Martin Birch

This musical biography tells the story of the making of Deep Purple's classic album "Machine Head. Exclusive interviews with Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, John Lord and Ian Paice take us through a track by track making of the album. The performers demonstrate riffs & licks from the songs and explain the genesis of the songwriting. Also included are featured songs, archive footage of Deep Purple in concert, including American footage of "Smoke on the Water" and "Space Truckin'", TV performances and promotional videos, more.

Deep Purple is one of the most influential and important guitar bands in history, one of the godfathers of the heavy metal genre, with over 100 million album sales worldwide to their name. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Deep Purple's groundbreaking double live album Made in Japan, this documentary explores these recordings and Deep Purple Mark 2, the line-up between 1969 and 1973.

Made in Japan was recorded live over three nights during 15–17 August 1972 at Festival Hall, Osaka and at Budokan, Tokyo, Japan. Four of the tracks come from the album Machine Head which had been released earlier that year. The album was at first seen as somewhat unimportant by the band members, and only Roger Glover and Ian Paice showed up to mix it. The release in the US was delayed, until April 1973, because Warner Bros. wanted to release Who Do We Think We Are first. The three concerts recorded were later released as Live in Japan 3-CD box set (1993). According to the liner notes for that set, unlike many live albums, there are no overdubs or studio additions to the original album.