There are so many classic rock tracks that have become influential over the years, and Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” (off their massively popular Machine Head album) is one of them. The track was supposedly written in the back of a van to show off to a journalist how easy it was for the band to write songs. They actually ended up performing the song on stage for the first time later that night.

Ian Paice (drummer for Deep Purple) doesn’t get enough credit for how influential he’s been to the drummers who’ve come after him, but a quick listen to the isolated drums on “Highway Star” will show that the guy is and was a true monster player.

1) Listen to the sound of the drums closely. The snare sounds pretty good, but the kick is definitely floppy sounding (not the tight sound that we mostly use today), and the toms are very small sounding, thanks to the fact that there was still only limited mics used on the drums during recording in 1971.

2) The drums are mostly in mono, except for a very slight pan of the toms, which might’ve been from leakage.

3) Speaking of leakage, there’s a lot of it here, which doesn’t hurt the end product one bit. Just another example of how leakage can be your friend.