Eddie Van Halen revealed two of his favourite Deep Purple songs
The late Eddie Van Halen loved a variety of music, ranging from the likes of Canned Heat and Led Zeppelin. Never afraid to speak his mind, the Dutchman offered a variety of takes in his time and was as capable of delivering high praise as he was scathing put-downs.
One band he was enamoured with, however, was the British hard-rock legends Deep Purple. Although he enjoyed the group throughout their different chapters – also known as ‘Marks’ – in the early days, it was their resident guitar hero, Ritchie Blackmore, who really kicked the teenage Van Halen’s imagination into gear. Throughout his career, Van Halen was even kind enough to list his favourite songs by Deep Purple, beginning with 1972’s ‘Smoke on the Water’, a track taken from Machine Head.
Complete with Blackmore’s iconic riff, frontman Ian Gillan’s tale of the storied fire at Montreux Casino and the anthemic chorus, the song was a worldwide hit for Deep Purple, with Machine Head their most commercially successful album.
Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2011, Van Halen discussed some of the guitarists who inspired him, and in the conversation, he named Blackmore as one, with ‘Smoke on the Water’ used as an example of his brilliance. He said: “Ritchie Blackmore I liked because of his vibrato bar use on Deep Purple in Rock (1970). Also, they come out with great riffs. I mean, come on, ‘Smoke on the Water’ is one for the history books.”
Elsewhere, when speaking to Billboard in 2015, Van Halen reflected on some of his favourite guitar riffs of all time. There, he mentioned ‘Burn’ from the 1974 album of the same name as one. He said: “There are millions of riffs that I can kind of crack my brain trying to think. And obviously I can’t mention any of my own, right? (Laughs)”.
He continued by detailing what constituted a good guitar riff to him: “Just the power. The sheer… it just engulfs you, it makes you vibrate.”
Burn was the first album of the ‘Mark III’ era, featuring frontman David Coverdale on vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass. The two replaced Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, respectively, and this saw Deep Purple move away from the hard rock of their early days and into a more boogie-oriented sound. Regardless of this stylistic shift, the album reached number three in the UK and nine on the Billboard 200 in the US.
Listen to ‘Smoke on the Water’ below.
