Wild Crazy Stuff! I did not know that.

Always thought it was Frank Zappa's own studio that burnt down. But now you know the real story.

Classic 'Water' helps Gillan stay afloat
August 29, 2006

It's funny that Ian Gillan is touring as "the voice of Deep Purple." Quite frankly, we'd forgotten the band's signature tune had words beyond the chorus. But what a tale they tell.
"Smoke on the Water" is easily one of the most famous guitar riffs in rock 'n' roll. It's basic, easy and primal -- which is why it's one of the first things teenage boys figure out in the rite of passage of learning to play an electric guitar.
Its simplicity is borne of the fact that, like so many cultural sensations, so little thought went into writing it. The song was a trifle the hard-rock band knocked out early in the troubled 1971 sessions for the album "Machine Head." It wasn't even released as a single until that album had been out for a year. It reached No. 4, and it's been a touchstone ever since.

It's even a true story, a simple account of something that happened on the eve of the recording sessions -- 35 years ago:
We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shorelineTo make records with a mobile. We didn't have much time.
In December 1971, Deep Purple had arrived in Montreux, Switzerland, to record their album, using "a mobile" recording studio rented from the Rolling Stones. The work would take place in the Montreux Casino ("the gambling house").
Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place aroundBut some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground.
The night before the band was set to record, the casino hosted a concert by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. During the show, a Swiss fan ("some stupid") allegedly fired a flare gun into the ceiling of the theater. The theater and casino burned to the ground. (The Zappa show wound up on some bootlegs later.)
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky.Smoke on the water.
The band was staying at a hotel on Lake Geneva on the opposite shore from the casino. The "smoke on the water, fire in the sky" is what they saw. Bass player Roger Glover says the title phrase came to him several days later.
They burned down the gambling house. It died with an awful sound.Funky Claude was running in and out, pulling kids out of the ground.
"Funky Claude" refers to Claude Nobs, director of the Montreux Jazz Festival, who was "running in and out" helping audience members escape the fire.
When it all was over, we had to find another place.Swiss time was running out. It seemed that we would lose the race.
The band went in search of "another place" to record, the mobile equipment in tow. Nobs secured them into a theater. Neighbors complained about the racket and police shut them down, but not before they had laid the basic tracks for a new song, so far without any lyrics.
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky.Smoke on the water.
Those tracks would become "Smoke on the Water." Gillan originally shrugged off the song's title, saying people would think it was a drug song. "Only later did it suggest itself as the vehicle by which we could tell the story of the fire," Glover has said. The guitar riff sealed the deal.
We ended up at the Grand Hotel. It was empty, cold and bareBut with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside making our music there.With a few red lights an' a few old beds, we made a place to sweat.No matter what we get out of this, I know ... I know we'll never forget.Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky.Smoke on the water.
They "ended up at the Grand Hotel" and created a makeshift studio out of the "cold and bare" hallways and stairwells and finished the record, released the following year and entering the U.S. Top 10 in 1973 based on the success of "Smoke."
Thomas Conner