I spent days sitting with my old Koss headphones on, analyzing Deep Purple tracks on my old Dansette record player. I had "hot wired" my headphones directly into the speaker output of the amplifier, so I could listen without annoying my parents (or siblings). Of course, when I practiced the drums it was another thing altogether. I shudder to think of the noise I was making practicing in my bedroom (which was over the living room), headphones on, oblivious to anything else that was going on! In the end I was limited to a "window" of time, normally just after I came home from school, and before dinner.
But back to Ian Paice. Most of the early Heavy Rock drummers were all about volume and attitude. But Paice had a certain finesse along with that attitude. I remember going to see Deep Purple at the Rainbow Theatre in the early 70's (one of the many times). Their opening act was Nazareth. They were unbelievably loud (even for a young aspiring rock drummer)! I remember thinking to my self: "If they are that loud, what are Deep Purple going to be like?" Well no-one was more surprised than me when Purple started up with no more than a whisper. True, they built to a crescendo during their set, but what they displayed was a real sense of dynamics & subtlety which totally floored me. It was then that I realised there could be no light without shade, no day without night. Led Zeppelin were masters of this, too. In fact all the great forefathers of today's Heavy Metal genre understood you had to have "quiet bits" to help make the "loud bits" seem louder. Sadly, this has become lost to may of the modern day Metal performers. Now it seems to simply be all about how LOUD they can play.
But back to Ian Paice. His drum solos were legendary. Interestingly enough, for those brought up in the Big-Band era, quite a lot of his solo would be recognizable, because Ian was a huge Buddy Rich fan, and certainly let this particular influence show in his soloing. But for me, the one thing that never ceased to amaze me was his incredible (single) bass drum technique. He managed to achieve, using a single bass drum pedal, what many drummers failed to achieve with TWO! I sat for hours trying to recreate some of his ridiculous kick pedal patterns. It wasn't until much later that I discovered he DID actually use double kick drums on some recordings! That being said, he was STILL the fastest single-kick player around.
What amazed me about seeing Ian play live was the relative ease and smoothness with which he played such amazingly incendiary fills. Of course, his jazz training helped him tremendously. This was also the case with John Bonham, although he took it down a different path altogether (more of that in another posting).
I remember reading an interview in Modern Drummer where Paice cited the single-stroke roll as being his favourite rudiment (plenty of evidence of this in his solo work). Needless to say that got me practicing single-stroke rolls like a maniac. But at least it got me practicing!
I'll leave you with a story: early in 2001, I played the House of Blues in LA with John Jorgenson's electric band (a spinoff from the Hellecasters) opening for the Dixie Dregs (featuring Steve Morse).
It was one of those NAMM show affiliated dates. One of my old buddies is Dregs drummer, Rod Morgenstein (we were both long-term Premier endorsees). We played our 45 minute set and came off stage, and Rod appeared in our dressing room to say "hi" and chew the fat. According to him, Deep Purple (with Steve Morse, of course) were in LA to record an album, and Ian Paice had come down to see the Dregs play. During John's opening number (a tricky little thing with some interesting bass drum work), Ian walked to the front of the stage to get a closer look at exactly what I was doing on the kick drum! Talk about tables turning. Here was the man I idolized for his bas drum technique, watching my right foot like a hawk!
Deep Purple Live in Concert 72/73
Deep Purple - Machine Head
Deep Purple: The Illustrated Biography
Ian Paice
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