11. From Underground Cafés to the Kremlin: Deep Purple’s Influence on Russian Hard ‘n’ Heavy Music Behind the Iron Curtain
Who Do We Think They Are? - Deep Purple and Metal Studies - Andy R. Brown
Dawn Hazle [+]
University of Nottingham
Description
Dawn Hazle, in Chapter 11, explores Deep Purple’s influence on Russian hard rock and metal music behind the iron curtain in the Soviet era. The extent and range of this influence became worldwide public knowledge in 2008, when Dmitrii Medvedev, then president-elect of Russia, met with members of the band at a concert held at the Kremlin, an event organised by the Russian state-owned gas company, Gazprom, of which he was chairman. A year prior to this, Medvedev had revealed to RIA Novosti, a Russian state supported media outlet, that he collected original vinyl LPs by Deep Purple. In 2011 Medvedev invited the band to his residence for a press conference before their concert at the Moscow Olympic Stadium and afterwards continued to chat with the band members.19 Just as significant and in many ways more important is the fact that many Soviet-era musicians have stated their love of Deep Purple, including the rock band DDT and the popular Russian metal bands Aria, Kruiz and Chernyi Kofe. But, as Hazle states, the fact that Deep Purple’s music made it across the Iron Curtain at all is, itself, remarkable. The main part of her chapter, after setting out the circumstances of the Cold war that led to the consolidation of the Soviet state system, explores the restricted situation for musicians in terms of what they could publicly play, the censorship of lyrics, the restriction of musical styles and ‘live’ stage performances, which created a division between official music and the underground. Officially registered groups played official music at official venues and were paid the professional rate. Unofficial groups were unregistered, unpaid and remained underground. This did not stop them from releasing songs and albums on tape, performing concerts in apartments and basements, and having larger fan bases than the official bands. In this way hard rock and metal music started out as an underground, stimulated by shared and smuggled, copied and sold, albums and tapes, derived from the Western rock and metal scene, by fans and musicians who then began to replicate the songs and styles of their favourite bands, from the Beatles to Purple, leading to the development of their own repertoire. Thus, as Hazle states, rock music started as unofficial, but its popularity forced the State to allow a form of official rock music radio to disseminate its sound, which inevitably resulted in the sanctioning of ‘live’ concerts and even festivals, headlined by heavy rock and metal bands.