Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. Today’s essay has everything to do with the laws of physics. An object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest stays at rest. And let’s not forget the most important one of all: A band who can get back together WILL get back together…or something like that. Yes, this week we will be exploring the mother of all metal reunions, Deep Purple. Long before Carcass, At the Gates, and all your other hip underground favorites reunited (and before they even formed for that matter), your grandparents were lining up to be first to the barrier for this nostalgia tour. And what a tour it was. Not just because the Mk. II lineup of Purple was back for the first time in over a decade, but because they had put out an album of new music that was as equally excellent as their classic work, if not better. That album was Perfect Strangers. So sit back, relax, and crack open a cold one as we unpack the greatest reunion album of all time.
In the 8 years that had passed since Deep Purple’s 1976 breakup, A LOT had changed, not just in their own creative worlds, but metal as a whole. The NWOBHM had now come and gone, giving way to genres like thrash metal, power metal, and black metal, all of which were pushing full steam ahead. To say that Purple were “dinosaurs” in comparison to the likes of Metallica and Bathory would be an understatement. Yet despite their age and collective inactivity, the members of Purple never went away. In fact, most of them used the NWOBHM as a way of weathering the storm and remaining relevant among young headbangers.
Keyboardist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice joined Mk. III singer David Coverdale in Whitesnake, which was more or less a continuation of Purple itself initially. The band specialized in the bluesy, soulful hard rock heard on Burn (1974) and Stormbringer (1974), achieving great success in Europe and Asia, but little headway stateside. Meanwhile, classic singer Ian Gillan folded his namesake band after six critically acclaimed albums over the same issue, drunkenly opting instead to join his mates in Black Sabbath, who were still an arena headliner on both sides of the Atlantic. The result was 1983’s Born Again, a black sheep masterpiece of intoxicated proportions, but more on that in another entry.
Surprisingly, it was bassist Roger Glover and enigmatic guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who saw the greatest success of all with Rainbow. After three albums of swords and sorcery themed proto-power metal, Rainbow pivoted gears to a more commercial friendly hard rock/AOR sound. It paid off. Starting with 1979’s Down to Earth, Rainbow scored a slew of rock radio hits, many of which receive regular airplay to this day. “Since You Been Gone”, “I Surrender”, “Stone Cold”, “Street of Dreams”: By now, you know these songs like the back of your hand. Yet despite Rainbow now reaching arena headline status worldwide, even Blackmore saw the writing on the wall. His best chance of selling the most records, playing to the most people, and ultimately making the most money, was not as the mastermind of Rainbow, but as the guitarist of Deep Purple.
But this reunion didn’t happen overnight. In fact, to trace the roots of the Deep Purple reunion, we have to go back in time four years earlier to 1980. At this point, every member’s respective band was doing quite well. There was no need to rehash the past when they were creating fresh, new music that stood toe to toe with the finest acts of the NWOBHM. So you could only imagine the collective shock when out of the blue, Purple announced a series of reunion shows in Mexico. Perhaps the biggest shock of all came to the members of Purple themselves, who literally had nothing to do with said “reunion shows”. Confused? Allow me to elaborate.
In 1980, a shady management group decided to capitalize on the Deep Purple name by assembling a fake version of the band. This version featured original Purple singer Rod Evans, backed by four hired guns who had toured a few years earlier as a bogus version of Steppenwolf. I guess by now this group thought these late 60s/early 70s hard rock acts were irrelevant enough that they could capitalize on their likeness without getting caught. After all, this was pre-internet. All that was missing from this hoopla was a bogus Iron Butterfly, but I digress.
In Evans’ defense, he did sing on Purple’s first hit single, “Hush”. However, this 1980 “reunion” saw Evans and company taking on songs from the subsequent Mk. II and Mk. III eras…and poorly at that. Word traveled fast. The few shows they duped promoters into ended in riots, and ultimately, legal action from Blackmore, Paice, and Lord. By the end of the summer of 1980, Evans and his co-conspirators were ordered to pay roughly $672,000 for this little stunt. With today’s inflation, that’s a little under $2.3 million. So Evans signed over his rights to the Purple catalog and has been exiled ever since, becoming a mere footnote in metal history. And that was the end of that…until the “unthinkable” happened.
“Destiny brought them together. Again.” That was the tagline being used to promote Deep Purple’s long awaited reunion album, Perfect Strangers. Although it wasn’t “destiny”. It was money. Lots of it. It was also a shared interest in making sure that something like the 1980 Evans debacle never happened again. God forbid original bassist Nick Simper came out of the woodwork and attempted his own version of Purple. Turns out the various iterations of hair metal bands who tour the county fair circuit aren’t anything new after all.
Amazingly enough, Perfect Strangers saw these now middle aged musicians put their egos aside for one album to create a work of brilliance. If they were gonna do this, they were gonna do it the right way. Purple had to keep up with the times, but without losing that “Purple-ness” which made them so beloved in the first place. I’ve always felt Perfect Strangers hit the nail on the head in this respect. It sounds as huge and arena ready as Scorpions’ Love at First Sting and Judas Priest’s Defenders of the Faith, both released that same year. But when it comes down to the arrangements, approach, and musicianship, it’s classic Purple.
The album opens with the towering “Knocking at Your Back Door”: A 7 minute ode to…uhhhhh…you know…”butt stuff”. Most songs written about this taboo subject are bluesy and appropriately dirty (i.e. The Doors’ “Back Door Man”, Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”, etc.) Leave it to Purple to go the exact opposite route, crafting a multi-faceted suite consisting of neoclassical soloing, dramatic keys, and a tense atmosphere. Despite its lengthy runtime, questionable lyrics, and musical intricacies, “Knocking at Your Back Door” managed to become a rock radio and MTV smash, thanks to its anthemic melodies and chorus, pulled straight out of the “Smoooooookkkee on the waaatteerrr!” playbook.
“Under the Gun” keeps the intense metallic drive going. I’ve always found Purple’s style of metal to be dark. Not the “doom and gloom, nuclear holocaust” darkness of Black Sabbath, or even the “bow to down to our infernal alien overlords” darkness of Blue Öyster Cult. Think “an 18th century composer maniacally writing his next masterpiece under the light of the moon and a melting candle” dark. That’s the exact feeling I get when listening to “Under the Gun”. I’ll bang my head and singalong every time, while simultaneously shivers run up and down my spine.
On “Nobody’s Home”, another rock radio hit, the band showcases their penchant for bluesy, groove laden jams, not heard since the days of “Lazy” and “Rat Bat Blue”. It’s a fun, lighthearted rocker, and easily the most accessible track on the album. Side A’s closer, “Mean Streak” is very bluesy in spirit as well, but with that dark, heavy edge heard on “Knocking at Your Back Door” and “Under the Gun”. Gillan even reprises his legendary shrieks, which he pulls off with ease. Look out Halford and Dickinson! The king is back to reclaim his throne!
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by another lengthy piece in the title track. “Perfect Strangers” boasts a startlingly haunting atmosphere. Its combination of doomy riffs, hypnotic vocals, driving rhythms, and ambiguous lyrics (inspired by Michael Moorcock’s Elric series) lie somewhere between poignantly melancholic and beautifully depressing. This is all the more reason the proceeding “A Gypsy’s Kiss” is the perfect palette cleanser. Having pioneered speed and thrash metal a decade earlier with “Speed King”, “Fireball”, and “Highway Star”, among other classic cuts, “A Gypsy’s Kiss” saw the band pushing the musical speedometer to maximum force yet again. Good luck not headbanging to this one!
One thing Purple isn’t known for is ballads. Sure there’s the occasional “Child in Time” (more an “epic” than a “ballad”) and “Soldier of Fortune”, but this isn’t a band known for writing deep (no pun intended), passionate odes of love and its ultimate heartbreak. Which is what makes “Wasted Sunsets” such an anomaly. This is a truly moving ballad straight from the heart and soul, very reminiscent of those being released by Gary Moore and Whitesnake at the time. It may be slow and delicate, but by no means does it derail the pace of the album.
This brings us to the grand finale, and one of my favorite Purple songs ever for that matter, “Hungry Daze”. With its shocking staccato riffing which opens the song, we know we’re in for a treat. On this classically tinged slab of heaviness, Gillan reminisces about the band’s “Hungry Daze”, or early years. He even makes a reference to their most famous song, “Smoke on the Water”, with the lyrics, “We all came out to Montreux, but that’s another song.” Just as dramatically as it enters, it exits, leaving us wanting more.
All in all, Perfect Strangers was a massive success, spawning three rock radio hits and selling over 3 million copies worldwide. Its accompanying tour was a smash as well, culminating in a headline performance at the famed Knebworth in 1985. Joining them for this star studded, day long affair was fellow veterans UFO and Mountain, reigning titans Scorpions, newcomers Alaska and Mama’s Boys, and American heavyweights Blackfoot and Meat Loaf.
Unfortunately, the honeymoon would end as quickly as it came together. 1987’s The House of Blue Light paled in comparison to Perfect Strangers, both critically and commercially. Gillan would unceremoniously depart not long after, only to return a few years later, which then led to Blackmore’s ultimate departure in 1993. Deep Purple have soldiered on since, with Steve Morse on guitars and veteran keyboardist Don Airey taking over for the late Lord. But no matter how great these post-reunion efforts may be, none will come close to the brilliance of those five old friends who had since become strangers, reconvening and conjuring the spirit of the “Hungry Daze” on Perfect Strangers.