Before Deep Purple’s concert in Calgary on August 31, frontman Ian Gillan was reunited with an old friend, bringing an incredible chapter of rock history full circle more than 50 years later.
Tucked beside the King Eddy stage sits the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio (RSM), the very truck where Gillan and his bandmates recorded their seminal 1972 album, Machine Head, which includes “Smoke on the Water,” one of the most recognizable rock songs ever written. Walking back into that space meant standing before the same mixing desk his band used all those years ago.
Built in 1968 and conceived by Rolling Stones tour manager Ian Stewart, the RSM changed what was possible with recorded music by allowing bands to capture sound wherever they could park it. That flexibility became essential when Deep Purple arrived in Montreux, Switzerland in 1971, only to watch the venue where they were set to record burn down during a Frank Zappa concert the night before. Gillan remembers the flare that started it all sailing past him, and the wooden building catching fire almost instantly. With nowhere left to record, the band turned to the mobile studio or “the rolling truck Stones thing” that was later immortalized in the lyrics for “Smoke on the Water.”
Machine Head’s most famous track was nearly an afterthought. Gillan recalls recording what became “Smoke on the Water” during a soundcheck late in the sessions, after engineer Martin Birch told the band they were seven minutes short of an album. They wrote lyrics telling the story of the fire and the scramble that followed, building them around a track nicknamed the “Dan Dan song” for its iconic riff. Barely anyone paid attention until a Warner Bros. executive saw the crowd’s reaction when the band performed it live and pushed for an edited single, helping turn it into one of the most played rock songs in history.
More than 50 years later, the RSM is still doing exactly what it was built to do: recording new music and making history. Watch Gillan reflect on just how much history is parked inside that truck, now in its new home.
