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Iron Butterfly
Navy towns are always great places for Rock bands. While you get OJT
playing in clubs for sailors the only real requirement is to play loud. In
San Diego in the mid '60s the Iron Butterfly came together. They were a
five-man group with organist/vocalist/leader Doug Ingle, vocalist Darryl
DeLoach, guitarist Danny Weiss, bassist Jerry Penrod and drummer Ron Bushy.
They ventured to LA in '67 and after attracting a strong local following
recorded their first LP "Heavy" for ATCO Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic).
This LP has some outstanding Rock tracks. "Unconscious Power," "Gentle As It
Seems," and "Stamped Ideas." It also includes the psychedelic influenced,
heavy sounding "Iron Butterfly Theme." It was a very strong start that was
almost the finish. Following recording Weiss, Penrod and DeLoach left and
ATCO wasn't sure they were going to release the album.
Ingle and Bushy decide to press on and held auditions hiring Lee Dorman for
bass and 17 year old Erik Brann on guitar. This edition of the band hit the
road and ATCO became convinced there really was an Iron Butterfly and
released "Heavy" which went gold.
In early '68 the band entered a New York studio to work on their second
album. "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, (Ingle's intoxicated slur of "In the Garden of
Eden")." The song had started out as a short little number but Iron
Butterfly relied heavily on solos. They were added until there was an organ
solo, two back to back guitar solos (one with a fuzz box and the second
using a wah-wah peddle) and the classic drum solo that has African rhythm
influences and was recorded out of phase to give it a unique sound.
Following the drum solo there's a haunting church-influenced organ solo
(Ingle's dad was a church organist), a wailing souls section (all sorts of
distorted guitar string scrapping that Brann concocted) then back to the
"Vida" riff and end. It took 17:05-the whole second side of the album.
Selling more than three million copies and convinced Jimmy Page that his new
group Led Zeppelin should not just play acoustic Rock ala Joni Mitchell but
should go harder, which they did.
"Vida" became so big it not only overshadowed everything else on the record
("Termination" and "Are You Happy" are hard Rockers) it obliterated just
about everything the band did before or after. "Vida" first became an
underground hit getting play on the emerging FM radio stations then surfaced
into the mainstream. The album spent over two years on the Billboard charts.
The band was being credited for creating Heavy Metal.
The final album with the original core group "Metamorphosis" was powerful
finish. Brann was out and replaced by two guitarists, Mike Pinera formerly
of Blues Image and Larry Rhinehart, a southern rocker friend of the Allmans.
"Easy Rider," is a great chord driven Rock song. "New Day" and "Stone
Believer" are two more outstanding tracks. By this time Ingle had had it an
d announced he was quitting during the European tour (Yes was the opening
act). Without the group's main songwriter and singer how could the band
continue? It didn't but in the mid 70's Brann got together with Bushy to
revive the Iron Butterfly for two forgettable LPs. The only interesting
thing about this version of the group was bassist Phil Kramer who later got
into computers and suddenly, mysteriously, disappeared. His was found in a
Malibu canyon four years later. Apparently, he had driven off the road and
to an untimely death.
While "Vida" is there best known song (there's no doubting or fighting it)
there is more to the Iron Butterfly especially on "Heavy" and
"Metamorphosis." Ingle, Dorman and Bushy, along with Eric Barnett continue
to tour.
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