late 1971, Deep Purple’s legendary sixth album was due to be recorded at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland, but when the venue burnt down that December, it forced the band to set up the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio at the closed-for-winter Grand Hotel. With the band squatting in a corridor off the lobby amidst a spaghetti-junction of cables, the conditions were hardly befitting of rock royalty, but guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and co would
