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Ian Gillan
Tommy Vance: Having run your own bands and learned all the pitfalls and all the pressures and all the successes of that, is it going to be easy for you to re-institute yourself as just one member of a unit, as opposed to being a leader of a unit?
Ian Gillan: It's gonna be as easy as pie. It's actually a great relief. It was great fun running my own outfit. We ran it fairly democratically, where everyone was equal, it's just that I was, as they say, a bit more equal than everyone else I suppose when it came to decisions and that sort of thing. (132k) I actually had the first experience of that when I joined [Black] Sabbath for a year. And I think the first six months with Sabbath I was more enjoying for the reasons that you've just gone into; no responsibilities, I haven't got to worry about anyone else, I'm just the singer in a band, It's great. And I think a lot of the problems that existed in Purple before, were basically between Ritchie and myself. They were never that deep, but little wounds fester, you know. And as time went on and we became more and more tired, and we weren't really growing up at all. We were, I think, quite professional, but only in terms of performance and recording and the musical side. (182k) Not really in terms of a professional attitude to life and the philosophies that you adopt after years of seeing other people's points of view. We weren't able to see that because there was so much pressure.
Everyone talks about it, I mean I'm glad we didn't actually turn into terrible drug addicts and all that sort of thing. We went out and instead of being drug addicts I suppose we went out and did the next worst thing, which was front our own bands, you know. It didn't seem to matter whether it was commercial or not, I think it's one of those things you just want it to be good. And you suddenly realize how selfish you are, and how important it is to be selfish, and how important music is to you personally. And I adopted this thing, I've said it many times that, you know, in my life I've realized that music is a strange thing, the public is very fickle.
You got to please yourself. If you do something to fit in with a trend, if you adapt your style, become something you don't really want to be, if it's a failure it's a disaster because you've failed at doing something that you didn't want to do in the first place. If it's a success it's a sort of shallow success, because it's not really you and then when fashions change again, you're out of it. (231k)If you stick to what you believe in, then I think that probably every 2 or 3 years out of every 10 years, your taste in music is going to coincide with public taste and you'll get some hit records.
But in the meantime, you're having a great time and if you're records aren't successful, it doesn't matter. You can go home, you can sleep at night and you can actually play your own records to your friends when they come around to your house for a drink and everything else. And if it's successful, that's the best kind of success, absolutely the best. I haven't changed, I think, any of my beliefs or anything and I don't think Ritchie has either. And through running our own bands, we both had very different points of view. We always have and we always will have I think, you know, that's very healthy for the band. (132k)
But I think it's possible, purely through what we've done over the last 10 years to be able to be both tolerant and a little bit more mature. And at the same time as outrageous as we ever where, in fact even more. Because there's a wonderful spirit within this band. OK, Ritchie and I are the sort of oddballs I suppose, if you like. Don't tell him I said that will you? But the fact is that when we first started rehearsals it was just incredible! (132k) Everyone started playing and this band was just made to be, it always was. And I just sat there on a stool. John was late as usual, reading a book or something. And Ritchie sat on a stool and started playing; Ian came in and picked up the rhythm; Roger came in and put his coffee down, cigarette in mouth. I'll never forget the scene! And it was just a jam and I just sat there with cold shivers coming down the back, thinking: 'These are the greatest players I've ever worked with.' (198k)
[ Jon Lord | Ritchie Blackmore | Roger Glover ]
[ Ian Paice | Ian Gillan ]
Transcription, sound clips and HTML by Benjamin Weaver