Roger Glover “The Mask”
From the album Mask, this song was written whilst Colin Hart was driving me to Le Studio, near Montreal. Rainbow had recently recorded there and Nick Blagona, the resident sound engineer, having seen some of my poetry, encouraged me to do a solo album. At first I demurred but he offered me four days of studio time on the understanding that only if something came of it, I would have to pay them. I took with me a few guitars, a sequencer, drum machine, and some half-baked ideas. It became obvious that I needed help so Nick introduced me to two local musicians, Joe Jammer on guitar and Jean Roussel on keyboards, who played on a couple of tracks. Eventually, I completed the album in New York. I couldn’t quite believe that the record company then offered to make a video (it was a time when MTV was huge), so I wrote the storyboard for it. Colin Hart and I flew to Los Angeles where I met some great people who helped make the video. Shot in two locations; the swimming pool of a house overlooking the city, and then at a wild animal training park a couple of hours from LA. I spent an amazing four days pretending that I was a film star. As you know, that fantasy didn’t last long. But the memory has.
RG
2 thoughts on “Roger Glover “The Mask””
once on the radio. I have been thinking of the bridge and chorus of this song a lot lately with things being as they are. I am sort of trying to collect songs I remember from the mid-late 70’s and 80’s, especially songs that are not the same ones you still hear over and over again today on “70’s and 80’s” radio stations – but rather the gems that really take you back (“wow, when’s the last time you heard THIS?”). What an amazing surprise it was to learn that this was your song Mr. Glover — I really had no idea. But how fitting — this is a true story: the first record album I ever bought myself was Deep Purple Machine Head – as an ~8 year old kid at a yard sale circa 1976-1977 – not really aware of the band at the time but I thought it had a really cool looking album cover. 🙂 It was a steal for 25 cents and years later I learned that what I had was the quadraphonic edition of the record. (always wondered why the solos on some of the songs like Maybe I’m a Leo were different on that old record I wore out with my kiddie record player than the CD I bought many years later). To this day Deep Purple has been one of my favorite bands and all of you are among my most respected musicians growing up. Thank you for your music Mr. Glover. Utmost respect.
It’s funny that you should post this today. Just yesterday evening, my wife and I and our 11-year-old son were getting some takeout food from a restaurant near our home in Arizona. As I arrived back at the car with the food, still dutifully wearing my coronavirus mask, my son leaned away from me in the passenger seat and said, “Take off the mask!” That immediately made me think back to your song. I remembered really liking the song when it came out. I asked my son to search for it on the phone and play it. I hadn’t heard the song in many years and only remembered the chorus, so I was surprised when just a few seconds into the song he started laughing hysterically at the line “I was naked by the swimming pool.” I’m sure you can understand how an 11-year-old boy would react to that line! He started rewinding and playing that part over and over, really getting a kick out of it, adding his own additional lyrics (i.e., “swimming pool” became “public swimming pool”). We eventually got to enjoy the entire song, and I found him playing it again this afternoon. He really seems to like the song. I hadn’t planned on trying to contact you about this, but it seemed to be quite the coincidence that you posted this today and thought you might enjoy the anecdote. Thank you for a wonderful family moment. By the way, I had the opportunity to see you in concert with Deep Purple in 1985 in Rochester, NY (near my hometown) and it was an incredible concert. It was especially exciting since the band had just reunited for the first time in more than a decade, and as a twenty-one-year-old at the time, it was my first chance to see Deep Purple live. Thank you Roger for all the years of wonderful music.