‘Never Before’ is the fourth track from Deep Purple’s sixth studio album Machine Head, which was released in March 1972. It was the band’s most successful album and is regarded as one of the key albums in the development of hard rock/metal.
Seeking to capture on record their powerful live sound, the band initially planned to record at the renowned Montreux Casino (Switzerland), a popular rock venue with a great sound. Unfortunately, during Frank Zappa’s concert – which was the venue’s final concert of the year – a fan let off a flare gun causing the club to burn to the ground. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but the band was forced to relocate the recording of the album to a theatre in the town centre. After laying down just one track on the first evening, they were evicted due to the noise, finally ending up in the empty Grand Hotel, with the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording studio parked outside. The story of the fire at the Montreux Casino was immortalised by the band in the song ‘Smoke on the Water’ – apparently the morning after the gig bassist Roger Glover awoke mumbling the phrase ‘smoke on the water…’ to himself.
‘Never Before’ was the first single to be released from Machine Head, but was not a huge chart success, reaching only number 35 in the UK charts. It was somewhat overshadowed by the success of ‘Smoke on the Water’ when it was released a year later in 1973. ‘Never Before’ was consequently performed live very rarely, although it can be heard on the live album Deep Purple in Concert. The song features a fantastic - and very challenging - bassline from Roger Glover. Played with the pick, it includes all of the elements of a great classic rock line: a chunky pick tone, big unison riffs, and melodic lines that weave in and out of the chord progressions.
When learning this piece, you might find the following courses (all included in the monthly subscription cost) useful:
A transcription (with TAB and without) is available for this course. To download it, please visit the Free Stuff page.
This course is 43 MINUTES long and contains the following videos, each of which can be selected from the video player above:
This video is a demonstration of the song performed with a plectrum on a 1966 Fender Jazz Bass strung with stainless steel Rotosound strings.
This lesson will demonstrate how to play the intro section, which features a simple two-bar bass riff that is repeated eight times.
This video covers the first verse section in detail. This section has a great line, one that will be reused for all of the subsequent verses.
In this lesson you’ll learn to play the bass part from the first chorus. The line becomes much more active at this point and outlines the chords very effectively.
This lesson covers the second chorus, which is played over the same chords as the previous one, but with a slightly different bassline.
In this lesson we’ll be looking at the middle 8 section. The bass plays a ‘pedal tone’ here, remaining on a C whilst the chords above change.
This lesson will show you how to play the guitar solo section, which is supported by a relatively simple repeating bassline.
This chorus is similar to the previous two, although with further melodic variations. Once again, the bassline very clearly outlines the chord progression.