Danger, devastation, and chaos were all there in the actual incident that Deep Purple used as inspiration for its most well-known song, the 1971 classic rock standard “Smoke on the Water.” Arriving in Montreux, Switzerland, to record an album, the band saw the major casino complex burn to the ground after a flare gun went off during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. No one was killed in the ensuing mayhem and frantic rush for the exits, but it was a deeply moving experience for Deep Purple.
The Montreux casino incident wouldn’t register as a full-on tragedy for the band, but that didn’t mean they always escaped trauma that would alter their lives. As the years wore on, members of Deep Purple would continue to experience the worst of life while trying to churn out hard rock standards like “Hush,” “Woman from Tokyo,” and “Kentucky Woman.”
For years, a bizarre urban legend circulated about founding Deep Purple member Ian Paice — that he had one lung, with doctors surgically removing the other as a result of childhood medical calamity. The rumor persisted in part due to Paice’s habit of performing shirtless, allowing fans a glimpse at a large chest scar. The part about a complete lung removal is false; the part about childhood medical trauma is true.
“I have more than one lung. I do not have two lungs. I don’t have two complete lungs,” Paice explained to Deep Purple Hub (via Deep Purple Fan Forum). In 1954, 6-year-old Paice moved to the United Kingdom with his British parents, having previously lived in Germany due to his father’s work post-World War II. “In Germany we were living in a very nice centrally heated apartment, and living very well. When we came back to England we came back to the reality of post-war Britain which was basically bust and broke, and we went to a house where there was no central heating and it was cold and drafty,” he said. As a result, Paice developed pneumonia, which worsened to the point where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis — not an easily treatable disease in the 1950s. A resulting surgery took away the infected parts of his left lung, including its lower lobes, and gave him his recognizable scar.
