It was pure Spinal Tap, a moment of panic.”ĭisastrous … Gillan performing with Black Sabbath in 1984. I was swatting at the air to wave away the smoke. “And as I leaned down to read the first line, the floor lights came on, blinding me. Just one thing: “With all the money being spent, they had never used dry ice at the rehearsals, but then this wall of shoulder high dry ice came out.” And so Gillan was reduced to bending down to try to read the words. At the opening show, Gillan had a notebook with lyrics propped up against the monitors he’d been using it in rehearsals, too. Nevertheless, he duly joined Sabbath for one album, Born Again, and a tour that has passed into legend as one of rock’s most disastrous. We got thoroughly pissed one night and my manager called me the next morning and said, ‘If you’re going to make career decisions, don’t you think we should talk it through first?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, Apparently you agreed to join Black Sabbath last night.’ I couldn’t remember any of it.” “I was having a drink with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler. But we do pass messages, and the atmosphere is quite good.”īut he’s been perfectly capable of making bizarre decisions on his own, often in the past with the aid of alcohol. “Ritchie has nothing electronic in his house – no computers, no telephones, nothing like that. “We were both arseholes,” Gillan says, adding that the pair communicate these days albeit with difficulty. Certain things have a natural lifetime, and unless they’re refreshed by a change in personnel or circumstances, they become tired, and I don’t want any part of that.” In his various spells with Purple, change has often been wrought by the caprices of their former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who eventually left the band to become a medieval minstrel. “I’ve seen many musicians who have stayed with a sinking ship when their time has gone. A few years here, then on to something else.
Not least because he continues to front Deep Purple, who have just released Whoosh!, their 21st album, to some of the best reviews they have had in ages, from some of the unlikeliest publications: even NME called it “ludicrously flamboyant”.įor much of his career, Gillan didn’t hang around. Which is unfortunate, because almost everyone who knows his work would describe Gillan as a hard-rock singer. The birth of headbanging … Gillan with Deep Purple in 1973. Perhaps it is with that range of activities in mind that he asserts: “I never describe myself as a hard-rock singer.” We were a pop group, a vocal harmony group”), Jesus on the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar (Tim Rice later asked him to play General Peron in the first production of Evita), the singer of Deep Purple in three separate periods over 51 years (with whom, in his first spell from 1969-73, he apparently invented headbanging), fronted several of his own bands (one of them playing jazz rock), been Sabbath’s singer, run a luxury country house hotel (it went bust) and owned a motorcycle firm (it went bust). He has been the singer of Episode Six (just don’t call them a cabaret band: “I find it slightly offensive.
Of course, he’s had a more varied life than most. We have to mimic our original interpretation.’” By contrast, Gillan says, he has never once had cause to feel jaded. Sometimes the patterns change or the nuances are different, but it’s the same song.’ And he said, ‘If I did that with any of my famous arias, if I changed one scintilla of expression or interpretation, I would be crucified by the critics, and the fans, because we’re not allowed to do that in opera. “He said, ‘I’ve heard you sing it six times, and every time it’s different. He recalls the plight of Luciano Pavarotti, with whom he sang a couple of times, and who one day expressed his jealousy of Gillan getting to sing Smoke on the Water. He must have heard rock’s most famous riff – if he has averaged even 50 shows a year over the past 48 years – somewhere in the region of 2,500 times. It was even a slightly ill-fitting encore during his brief spell fronting Black Sabbath in the early 80s. After all, he’s had to sing it at pretty much every show he’s played since 1972, whether with Deep Purple, the Ian Gillan Band, or Gillan. Y ou might think Ian Gillan, at 75 years old, would be fed up with singing Smoke on the Water.