mouthpiece,” an extended solo which is just a little too extended for my liking. But that’s the only bit of self-indulgence on “Red Sea.” — M.O.
Soon after this Mac Poole left Warhorse to join a band called Gong. They recruited drummer Barney James and began work on a third album that was never completed. There are bonus tracks on “The Warhorse Story” that were destined for this third album.
This group played their last show in 1974 though original members would take the stage together a few more times over the years for one off reunion gigs.
Rick Wakeman would recruit Ashley Holt and Barney James for his solo albums “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.”
Nick tried to get them to stay with Warhorse, telling them that Rick Wakeman’s projects didn’t last too long, they left.
Two months later Ashley called back about getting back together and he didn’ty have the energy to pick up where they left off. Additionally it was the first time he’d been off the road since the age of 18.
Nick then (with Parks) started up Nick Simper’s Dynamite.
Nick said it was a little galling to sit and watch bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, UFO, and others who had all been opening for Warhorse go on to achieve success as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal really took off.
Simper: “I used to say tot he guys if we sick together long enough, we’ve got a stage act that wipes them out. We had some great times, which is why the band survived for four years, but there were always [problems with managers, publishers. Lots of support bands borrowed from us, both musically and some of our stage act. Judas Priest, all that leather studded arm band stuff, he took that straight of Ashley Holt. He borrowed the bull whip prop too which is fair enough, we nicked if off Dave Dee, they used one for Legend of Xanadu! That guy from Queen, Brian May, he saw us at the Marquee, was a great fan. He borrowed Pete’s solo from the track Back in Time for one of their albums.”
Simon Robinson writes: “Indeed dedicated Queen fans who have heard the Warhorse track agree that the solo on Queen’s Brighton Rock is uncannily similar!”
Robinson concludes: “It’s perhaps all too easy to day to forget just how important the live circuit was back int the ‘70s, both for the bands who played it and the audiences who came to watch and in some cases be influenced by what they saw. Warhorse can be proud of their part in it all.
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