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Purple in Polish press
There are several Purple items published in Polish press recently:
A long interview with Roger Glover has appeared in the October 10th issue of the Przeglad weekly.
Teraz Rock, a Polish monthly rock music magazine, has a lengthy special called “Deep Purple po calosci” (Deep Purple in total) in October 2010 issue.
And last, but not least, our long time contributor Joasia Ostrowiecka has published a book called “Nie tylko rock and roll. Podróże koncertomanki.” (Not only Rock’n’Roll. Travels of a maniac concertgoer.) which features several Purple accounts from the 21st century. The book is available in electronic form from bookowo.pl.
Thanks to Joasia Ostrowiecka for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
… and 2 pages interview with Ian Gillan in November issue of Metal Hammer Poland.
October 29th, 2010 at 13:29Is there an English version of those interviews? I can’t speak polish. Did they tell anything about their plans after their tour this winter?
October 31st, 2010 at 19:29I don’t read Metal Hammer, but yes, thank you for an info 🙂
November 2nd, 2010 at 09:20Hello, Tommy,
November 3rd, 2010 at 09:44I’ve just checked the Przeglad website, and I’m sorry, there is no English version of any article… If I’ve got some time, I’ll try to describe in English what is this interview about. Never say die 🙂
Probably its possible to translate into English by clicking on some kind of programme?
November 3rd, 2010 at 13:25@ purplepriest1965:
I thought about that. Those programs translate the words but not sentences, as far as I know. This often leads to misunderstanding. Propably Joanna can help …
November 3rd, 2010 at 15:53Yeah, bring Joanna back, please!
November 10th, 2010 at 13:34Ian for Metal Hammer about the new Deep Purple record (mark his words):
MH: You’ve said it’s even hard for you to meet up and record a new album. In the meantime, after the fantastic ‘Rapture of the Deep’ our appetites are big. Can you tell us approximately when we can expect a new album?
IG: I can’t tell you because I don’t even know when I can expect it. You know, albums tend to HAPPEN. They are SPONTANEOUS. You see, we’re non-stop being accosted about a new album, because the record labels and the managers want new albums so I think we’re going to eventually record one day but the greater the pressure we’re under the further the new album is. It’s like gripping a soap bubble… Just do it and watch the outcome… The more we’re asked about the new album the less we want to go into the studio. If you’re being nagged about it all the time, how’s your attitude towards it going to be in the studio? We’re not commercial songwriters. We CREATE music. We write and record stuff that come straight from our HEARTS. We don’t write because we are forced to or because someone expects us to. We do it because it’s fun and we LOVE it. That’s why if we’re being constantly poked and asked: ‘When’s the new record? When’s the new record?’, the first thing that comes to my mind is: ‘Ah, maybe next year.’
MH: I guess you can understand the impatience of the fans who always wait for the new record with a fair amount of excitement…
IG: Well… what can you do… If you follow this train of thought what’s going to be next? It will eventually come to the situation when fans are going to tell us what songs should be on the album and they’re going to demand we record those songs for them. You have to ask yourself: ‘Do you write the songs for the fans or for yourself?’ We’ve always written for ourselves. The other question you have to ask yourself is: ‘Do we write commercial songs or the material that is honest and comes from our hearts, our emotions?’ Commercialism, writing at a push, for demand is an entirely unknown concept to us. I think to be completely honest with our fan base… you know, I’ve noticed that for the past 10 years the average age of our audience oscillates around 18 years old so I guess the thing they enjoy the most is the concept of listening to Deep Purple participating in the live experience. I think that’s the thing they want now and I guess they don’t really care about the new record. The journalists, managers, publishers, record labels, people from the business and our older fans – yes, I think they’d like the new album to see the light of the day, but we aren’t very willing to even discuss it because we’re simply getting bored with it. That’s enough for us. I’ve just spent the past two weeks in the studio working on my new songs. I’m in the process of recording another solo album. I love writing new songs. If the guys from Deep Purple called me now and ask me to come over because we’re doing a new album, I’d be there immediately. Yet no one calls me. Everyone is really happy with the ‘live’ situation of Deep Purple and the deep, mutual understanding on stage. That’s really a lot and it’s sufficient. One day you’ll hear the new album… You know, if for the next three months we won’t get a question about the new album then probably we’re going to record it.
November 11th, 2010 at 15:04@8
November 13th, 2010 at 14:42Oh. My. God.
It´ll be interresting to read the coming comments of this one.
Me, i feel completely lost for words…
Sometimes I think Gillan hasn’t lost his voice as much as he has lost his mind. But then again, I know his favorite saying is, “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
Saying that the *average* age of DP’s audience is 18 tells us that IG is either blind or very very bad at maths.
His talk about writing for one self or for the fans goes completely against the arguments of why they only play old songs live.
November 13th, 2010 at 23:07To place the comments from Ian in the proper context I will put up the entire interview later on.
I think Ian touches several topics of a very interesting nature and they can be hinted at what we call ‘the Internet support’ and disinformation. The whole interview starts with Ian denying the rumours about a possible Deep Purple split after the current leg of the tour which were spread over the Internet some time in July. If you ask me… they feel the pressure from their Internet fans the most, because the Internet is the place where things are discussed at length. Almost every comment here under any review has it ‘When’s the new album?’. Must be rather cheesing for them, if they read it all. Also they’ve been asked about the album many times now and that may put them off. So if he gets this question for an umpteenth time it’s not a surprise to me he answers it in a completely ‘unexpected’ way.
Just hold your horses and make up your minds after reading the entire interview, not a cut. Will be up soon.
November 14th, 2010 at 10:24MH: Before our conversation I just had a glance at Deep Purple official website and the news item I found there was: ‘It is not the end.’ Obviously it’s an official commentary denying rumours that had it the leg of the tour starting in October was going to be your last… Have you got any idea why such rumours?
IG: You say our website? It’s not our website. We don’t run it. I don’t even read it. These are trash. Every one of us, Deep Purple members, runs his own website and you can find the most accurate information there. We don’t read anything else and we don’t recommend reading anything else. It’s pure disinformation. You know… putting the last tour together would require a lot of special preparations, something extraordinary, special and at the same time it’s pretty hard for us to get together to record a new album so how could we even possibly thing about the last tour. You see, the Internet is music press of today. It’s full of shit. Don’t believe a word you read there.
MH: Let’s explain this once and for all. It’s not going to be the last tour of Deep Purple…
IG: How am I supposed to know? Things happen but I can tell you we don’t plan the last tour. We haven’t even had a single discussion about it yet… We never discuss things as such. We don’t even talk about new records, another tours; when the moment is right we just take the day off heading our own directions and then a short question arises: ‘When are we going to meet up again?’ It’s followed by a short answer like now: ‘Ok. See you in October.’ Things have always been like that with Deep Purple. We don’t read music press, we don’t listen to the radio and never done that. It’s a different world. Totally different from the one we exist in. We don’t and we don’t want to have anything to do with the music business. Everyone of us has an interesting life. We like each other and we’re great friends. We all love music, love playing live and it’s fantastic to be on stage together. We’re even better on stage when we get back after a longer break, long holidays. Everything happening around us – things people talk, write or gossip about us – has absolutely no influence on our inner relations… Let me tell you this… When we’re going to eventually meet in October… if I correctly remember we start in Prague… I can tell the content of our discussions on the night before the show in a hotel bar. It’s going to look more or less like this: ‘Well, how are you? Did you buy that new car? How’s the football team doing – heard they had a good start of the season? How’s your daughter? She married yet? How’s your mum? Is she having a swift recovery after the operation?’ That’s the way we talk… I remember, it was about two years ago, at the beginning of the tour we all got together in a bar and when I was on my way back to the hotel room I just had to smile to myself because during the two-hour talk, with a couple of beers and in a fantastic atmosphere none of us mentioned music. Nothing about music.
MH: Then I begin to wonder do you ever discuss the set list before the start of the tour?
IG: Of course we talk about it… just around 45 minutes before the show… It’s always been like that. I remember when we were kids: ‘Oh, what’s the set list tonight? I haven’t got a clue, make something up.’ Sometimes Ian Paice puts the set list together and sometimes Roger does that, and there’s the time I do that… Sometimes one of us goes: ‘You know, I’m tired of this or the other song…’ and then we just change it for another. It’s so simple with Deep Purple. You know the thing is our concerts are not those big productions with all the special effects preordained. There’s no need to tell the lightning guys, the sound guys and all the people responsible for production what songs we’re going to play so they could make the appropriate show. In our case these things are unnecessary. Lights on, we go on stage, play our music and when we’re done we go off stage and the lights are off. That’s the whole Deep Purple show.
MH: You’ve said it’s even hard for you to meet up and record a new album. In the meantime, after the fantastic ‘Rapture of the Deep’ our appetites are big. Can you tell us approximately when we can expect a new album?
IG: I can’t tell you because I don’t even know when I can expect it. You know, albums tend to HAPPEN. They are SPONTANEOUS. You see, we’re non-stop being accosted about a new album, because the record labels and the managers want new albums so I think we’re going to eventually record one day but the greater the pressure we’re under the further the new album is. It’s like gripping a soap bubble… Just do it and watch the outcome… The more we’re asked about the new album the less we want to go into the studio. If you’re being nagged about it all the time, how’s your attitude towards it going to be in the studio? We’re not commercial songwriters. We CREATE music. We write and record stuff that come straight from our HEARTS. We don’t write because we are forced to or because someone expects us to. We do it because it’s fun and we LOVE it. That’s why if we’re being constantly poked and asked: ‘When’s the new record? When’s the new record?’, the first thing that comes to my mind is: ‘Ah, maybe next year.’
MH: I guess you can understand the impatience of the fans who always wait for the new record with a fair amount of excitement…
IG: Well… what can you do… If you follow this train of thought what’s going to be next? It will eventually come to the situation when fans are going to tell us what songs should be on the album and they’re going to demand we record those songs for them. You have to ask yourself: ‘Do you write the songs for the fans or for yourself?’ We’ve always written for ourselves. The other question you have to ask yourself is: ‘Do we write commercial songs or the material that is honest and comes from our hearts, our emotions?’ Commercialism, writing at a push, for demand is an entirely unknown concept to us. I think to be completely honest with our fan base… you know, I’ve noticed that for the past 10 years the average age of our audience oscillates around 18 years old so I guess the thing they enjoy the most is the concept of listening to Deep Purple participating in the live experience. I think that’s the thing they want now and I guess they don’t really care about the new record. The journalists, managers, publishers, record labels, people from the business and our older fans – yes, I think they’d like the new album to see the light of the day, but we aren’t very willing to even discuss it because we’re simply getting bored with it. That’s enough for us. I’ve just spent the past two weeks in the studio working on my new songs. I’m in the process of recording another solo album. I love writing new songs. If the guys from Deep Purple called me now and ask me to come over because we’re doing a new album, I’d be there immediately. Yet no one calls me. Everyone is really happy with the ‘live’ situation of Deep Purple and the deep, mutual understanding on stage. That’s really a lot and it’s sufficient. One day you’ll hear the new album… You know, if for the next three months we won’t get a question about the new album then probably we’re going to record it.
MH: Okay. So I’m going to forget all the questions on the new Deep Purple record I have in my mind. Let me ask you about some older albums of yours instead. Recently ‘Clear Air Turbulence’ and ‘Scarabus’ from Ian Gillan Band have been reissued. You touched jazz-rock on those albums. Why jazz-rock back then?
IG: Imagine you’re going to have beer with your friends at a local pub. If most of them are avid fans of football, you can tell sooner or later the conversation is going to be about football. If you have a basic knowledge of football you will be able to join the conversation and even have some fun. The next day you’re going to your cousin’s party and everyone talks politics and again you’re able to join the conversation and even throw in some ideas. You know where I’m getting at? I used to work with Colin Towns, John Gustafson, Mark Nauseef, and Ray Fenwick, and those guys at that time were pretty much fascinated with jazz-rock-fusion and that was the music they wanted to record and I had to adapt being with them in one team. When you listen to my records you can see at once they’re not homogenous. They’re very versatile because I used to record them with different people and the final outcome was up to those people in this respect. You don’t talk politics with people who are football fans…
MH: Do you like to adapt?
IG: If you read Darwin you’re going to understand my answer. Adapt or die. The adaptation to different situations is the only thing human beings are really good at. We don’t understand many things, we can’t control breathing but at least we know how to… feed ourselves (laughs)… wait … I’m slowly losing my drift… yes… you have to adapt.
MH: I’ve read in the internet recently that you’re planning the release of a live album ‘Live in Armenia’ supposedly recorded with an orchestra…
IG: First of all, it’s not an album. It’s just a single song. Second off all, you won’t hear any orchestra there. Third of all, it’s going to be a song I co-wrote with Tony Iommi. I’ve already finished laying down my vocal parts and now we’re waiting for Jon Lord and Nico McBrain adding theirs. The song is for charity, for further help to people from Armenia who are still contending the aftermath of the earthquake that struck this country 20 years ago and took the lives of 25.000 people. Those people still need help and I decided to do something about it.
MH: So I let myself fell into disinformation’s clutches…
IG: Let me tell you this. When I have a beer with my friends and we run out of jokes we turn on the computer and read Wikipedia… (laughs). There’s so much shit there it’s even difficult to imagine. Unfortunately that’s where most of the journalists seek information because the traditional ways of obtaining information are now unavailable… 50 % of the time of the interviews I give is devoted to correcting information spread over the Internet. On the other way, please, don’t panic! Come to think of it not much has really changed. All the information delivered to the journalists in the times when the Internet has not yet existed… Who do you think wrote them? Of course some people wrote them… and do you think there wasn’t disinformation at that time? Do you think that in the ‘70s when the music press was in fool bloom people weren’t writing rubbish about us? You think we only met with understanding back then? After we recorded ‘Who Do We Think We Are’ in 1973, the press started to produce utter rubbish writing how dared we recording such an album when they’d wanted us to record only hard rock not blues, funky and whatnot. For this sole reason the press expected us to record something different and they were badmouthing us and showing us in a bad light. Utter junk… Then we were reading all of that and wondering if they were really writing about us, about Deep Purple? Did they really understand us?
MH: The new leg of the tour begins in Czech Republic and then you’re coming to Poland for three shows. I realise there are countries you visit more often but I think you’ve been to Poland frequently enough to have your own opinion about our country. I wonder what’s your opinion about Poland?
IG: (laughs)… Dear God… I haven’t got a clue. How am I to answer this? I have friends in Poland and that’s why I’m often here. I also have friends in Portugal and they also come to see me. I have a small house on the hills in southern Portugal. I go there to relax, ease off a bit, enjoy the weather and good food. I have a couple of friends there but friends from America, Germany… and Poland too… and Argentina, and Brazil drop by for a visit. You think they come to Portugal because they like the country’s geography? No. They like nice weather and good company… we meet… make music together… sip wine… whatever. I come to Poland because I have friends who from time to time invite me to play there. I clearly remember my show with orchestra in Gdansk – it was fantastic. If you like generalizations I can say I really have a liking for and feel bonding with Polish culture. I was chosen for narrating a documentary about Frederic Chopin; I’m to do this soon and I’m really looking forward to doing this. The recording sessions are going to be in Warsaw. When I come to think of it all now, I certainly don’t like Poland just for its geography. It’s culture. I like Polish attitude towards life.
November 14th, 2010 at 10:32Hi, Tommy, As I promised, I give you an account of the RG interview in Przeglad. I don’t know if you will be satisfied, as I did it in a hurry, but I’ve done it as well as I could.
——————————
Roger Glover interviewed by Agata Graban. “Przegląd” , 10th October 2010
Career: when he started playing with Deep Purple, he never thought this band would play over 40 years. Nobody can forecast the future. During his early career, in his first band, he only wanted to get into charts. Being a child, he listened to Rolling Stones, but during that period that band was copying Chuck Berry.
November 15th, 2010 at 13:29Once, when Deep Purple (with him and Ian Gillan) became a famous band, he was walking on the streets of the town where they had a show, and he wondered who of its inhabitants had bought Deep Purple’s album. It was so exciting. Now there are lots of brilliant bands, but they can be heard by Internet only, not by radio or TV. The world of music is cruel, it’s a jungle, nobody knows who will survive. There are more and more groups and everybody wants to be recognizable. RG thinks he simply had a luck.
Satisfaction: he feels satisfied, although not entirely; he thinks it’s impossible to be fully satisfied, as he always looks for something new, he writes new songs, and he must do it, although it isn’t easy. It’s his passion. He is satisfied, yes, fifty-fifty.
Guitar Guinness Record in Vratislavia: it was unbelievable, Polish fans are wonderful. RG remembers his first gig with Deep Purple in Poland. With Ritchie Blackmore, but the guys already knew he’d decided to leave the band. It was a very hard period, and Poles boosted the band’s morale.
The Beatles: RG got to know those musicians, and he thinks it was completely another world.
Changes: he thinks he hasn’t changed at all, apart from his hair colour. He’s in excellent form. So is the whole band. The audience has changed- is more and more young, even teenagers come to DP gigs now. Also older people who sometimes come to recall their youth (no, Mr Glover, not only, we come there to listen to good music first of all! –J.O.). RG is so excited when he enters the stage. He thinks many people listen to DP because it’s an honest music, the guys don’t pretend to be who they aren’t, they do their work as well as they can, they don’t pose. Times change: in 70 ties the fans were sitting, only sometimes one or two entered the stage and started dancing. Now they want lots of lights, noisy sounds, they would like to have a scream, they jump. On hearing “Smoke” the fans used to take out lighters, now they take out cell phones to call their friends “It’s on!”
Stage fright: he doesn’t feel frightened, although he used to. He’s calm until he enters the scene. He gets excited when he starts playing. He supposes his stage fright is more concentrated now.
Being together during DP tours: no anger, no arguments, the guys still are friends. Everybody has his own room at the hotel, they don’t disturb each other. They have a talk in the wardrobe, they joke, discuss, but after coming back to the hotel everyone stays alone.
Ritchie Blackmore: before his leaving the band the atmosphere was heavy, but he still admires that brilliant guitarist, he observes his work. Changes are a normal thing, and as for Deep Purple, they occurred very seldom.
Covers: he feels delighted on hearing them, some bands play better than DP does! He isn’t jealous, DP musicians don’t prove it’s their music. RG is glad to see young people learn from DP’s mistakes.
Improvisations: the band improvises every time. The guys are so happy to refresh their hits. Maybe thanks to it they haven’t become dull yet.
Computers: instruments are steadily replaced by them, but remember, the comp is a tool only. Neither worse, nor better. Don’t forget: first of all, the music depends on musicians, especially drum parts. DP uses comps, but nothing can replace their invention.
Other bands: RG always loves good music, but isn’t very fond of hard rock (sic!). He thinks nothing new idea can appear there.
His daughter: he sometimes performs with her, not very often because he wants her to go her own way.
Quiet life: he leads it in spite of appearances. He goes shopping, he works (although not 8 hours a day), he eats, he sleeps in beds (although in various ones )…
Marcinn! Kudos for the translation. Guess we have our answers!
November 15th, 2010 at 19:26Regards, Rick
Sounds like Big Ian was not in a great mood
November 16th, 2010 at 03:00