Joann Butler: You were reunited with Ritchie Blackmore in New York. Ian Gillan: When he stepped on the stage, you know, that magic moment. It's been a long time. Deep Purple were looking for a new singer and bass player after their first three records.
Roger came along with me and we joined not just as a singer and a bass player, but as a nascent songwriting team. One guy says, "Well, how do you write a song?" I'm thinking, "Oh my god, how are we going to answer that?" Ritchie, he's rehearsing on his guitar. He just goes on an open string, "Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding." He said, "Like that." We wrote it on the bus and we did it in the show that night. Joann Butler: Wow.
What about Smoke on the Water? Ian Gillan: It kind of got forgotten because it was seven minutes long. It never got played on the radio, and a guy called Russ Shaw from Warner Brothers cut it down to 3 minutes 20. It became the most played rock song ever in history on the radio.
You're watching Joann Butler In the Studio With… me, Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. Joann Butler: Thank you so much for joining us on LifeMinute. So cool to have you. Happy birthday.
You just celebrated 81. Hard to believe. You look amazing. Ian Gillan: Well, thank you.
So do you. Happy birthday. Joann Butler: Thank you. So, how's the tour going?
Ian Gillan: It's probably the best we've ever done. It's working out really good. The show is lovely. The band is cranking and I can't complain.
It's a pretty long one. We started at the beginning of June and we finish on the 19th of December in Mexico. So, it's pretty intense. I would say insane rather than intense.
It's, but it's wonderful. Joann Butler: Insanely intense. Both of those words. That's amazing.
How do you do it after all these decades? What still makes you able to get on that stage and do it? Ian Gillan: Well, you don't really need any motivation when you're lucky enough as I am to be in a great company, great band, great musicians, a great repertoire, and great audiences. It, all the elements are there for anything you could dream of really.
So, we just get up and be happy, you know? And this, I think if there wasn't the energy, it would be pretty much a drudge going through this routine every single day. But there's always something new happening in the show, and of course a different venue every night, that gives you a different kind of ambience and, oh, it's just too exciting for words. Yeah.
Joann Butler: Amazing. And of course, you were reunited just last week, was it? With Ritchie Blackmore in New York. Tell us about that.
I think that was a big surprise for so many. Ian Gillan: I think it was lovely. It was fantastic. We've been in touch, Ritchie and I for a few years now and I mean a lot of water's gone under the bridge.
I don't like using cliches, but that's a very apt one for this. And he wrote me a nice letter a few days before we got to New York and said, "Would it be all right, do you think? What do you reckon if I step up in smoke?" So I said, "Yeah, of course. Oh, you brought an instant smile to my face.” I thought, "Well, of course it would be wonderful.
It'd be fantastic." So, we set up and, he only lives around the corner from Jones Beach, so, on Long Island. So, it was just great when he stepped on the stage, you know, that magic moment. And, it's been a long time. And, you know, you kind of forget everyone out there when you've, we've mended all of those problems ourselves.
But, of course, not everyone is aware of that. So, it was a wonderfully warm feeling and we had a few drinks in the dressing room backstage afterwards and I think he went home a bit tiddly, but it was great. A really, a magic moment. Yeah.
Joann Butler: Beautiful. He said recently to someone that it was like, he thought it would be like a healing, but he realized there really was none after 40 years. Did you feel the same way? Ian Gillan: Yeah, I mean, I mean we, you know, life goes through so many different phases and you can't really allow all these problems to continue to exist.
They become destructive forces in their own right then. We've grown out of all that. Did you ever see Spinal Tap? Joann Butler: Yes.
Ian Gillan: It was like that for most of us, including the Beatles and everyone else. You know, there was, when you get four or five guys, you know, in their late teens or early 20s form a band and go out on the road, there's a camaraderie and a unit there that is almost, makes them inseparable and it gives them a great power and identity. But as things become enlarged, you know, you get into contact with the real world and a larger world, a lot of outside play comes into force. And you know, human chemistry is the most complex of all the sciences.
So we can't cater for it. We can't see it coming because we're young. And then you got to cope with stuff that you never did before. And it's critical.
So sometimes things go wrong, but that doesn't mean to say they have to stay that way. So as the years go by, you put it all behind you. Joann Butler: Plus such creative forces, you know, on top of it all. Tell us about Splat!, the new album.
How would you describe it? Ian Gillan: Well, I'm always looking for an umbrella kind of as I describe it for the lyrics. I like all the songs on an album to feel as if they were written around about the same time and they come from the same place. And in this case, I was thinking of quite a few things that came together and I conflated them into an idea of the critical extinction moment of humanity based on the population explosion and our inability to sustain life as it is.
And it was just a thought. And so I had this picture of God and Darwin in the pub, down the pub having a pint of beer. And God says to Darwin, "Charlie, we’ve got to get the numbers right next time." And Darwin goes, "Hum de hum de hum,” because he doesn't like to interfere, you know? So, and then I thought of butterflies and metamorphosis.
And I thought of humanity morphing into a metaphysical state, an abstract life form, electrical life form where we wouldn't need little tin cans to go around and explore the galaxies, but we could actually, blink of an eye, be there. And it's quite complex, but it gave me the possibility that there was something hopeful after the end. And I'd had Splat! in my mind as a title for some years, but it always seems so terminal. I know everyone will be saying, "Oh, so this is the last album, right?" But now, we've managed to get something which has hope out of, existential moments.
And I think that’s, it's almost, I mean there's a song in there about a dead man walking and it's really hopeful. It's a good message. So I mean just for me it keeps me happy and out of trouble. That's the kind of idea.
That's what Splat! meant. You know when, the old joke about when the insect hits the windscreen, what's the last thing that goes through his mind? Well, we all know that one. But when I hit the windscreen, the first thing that went through my mind was King Arthur, followed by Motörhead, followed by the Roman Empire and every other element of humanity that's existed, and into a, they all go out into space in chess, as chess pieces and then we sort of all pixelate and collect together in some metaphysical form and start a new existence.
Joann Butler: I love it. Deep for sure. How about the sound? How would you describe the sound?
Ian Gillan: The lineup hasn't really changed instrumentally. We've, Jon Lord died obviously and Ritchie left and we had Steve Morse for 25 years and recently we got Simon McBride in the band and I think his style and background are perhaps more compatible with the early Deep Purple. Steve was brilliant. But his roots are in Southern American rock and jazz and stuff like that, which took us in a new direction, which we all loved for 25 years, so it couldn't have been bad.
Joann Butler: Yes. Ian Gillan: But Simon’s brought us back on to, I think, a more grounded approach. I think the easiest way of describing this is the new songs fit very well with the old songs. Joann Butler: Yes.
Ian Gillan: They're very compatible and so they work very well live on stage. It, they’re kind of seamless. Soundwise on the record, we owe that to Bob Ezrin, our producer, who's for the last five, six, god knows how many records, has done a great job in not only tightening up our arrangements, but also getting us a great sound. And that's really, I think, a difficult job to achieve for an old band like us.
We've got, there are no leader in our band. There never has been. So we sit around for weeks, you know, debating this issue or that regarding an arrangement. “Should we keep this phrase in or extend that or should we let loose here?” And Bob goes, “I'm not liking it.” And so we chop it and keep it sharp.
And I think the arrangements have sharpened up a lot. And the sound he's got is perhaps more representative than what you might call the intervening years. Joann Butler: What is the creative process like and how has it evolved over the years? Ian Gillan: It hasn't really changed.
It's just tightened up a lot. We have two writing sessions normally a week each and we go to our place in Germany. They've got a big room there where we store our equipment in a small town near Oberhausen. So, we spend a week there.
We start at noon every day and we finish at 6 and we stop at 3 o'clock for a cup of tea, and they just start cranking and it's pure jamming. And if you're a fly on the wall, you might be hearing some film music or some jazz or some mood music or funk, soul, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll. And anything that comes to mind, everyone else picks up on it. And at the end of the first week, we normally have about 25 ideas.
And we then do another session a few weeks later and come up with another 15, 20 ideas. Then we got to chop those down to 15 which are the most promising for the, what you might call a melody. And I'm singing gibberish at this point. I'm just making up words that fit and rhyme and meter and that sort of thing.
So then we move into the arrangement phase. We normally go to Nashville for that. Spend a couple of weeks tightening things up. That's when Bob comes into the picture.
And then we go straight from there into a wonderful studio, a big big studio, one of the few remaining. By then, we've learned all the songs. We haven't got all the words, but we've got all the arrangements absolutely nailed and most of the tunes from the vocal point of view. And we've rehearsed them pretty well.
So, the guys sit around in a circle and record everything live. The whole album is recorded live with a few exceptions, you know, some cleanup bits and some tweaks and that sort of thing, but basically it's a live recording and I think that captures the moment and the edge. Joann Butler: Yes. Ian Gillan: If you start overlaying tracks, then it becomes a bit dulled in impact.
I think it takes the sharpness away. So, yeah, live then, and then, and then it's over to me to finish off the words and do the vocals and add them afterwards. And that's pretty much as it's been since day one in 1969. Joann Butler: Wow.
Ian Gillan: Except we used to take months and months, writing and recording. We don't… Joann Butler: Really? It took longer back then?
Ian Gillan: Back then it did because we were having too much fun. Joann Butler: Right. Right. And maybe not so much fun.
Ian Gillan: No, no, it’s just saying we were having too much fun. Basically, we were, we weren't sharp enough and we weren't touring as much in those days. I know we did a lot of shows, but they were in small patches and that sort of thing. But now we're on the road a lot longer.
And, the whole thing actually takes about a year, you know, from beginning to the end of post-production. Joann Butler: I always found it interesting that you guys, no one ever took the credit. Like you said, it was always equal, which is nice. So, what did you guys argue about creatively?
What were the tensions? Ian Gillan: They were lighthearted and people would say, "I don't like this or I don't like that." And so it’d get bumped off. And I think the funniest moment in, when we were self-producing in the early days, we had a guy called Martin Burch who was very good. He, we put him down as producer, but really everyone was leaning over the control panel and with their hands on their own levers.
And so somebody once said the Deep Purple sound in the studio was the, basically everything has to be louder than everything else. That was the immature approach to it. We've refined things a bit now. Joann Butler: It's, it worked.
Whatever you did. Ian Gillan: Yeah. Joann Butler: What does a Deep Purple album still need to have for you to feel like it's Deep Purple? Ian Gillan: Well, I think we got lost a bit in the middle ages.
We were trying too hard, I think, and we just lost direction, I think, a little bit. Roger came up with a great phrase. We were having a little ding-dong back and forth with Bob as we always do in the studio, and Bob and Roger spoke up a wonderful phrase for the, he doesn't very often do this or, but he just said “Bob we mean it.” So I think when Deep Purple means it then we've got a good album. I know it's a bit obscure but that's how I look at it.
Joann Butler: I'll take it. Do you have a favorite song? Ian Gillan: There's a funny story about that in a Japan interview because an interpreter came in reading off a list of questions because the journalist couldn't speak English and she, one of the questions was what's your favorite album and I said Machine Head and then she went out the door and came back in again as if she'd never been there and was reintroduced and “My name is so and so, blah blah blah” and I couldn't believe what I'm seeing, so, or hearing. And so one of the questions was, "What's your favorite album?" And I said, "Oh, fireball." And she just went to pieces and collapsed completely and eventually said, well, admitted she had been in the room earlier and said, "But you said for a different magazine that Machine Head was your favorite." I said, "That was over half an hour ago." You know, music is not one of those things like, when you're a kid, you have a favorite color, a favorite pet, favorite car, favorite film actor, favorite pop star, whatever.
But I think, you know, as you grow, grow older, your favorite thing one day is not necessarily your favorite thing the next day. But, my favorite album at the moment is, of course, Splat!, my second favorite album is a live recording of an obscure band I had once called Repo Depo in Bucharest. It's up on my website and it's utterly amazing. The first four minutes are chaos because there's no sound, but it reminds me of how things were.
And my favorite song right now is one we do live on stage. It's called “Lazy Sod.” That's all about my sleek black cat and I, that were in a, got a bit too relaxed one day at home. It's an interesting story. My sleek black cat, by the way, is a 90 pound puma, so, likes to be called kitty.
Joann Butler: Kitty. Ian Gillan: Of course… Joann Butler: Oh boy. Ian Gillan: That's not really true.
And I’d say I'm a truthful person basically, but I do tell lies when I'm doing interviews. Joann Butler: That poor lady in Japan. Is that when you wrote “Highway Star” after that? Ian Gillan: No, no, we wrote “Highway Star” way before that.
Yeah that was, we were on a bus going down to a show in Brighton on the south coast of England and we had some journalists on the bus riding with us and one guy, I'm sitting face to face with Ritchie and one guy says, "Well, how do you write a song?" And I'm thinking, "Oh my god, how are we going to answer that?" Then Ritchie goes, “Ding ding ding ding.” He's playing, he's rehearsing on his guitar. He just goes on an open string. “Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.” He said “Like that.” So we wrote it on the bus and we did it in the show that night. Joann Butler: Amazing.
Ian Gillan: It did get adapted over the years but it was one of those moments. Joann Butler: What about “Smoke on the Water?” Ian Gillan: We were doing a show in Montreux which is a summer resort. So the last show of the season was in November or December, I can't remember. And it was Frank Zappa and the Mothers.
And I was particularly keen to see it because they had Flo and Eddie from the Turtles doing vocals in the, in the band. And so we went along and some guy shot a flare gun into the ceiling. It's a wooden building. It caught in the electrical trunking and the place caught on fire.
Everyone rushed out and we had to move and we ended up in the Grand Hotel. We spent a few days, limited time. We had the Rolling Stones mobile recording unit outside in a truck and on the last day as it started our engineer said, "You're 7 minutes short of an album.” And it was, we were bereft of ideas. What were we going to do?
So he said, "Well, that sound check we did at the beginning sounded pretty good. Maybe you can make something out of that." And it was labeled as “the Dan Dan song” as in “Dan Dan Dan Dan Dan.” So we pulled it up and we wrote the biographical story of the making of the album in Montreux as in, we all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline blah blah blah. So that became the song. Interestingly after the album was released it kind of got forgotten because it was 7 minutes long.
It never got played on the radio or anything. And a guy called Russ Shaw from Warner Brothers came along to see us one day and saw the crowd reaction to “Smoke” and took a second look at it. Went back, did an edit, cut it down to 3 minutes 20 and Bob's your uncle, it became the most played rock song ever in history on the radio. Joann Butler: Incredible.
Ian Gillan: We're still doing it in the show. Joann Butler: What about Child in Time? I got to ask about that. It's all over social media right now, which I find interesting.
And then, and the chemistry between you two, Ritchie and you and your voices as an instrument and it's just amazing. Ian Gillan: Jon Lord wrote that, basically. We openly inspired by a song called “Bombay Calling" by a band called It's a Beautiful Day. And I think it was them, forgive me if not, they nicked one of ours as well, and in turns, there was, he was playing these chords one day and I just started singing and, “Sweet child in time you'll see the line, the line between good and bad.” It's all about, we grew up in the cold war and it's about, you know, bullets flying around and bombs dropping and mutually assured destruction and all that kind of thing.
It was a young man's song and I did this, what has been described at the Covent Garden as tenor passaggio. See, a lot of, everyone said “Oh he's screaming,” but the director of the choir there said “Well you're not screaming you’re singing.” That's like saying Pavarotti’s shouting, but he had a category already, tenor. So he said, "Your category is tenor passaggio, which means going above tenor." And so it was a, it was all written in five minutes in the community center in Hanwell in Middlesex just on the outside of London in 1969 or, I think. Yeah.
Joann Butler: Did you always know you wanted to sing? Ian Gillan: Well, I grew up in a musical family. My granddad sang opera. My grandmother taught ballet.
My uncle was a jazz pianist. He played boogie-woogie and stride. I was a boy soprano in the church choir. And then I started my first band at the age of 17.
Joann Butler: Right. Ian Gillan: I was hugely inspired by the young Elvis Presley. And I just stopped a guy in the street one day. In fact, there's a song on the new album Splat! about the circumstances.
It's called “My New Movie,” and it's about somebody dreaming about making a movie. And they just stopped someone in the street say, "What are you doing on Wednesday? Let's do it." And it was pretty much that. And I asked this guy, his name was Andy, and I said, "Do you know anyone around here who plays guitar?" He said, "Well, I'm learning." I said, "Okay, rehearsal's at my house Saturday morning." And about five guys turned up with, you may not call them guitars, but they had some strings.
And we got thrown out of the house, of course, after a while for wrecking the furniture and jumping up and down. And I went to the youth club. And we, they let us use the storage room to rehearse and I said, "We got no money." He said, "Well, the payment will be a performance on Saturday for the youth club." So, holy moly. So, we learned the songs.
I think we repeated them about six times. And we did two shows, two weeks running and then I got recruited into another band that had some equipment and a residency. So yeah, things picked up from there. That was, I was 17.
That was 1962. Joann Butler: What were you playing? Were you playing cover songs? Ian Gillan: Oh yeah.
Joann Butler: Elvis songs? Ian Gillan: There were easy songs, you know, three chords, Buddy Holly stuff and that sort of thing. I think there was an Elvis song in there somewhere. Joann Butler: Amazing.
And then you met Roger Glover, right? Episode Six? Ian Gillan: In ‘65. Joann Butler: ‘65.
Wow. Wow. How did the invitation to join Deep Purple come to be? And did you guys go together?
You were a package deal, right? Ian Gillan: Yeah. Well, the Episode Six had seen its best days. We'd been abroad a lot and we'd always been chasing fashion and chasing hits.
We, I think we had 12 or 13 singles released and they were okay. They were good. It was primarily a harmony band. Joann Butler: Yes.
Ian Gillan: We weren't so strong instrumentally, but it was nearing the end, I think. And Purple were looking for a new singer and bass player after their first three records. I was a huge fan. I had their records.
Ritchie only lived around the corner. And another friend, Mick Underwood, a drummer who worked with Ritchie in earlier days, recommended me. He was in Episode Six at the time, so he recommended me very unselfishly. And Roger came along with me and we joined Deep Purple not just as a singer and a bass player but as a nascent songwriting team and we recorded Deep Purple in Rock, and we changed and they changed and it's that human chemistry thing.
Joann Butler: Did you realize right, at the time how special you all were together? Like did you know right away or… Ian Gillan: Yeah. Joann Butler: Yeah?
Ian Gillan: Yeah. Joann Butler: Wow. Ian Gillan: We, our first show was at a speakeasy in London and I just looked at Roger and went, "Mate, this is it. This is it.
This is what we've been looking for." Joann Butler: Amazing. Ian Gillan: It's that moment like in the Jersey Boys when they, when they're in the studio and they record “Sherry” and you hear “Sherry” for the first time after all the buildup and the, you know, the formation and friendships of the band and the trouble and strife and then getting arrested in the church because it sounded great in there when they sang at night. Joann Butler: Yes. Ian Gillan: We do all those kinds of things and then there's that magic moment, you know, when you realize it everything has just fallen into place.
It's fallen from the sky. You don't know how or why. Joann Butler: Yeah. Yeah.
I have goosebumps. You came, you left a couple times. How did you know? Okay, this is it.
It's been a while now. Ian Gillan: Well, I was doing a show in Hammersmith in London with my band Gillan and our band had been through a fantastic time for a few years, but it was also nearing the end. And there was some bad vibes going around and it was time to stop and move on. And I was, I went for an Indian meal after the show with a hero and friend of mine.
His name is Rodney Marsh. He used to play football for my football team, Queens Park Rangers and Manchester City and he also played for England. And we were having a curry and drinking a few pints of lager and we said, "Yeah, the band's great." He said, "But they're not as good as Deep Purple, are they?" I thought, "Yeah, you're probably right." So, next morning I called Jon Lord, said, "Have you ever thought about, you know, getting back together again?" And he said, "I've been sitting by the phone for six years waiting for it to ring and somebody to say that.” So, a year later, it wasn't possible straight away, I joined Black Sabbath for a year and, and then we got together and made Perfect Strangers and that was 1984-85. Joann Butler: Any singers of today you particularly like?
Ian Gillan: Oh, too many to list. Most of them are my friends, and if I leave one out, they'll be angry. Joann Butler: I hear you. I don't have any either.
Ian Gillan: I know a lot of people over the years and they're all friends and they're all great. So I love them all. It's a marvelous business to be in and the rock and roll world is, I think it's a good club, you know? We’ve all been through it, and everyone there that's still around has paid their dues many times over.
Joann Butler: What does music do for people? Ian Gillan: Well, you talked earlier about the Ritchie Blackmore thing. It's not just the music. It’s the camaraderie, it’s the atmosphere, the sense of belonging.
I know what it was like in the early days with fans. I mean, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. We all knew each other. We all got on great with, we used to drink together in the speakeasy and various other places in those days.
And yet the fans encouraged, I must say, by the music journalists, divided into, I won't say bitter enemies but very competitive factions that, they were all sort of supporting one or the other of the three and so they were divided but we were not. You’ve got to think of the fans as much as anything else. But they come afterwards when the music's made and you've done your thing. Then you sit down and put your hands together and pray they like it.
Joann Butler: Well they like it. Did you ever think you'd be doing it this long? Ian Gillan: No. Joann Butler: Well, I'm so grateful you are.
Ian Gillan: I do enjoy the moment and I've always been an optimist. So, I never planned things. I've stepped off the rock and roll highway quite a few times. If I sense something interesting out there in the, down a country lane or around a corner, I tend to take that route.
So, it's always interesting. Joann Butler: Do you do anything special to hone your voice or have you ever exercised it or… Ian Gillan: I do as few interviews as possible. Joann Butler: That's a good one.
That's my cue. Ian Gillan: No it's, no I don't. I think early days it was, it was difficult when you're still learning and you're still experimenting and also you go through phases. I mean when I was a boy soprano my voice was obviously very very high.
When I was a young man in my late teens up to 30 I had a young man's voice. When I moved into my middle age, I lost a couple of semitones on the top end, but I gained so much in the middle in the way of tone that I thought it was a good bargain. And so I didn't look back since then. And since then, it's been settled.
I think probably the key to most of all of this is the word key. For the songs to be in the right key, if you're straining all the time, you're going to run into problems. Joann Butler: Yes. Ian Gillan: Well, I mean, I'm working differently now.
I've kind of taken a new approach in the last few years and it's… Joann Butler: How so? Ian Gillan: Much more energy. It's more energy.
Well, I think the approach is different because of the different musicians you work with. See, it's determined by the key they like to play in. And you really have no choice in it because they present you with a track with an idea, song idea, that's already established in their key and they're loath to change it. So, you got to find a tune in there some way and sometimes you got to work around a natural harmony and make that the tune.
It doesn't always work. But nowadays I find I can very happily get a much bigger range if I start at a lower point. I can actually use the melody, the natural melody within the construction. So I'm really happy at the moment.
Joann Butler: We are too. Thank you for your beautiful gift. Thank you so much, Ian. What an honor.
Ian Gillan: Cheers.
