3. Speed King: Setting the Paice
Who Do We Think They Are? - Deep Purple and Metal Studies - Andy R. Brown
Simon Poole [+]
University of the Arts
Description
As Simon Poole importantly notes in Chapter 3, it is Ian Paice’s ‘energising’– not to say ferocious – 242 beats per minute, constant single stroke, double kick sixteenth-note drum intro to Deep Purple’s ‘Fireball’ (1971), that arguably defines the double-kick style that later metal drummers would replicate and advance, notably Simon Phillips’ work on Judas Priest’s Sin after Sin (1977), especially the tracks ‘Call for The Priest’ and ‘Dissident Aggressor,’ and Phil Taylor’s 238bpm power-drumming on Motörhead’s anthemic ‘Overkill’ (1979) – and on into the world of the blast beat in thrash, death metal and grindcore. Yet Paice employed his double-kick pattern only once in the studio and then afterwards in only a few early ‘70s ‘live’ performances as an encore track. Happy with the single-bass drum kit he had bought as a teenager, for Paice it was the intros, fills and trills that highlighted his virtuosity, but never at the expense of the group sound, underlining the maxim that it is not ‘where you put the note, it’s where you don’t put the note.’ Poole argues that it is this disciplined ‘non-attention seeking’ approach by Paice to his work, and drumming for Deep Purple in particular, that goes some way to explaining why his position in the canon of heavy metal drumming is often marginalised, despite the fact that Paice, along with Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, are equally credited with founding the rhythmic rules of the genre. Yet Bonham and Ward have comparatively elevated status, due in part to the mythologising of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath as hard rock and metal pioneers. In addition to this, many of the drummers ranked above Paice, such as Bonham,Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and Carmine Appice, are seen to exhibit a combination of ‘primal, powerful, virtuosic and exhibitionist,’ traits, especially through their on-stage visual performance of virtuosity and/or exhibitionism. In the main part of his chapter Poole seeks to redress this imbalance by framing Paice’s style as drawn between the ‘sparing’ and the ‘flamboyant’ and he does so by examining his intros on nine example tracks from across the Mk2 album output, including the simplicity of ‘Woman from Tokyo’ (1973), to the complexity and flamboyance of ‘Pictures of Home’ (1972), to the choice of ‘a space or not’ that creates the dynamic and colour of the contrasting songs, ‘Black Night’ and ‘Living Wreck’(both 1970). To date, Paice is the longest serving founder member of Deep Purple and a drummer who has influenced a whole host of bands, from Iron Maiden to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Opeth.