Deep Purple–Perfect Strangers

Released on October 29th 1984, the Deep Purple album Perfect Strangers was a reunion of the classic Deep Purple lineup featuring Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover on bass, and the foundation of Jon Lord on keyboards, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Ian Paice on drums.  This was a big music event for me and what would become one of my favorite bands of all time.  It’s hard to believe that it all happened 30 years ago.

It was the Fall of 1984, I had started my senior of high school and my parents and my brother had moved from our longtime hometown of North Platte Nebraska to Hastings Nebraska which was about 150 miles away(or about a 3 hour drive). I elected to stay in North Platte and finish my high school years. My older sister, her husband and my barely year old niece moved into the upstairs and I stayed in my teenage man-cave downstairs.  I wasn’t a rebellious teenage kid. I had a part-time job bagging and stocking groceries in a local grocery store. I was active in various music groups in school and church activities as well.  If I had any vices, it was spending time and money at local record stores.  I was spending my part-time income on records, tapes and rock magazines like Hit Parader and Circus magazine. Another big event in the Fall of 1984 was that the town of North Platte received MTV on their basic cable service. As I write this now, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But, it really was. I had read about this channel that played 24 hours of music videos. Up to that point, if you wanted to see music videos, you had to wait for NBC’s Friday Night Videos or TBS’s Night Tracks. The problem was that this channel that I wanted to see wasn’t available in my house because my parents hadn’t subscribed to cable TV.  They had subscribed in their new home in Hastings. But, I was in North Platte.  So, I spent a lot of time at my friend Kent’s house. I remember hanging out at his house and seeing such videos like Hall & Oates’ You’re Out of Touch, Sammy Hagar’s I Can’t Drive 55 and one that seemed to have a lot of buzz about it was Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers. The reason for the buzz behind this video was because of the reunion of the classic Mark II lineup.

The video had me mesmerized. From the opening shot of the clouds and various aerial shots and then these cars pulling up a country drive followed by quick glimpses of the 5 smiling members starting with Ritchie, John, Ian Gillan, Ian Paice and then Roger Glover. Jon Lord’s Hammond organ swirls as the song progresses as Ian Paice’s drums pulsate. The band is seen playing, recording, socializing, drinking and even playing football(That’s British for soccer). Looking back, this was my introduction to who the band was and the various members. I was hooked.
I didn’t know what to expect from this album. The extent of my Deep Purple knowledge was limited to Smoke on the Water and the album Machine Head. If you read my blog on that album, you know that it had a big impact on me. But, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t have any preconceived notions about how this album should sound.  I don’t remember if I bought the album the day it was released or soon thereafter. I did buy my first copy on cassette(I’ve owned a few different copies of it)  I do remember buying it on a Tuesday and the next day, my friend Aaron Koch and I made a trip to Kearney for the High School Senior visitation day for (then known as) Kearney State College. I had decided in that Spring before that I wanted to attend college there because of the music department at Kearney and I had discovered the great Dustys Records that Spring as well. Aaron and I jumped in his Trans Am or Camaro that Wednesday morning and I asked him to put in the Perfect Strangers cassette. So, we headed down the interstate 80 to Kearney listening to this album. I don’t think this album had the kind of impact on Aaron as it did on me. This album(for me) became THE album of my senior year.
The album was a soundtrack of sorts for that year. I loved the video for Perfect Strangers. I didn’t really know what a “groove” was or what it meant to play a “groove” at the time. But, Ian Paice’s drumming reeled me in and somehow I felt it with his playing. The second single or video that was released was for track 1 on the album known as Knocking at Your Back Door. At the time, I didn’t get the meaning of the song lyrics until some time later. I do remember the video being some kind of artsy Sci-Fi setting where “Civilization is discovered years after the Holocaust”. In the video, we see a bunch helmeted individuals coming across a bunch of musical instruments buried as well as recording equipment and video monitors that eventually get turned on and we finally see concert footage of the band playing the song. It’s really kind of a silly little video. But, this was the early years of 80’s music video. So, the “storyline” of the video is a little hokey. Perhaps it’s a good thing they didn’t follow the suggestive lyrics instead. Deep Purple were a band that had succeeded in the 70’s without the benefit of this marketing tool known as music video.

There was so much great music on the album for me. Of course, there are detractors that say “Oh this wasn’t the Deep Purple of 70’s.” No, it was the Deep Purple of the 80’s. They had all gone on to different projects. Ian Gillan formed his own solo band simply known as Gillan and eventually replaced Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath after a drunken agreement with Sabbath’s Tony Iommi.  Ritchie Blackmore had formed his band Rainbow that introduced Ronnie James Dio, Graham Bonnet and Joe Lynn Turner as lead singers for that band. Bassist Roger Glover had returned to playing with Blackmore in  Rainbow during the early 80’s. Paice and Lord went on to play with David Coverdale in Whitesnake in the late 70’s. Paice even played with guitar great Gary Moore in his time between Whitesnake and the reformed Purple. So, they had taken all the experiences that had and brought them to the table in that 1984 reunion.
My love for record stores was in full swing at this time. I think I made a point to stop at the local record on my way to work (almost) every day. I would pick up my rock magazines and I remember seeing a layout in Circus magazine where a bunch of current rock drummers talked about their drumming influences and a couple of those drummers (like Alex Van Halen and Bobby Blotzer of Ratt) listed Ian Paice as a drumming influence. This only validated that this was a drummer I wanted to know more of and (of course) I did.
This cassette always seemed to be with me. I loved it from point A to point B. In fact, in my Senior English class we were assigned to write a bit of poetry and I went to the lyrics for the song Wasted Sunsets. The opening line says:

The day is gone when the angels come to stay

By the Winter of 85, I knew that this school year was almost over and the “Day would be gone” and I wouldn’t see many of these people ever again. So, I took that first line and used it as an inspiration. I may have used “The Day is gone” as the opening line of the poem. In fact, this may be confession that I used the song lyric as an inspiration. I didn’t see a lot of those people ever again because I loaded up my car and moved the day after graduation that day in late May of 1985.  I still remember some of those last days between Senior classes and the Graduation ceremony hanging out with friends and I had turned on a couple of friends to the sounds of Deep Purple. Years later, when I would fill out one of those silly profiles on a classmates website or another social website, the question would be asked “What group/album reminds you of your Senior year of High School?” This is the first one that always comes to mind and yet it never appears on the list of multiple choices.

Somewhere down the line, I ended up obtaining a promo poster for Perfect Strangers.  I proudly hung it in my new room at the new house in Hastings and I have a few pictures of myself sitting behind my drums and my DP poster displayed proudly behind me.  I would follow Deep Purple and even years later I bought a Video cassette of the videos from this era including songs from their 1987 album House of Blue Light.  One of the videos that was included on this tape was a live version of the song Nobody’s Home.  I’m not sure if I had ever seen the video broadcast on MTV back in the day.

But, it would prompt me to pull out this album once again and relive so many of the memories I’ve written about in this blog. I eventually bought an LP and 2 CD copies of this album.  The album was remastered in the late 90’s and the sound quality was much better than the CD quality I had purchased in the early 90’s. I dial up this album very often on my MP3 player and throw some earphones on and take it all in again and again as the memories come flooding back.
In the Fall of 2013, Eagle Rock video released Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers Live on DVD with a live show from that tour in Sydney Australia. I quickly found the DVD and the video quality is excellent and the playing is top notch as well.  This was the era of Deep Purple that snagged me up and reeled me in. As the lyrics of the title track say:

Can you remember …Remember my name
As I flow through your life
A thousand oceans I have flown
And cold spirits of ice
All my life
I AM THE ECHO OF YOUR PAST

So, it’s been 30 years since I first experienced this album. It has flown through my life and and it is definitely the echo of my past. But, the echoes and memories are ones that will stay with me forever in the music.