Ian Gillan: The Autobiography of Deep Purple’s Singer Read online

  During the performance, a girl got on stage, but, in the first moments of her arrival, it wasn’t possible for us to be properly introduced. However, as we approached the moment for what would be a twenty-minute Ritchie solo, my new friend and I fell to the stage, and rolled under the piano, where we became fully acquainted. With the solo needing to end, getting my pants back on was a problem – but God bless the long guitar solo, that’s what I say!

  Knobbing – you know what it means – was the order of the day, and you have to be glad that AIDS wasn’t the concern we now know it to be. Then, the popular ‘dose’ beloved of sailors, and known as VD, was well within the curing capabilities of a competent doctor, and I caught it a couple of times. Still, in the balance of things, it was worthwhile, and we enjoyed a life of unlimited debauchery and endless surprises, such as with Dirty Doreen, who was called that because the lass was game for anything, and was simply very, very rude. The way she used her orifices to amuse herself, and anybody who was interested, never ceased to amaze. There was that extraordinary time when we played the Queen Elizabeth Hall, supported by Wishbone Ash. Just before going on stage, one of their band members came rushing into the dressing room saying he’d lost his hairbrush, and could he borrow one of ours? It happened that Doreen had mine tucked between her legs, so, lifting her frock, I removed it, and passed it, handle first to the musician, who drifted out with a very puzzled look on his face.

  These little moments of subtle humour were just commonplace in my business, but was it also going on in other circles? I know you wouldn’t be employed by a bank if you turned up for the interview pissed, a circumstance that need not have excluded you if you arrived for an audition a bit squiffy!

  I guess we must have been affected by our lifestyles, but I won’t excuse anything because of it. We just did things spontaneously, and it snowballed. Sometimes we’d be the cause, and on other occasions it would start elsewhere. For example, if I started getting grief from a hotel switchboard, such that I couldn’t get what I wanted immediately, I’d rip the phone out of the wall and put it in a lift with a note saying, ‘This phone doesn’t appear to be working; will you send another up, please.’ I did that quite often, because I did get the distinct impression sometimes that we were not as welcome as other guests, and yet we were certainly better for business!

  And then the occasional barman would give me a hard time, which I’d also find unacceptable. I mean, if you have to scowl at or be indifferent to a customer who’s drinking the bar dry, there has to be some kind of price to pay, eh? So, when it was time to leave, people like that would see me roll and light a large banknote of whatever currency we were dealing with at the time, and, once it was smouldering, I’d put it into the ashtray, saying, ‘Your tip. Goodnight!’ I know it sounds really nasty, but we’re all entitled to deal with our dignity as we feel appropriate, and it seemed a more civilised conclusion than starting a fight.

  In terms of the serious money being generated, our management had secured a $400, 000 advance with the buyers of Tetragrammaton, although there would be some nervous moments in the early days, while Joe Smith, Warner’s president, fathomed out what to do with us! His dilemma was most probably because Deep Purple came to the corporation as a very small asset among much bigger contracts, but we played our part by delivering the Deep Purple in Rock album to them, which they were delighted with, and which went to No. 4 in the UK charts, and made No. 143 in the States. The ‘Black Night’ single followed, and made No. 2 in the UK, behind ‘Band of Gold’ by Freda Payne. All of this meant that the band I’d joined just about a year ago were helping me to achieve my wildest dreams!

  I’m told we played about fifty UK gigs during the first part of 1970, as well as fifteen or so on the Continent, while our performance fees rose significantly, as radio and TV work kept flooding in. There was also the BBC’s Making a Musical on 8 February, their production Sounds of the Seventies in April, May and June; plus Granada TV’s Doing Their Thing and LWT’s South Bank Summer.

  Well I’ve said ‘at last’ several times already, but here’s another one, because with the problems of Tetragrammaton settled, plus being with a great new label, and of course having a major album in the charts, it was announced that, at last, we’d be touring the States in the autumn.

  Still just ahead of that, we had the National Jazz and Blues Festival to play at Plumpton on 9 August, and it was here that Ritchie decided to add a further dimension to his performance, when our version of the Stones’ hit ‘Paint it Black’ drew to a close with a blistering solo from Ian Paice. Basically, Ritchie had told our roadie, Ian Hansford, to douse his speaker with petrol and set fire to it, which of course Ian was extremely reluctant to do. However, he eventually went along with the order, torched the gear with a long broom handle, and – surprise, surprise – the whole damn lot went up, with one of the crew getting burned as he vainly tried to put the fire out.

  It was then down to Ritchie to explain his rationale for the incident, which he did on the grounds that Yes had deliberately failed to turn up on time, and so we’d been manipulated into being the support act. However, it didn’t work out quite like that, because we very effectively closed the show for ourselves, and for them also. The situation caused a lot of bad feeling all the way round, but Ritchie didn’t give a toss, and we all felt pretty much the same.

  Ritchie went on to make quite a habit of trashing guitars on stage, and cheap Japanese models would eventually be bought for the purpose of sending the crowd home happy. Well, that’s how he saw it, and the theatrical stunt worked well enough for him to carry on doing it right up to the moment of his departure in 1994.

  It was in Dundee that I heard the album had gone into the charts. We were having lunch when Tony Edwards announced it, and, after so many years of struggle and disappointment, I just burst into tears. Within such a short time, everything had changed, and now it all seemed, for once, so very simple. I mean, just look how we made it with ‘Black Night’, which we did only because the managers told us we needed a ‘single’, and so we went to the studio one afternoon, tried to find a riff, failed, and went to the Newton Arms next door, where we got drunk. Then Roger and Ritchie went back to try again and, after a few hours, the backing tracks were down. We borrowed the title from the words of an old Arthur Alexander song, and Roger and I worked on the lyric, which was quite tricky to do, given the state we were in!

  As Disc and Music Echo reported in September 1970: ‘Deep Purple’s Roger Glover admitted he has no idea what the words of “Black Night” are all about. Never mind, he only part wrote it!’ Still, the managers got what they’d asked for, and it succeeded. As I say, why had it all been so difficult before?

  Other things also began to fall into place for us, beginning with another hike in wages to £100 a week, and a PR team with budgets to add further to our ever-rising profile. Police presences were also becoming necessary, to maintain orderly behaviour among the fans and punters before and after a show, although the occasional ‘serious issue’ would still sometimes present itself, as it did in Offenbach, Germany, where a bomb scare had the hall emptied, and of course closed the show. The incident was reported soon after in Melody Maker, and illustrates our ‘popularity’, if I can put it that way!

  Talking of riots, Deep Purple caused one during their highly incident-prone European tour. After their skirmish with East German border guards and a bomb scare at Offenbach, which prevented them from finishing a set, they even found trouble in neutral Switzerland. Crammed into a none-too-big venue at Basle were 2, 500 people, so those who couldn’t get in, rioted outside.

  With all of this going on, and much else besides, I received a call from out of the blue, and it was Tim Rice. He’d heard me sing ‘Child in Time’, and thought the way I did it would be ideal for a project he was working on with Andrew Lloyd Webber (now, of course, Lord Lloyd-Webber). So I went round to Andrew’s flat, where the two of them took me through the concept of their musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Tim
was instantly fantastic – effusive, enthusiastic, driving: a warm, gentle giant of a man. He then introduced me to Andrew, who sat at the piano wearing his ‘inside-out look’, and said, ‘It goes like this,’ at which point he started playing. Every so often, he’d look over his shoulder for appreciation, but I found it difficult to show enthusiasm, as I worked with the lyric. The choruses were great, well worked out and crafted, but we seemed not to communicate too well, and it was only because of Tim that I really bothered to stay for one of those ‘it goes like this, and now change to that’ sessions. Tim kept encouraging me with, ‘Go on! Go on!’ and ‘Hey, that’s great!’ until I began to see where the whole thing was going.

  He then said, ‘OK, let’s take it to the studio,’ where I did my whole contribution to the part of Jesus in just a few hours.

  Looking back on the experience, I see two high points, the first being in the song ‘Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)’, which is an important piece, and there I have to admit having to do two or three takes of the closing scene at the Cross, because that piece moved me significantly. In fact, it almost brought me to tears.

  Jesus Christ Superstar is not a project I got close to at all, although I was very pleased with it in the end, including (for High Point 2) with Tony Edwards, who earned his commission on that venture, because he negotiated a royalty payment of one penny per unit sold, instead of the flat fee of (I believe) £100, which was on offer.

  I’ve spoken in the beginning about how business was conducted in my formative years, against the way the young generation go about their music careers today, but I believe I’m right in saying that the percentage deal Tony struck for me on the Superstar project, was groundbreaking in its time, and that Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene) also secured a similar arrangement. So the original album, in its striking sleeve, was released in November 1970, and went to No. 6 in the UK charts and No. 1 in America, selling about eight million copies in total.

  A little while later, I received a call from Tony, saying that Tim was hassling for me to play the Jesus role in the movie. I had the voice, the figure – tall and slim – and, of course, the long hair, although I suppose it can’t be proven that’s how Jesus looked in real life. I mean, he might have been short and fat, mightn’t he?

  Well, for many reasons – mainly because Deep Purple was my life, and I’d already turned down the stage part, so the film didn’t really seem any different – I turned down the offer. However, Tony said I should at least go and find out more about it, so I went to Pinewood Studios to meet the producer, Norman Jewison. The idea was for us to chat and screen-test, and, on balance, my mood was very positive, as I remembered the ambitions of my youth, and the incident with those two guys outside the Odeon (see Chapter 1). I mean, not even Elvis Presley had the credentials for a part like the one I was talking about, so perhaps everything was going to work out as originally planned, as I struggled in a ‘push me, pull you’ contest of the mind!

  Against every positive consideration that playing lead in a movie meant to me, there was always the love and loyalty I felt towards the band and, of course, there had been the Concerto a few months earlier, when I’d participated in giving Jon such a hard time for being less than one hundred per cent committed. So all of this was in my mind, as I arrived magnificently at the studios in my new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III, complete with E-plates, and went to find Mr Jewison’s suite, where coffee was served. And then, with his secretary in constant attendance, Jewison looked me up and down and said, ‘Well, Tim is certainly keen for you to play the part, and I’m sure everything’s going to be just fine. What’s your schedule?’

  As it happened, I was able to tell him that things were a bit quiet for a month or so, to which he said they’d be going to Israel in a few weeks, and we’d be on location there for about ten. There was lots of ‘I’m interested’; ‘Let me talk to the band’; ‘Fine, see if something can be wangled’; and ‘Yes, you look great’ as I stood up to leave. And then I made a mistake. If only I’d had the experience to know when to speak and when to shut up, and had kept my mouth closed and let Tony follow things up, I’d probably be a movie star by now. But it wasn’t to be, because at the door, I said,

  ‘Hang on a second,’ to which Mr Jewison replied, ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s the deal?’

  In fact, my motives were perfectly well intended, as I went on to explain that, if I was going to be out of circulation for three months, I’d need to ask what the band would have to say about it. This situation wasn’t about financial gain: it was about the guys being covered for loss of earnings and so forth; and so I repeated the question.

  ‘What’s the deal?’ to which he replied it was $1, 000 a week, which I took to mean ‘expenses’; and I said something to that effect. However, he misunderstood me, because he said, ‘Correct – but you have to pay your own bar bill.’ ‘That’s great,’ I said, mightily relieved. ‘Now tell me how much I get paid?’

  ‘Well, I’ve just told you: a thousand dollars a week.’

  After a pause, I said, ‘Do you mean I’m being offered about twelve thousand dollars “all in” to star in this film, while my mates sit around for weeks on end, twiddling their thumbs?’

  Puzzled, he said, ‘What are you talking about?’

  So I laid it on the line. ‘Mr Jewison, this band I’m with can take $20, 000 a night, that’s what I’m talking about!’

  Well the man was absolutely shocked, and it all started to go downhill from there. Gestures and recovery noises were made, so, when it came to the crunch and he asked how much I wanted, I told him I wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $250, 000, and, with that said, I was soon on my way to the car and a pub, to reflect on the fact that I’d nearly become a film star!

  I told Tony about the meeting, and he said he’d see if he could pick up the pieces, but, of course, that never happened, and the American Ted Neeley got the gig. As a result of this, I discovered I now had two managers who were seeing me as a troublemaker. Whether it goes back so far as when Roger and I asked John for some money to buy clothes, or the fact I was behind some of the bills for hotel refurbishments, I know not, but John certainly had me down as ‘problematic’, and I guess Tony now felt the same!

  Against this, the first trip by Deep Purple to America in August was relatively uneventful – a total anticlimax, really. We’d so looked forward to it, but then travelled with great reluctance, because Warner Bros wanted us to perform the Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl, which even Jon was unenthusiastic about. However, the label was also looking to give us loads of publicity for Deep Purple in Rock, so we did an abbreviated version of Jon’s work, and followed it with pure Purple, which went down brilliantly in the packed venue, although I have to say we were then glad to close the door on the Concerto part of our lives. Roger was particularly glad, because he’d played the show having just had a jab to deal with something nasty that he’d picked up along the way! Funny how you remember things like that, in circumstances just mentioned, and of such magnitude!

  We played Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Pasadena, and earned just over £7, 500, which was a lot less than the cost of a trip, which also failed to generate the record sales we were hoping for, as the tour ended beset by niggling problems. Expected bookings had failed to appear, keeping us at one time hotel-bound in Los Angeles, and on another occasion we had to borrow gear in Arizona after the tour bus broke down in the desert.

  Still, it was better news back home, where ‘Black Night’ was doing the business, and we were in huge demand, including, as it would emerge, with Sanderson’s wallpaper, a story that illustrates how we sometimes struggled with the management over the conflict between artistic credibility and (almost) vulgar business intent.

  I’m not entirely sure how and when the Sanderson’s incident occurred, but we went to one of those interminable meetings at number 25, where John would order the drinks, and then run ideas past us. The sessions usually started with a ‘let’s sort things out boys�
�� moment, and a chance to bounce ideas around, beginning with the bounce-around idea that Sanderson’s would make Deep Purple (-coloured) wallpaper. That’s right, Sanderson’s would make Deep Purple (-coloured) wallpaper!

  From the prolonged silence, it was evident that this was another of those brainwaves that had everybody looking at the table, fiddling with pencils, or taking a deep swig of drink, before the two managers would swing into a tried and tested strategy. John would pick out two of the band to take to lunch, Tony would take the other two, and I’d be left to make my own arrangements. So I’d take myself off to the pub, and eventually we’d all reconvene to hear the outcome of collective deliberations, which would start with, ‘Well, Jon, what do you think?’ and he’d say that he thought ‘whatever’ a pretty good idea. And then ‘Well, Ritchie, what do you think?’ and Ritchie wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered, so it was Roger’s turn next, and he’d say he’d go along with the majority. That left Paicey, who’d just want to know how much money we were going to get. So, with a rub of hands, the management would say, ‘Good, so we’re going to do it, then, lads, right?’ And, as they all nodded, I’d go, ‘You fucking prats, I don’t believe this!’ But, sadly, that’s how so many things seemed to be handled from time to time, and I’m reminded that we live in a democracy!

  The deal we had with our managers didn’t really bother me in those days. I was young and doing what I’d always wanted to do. Indeed I hadn’t a care in the world, so the detail of money was a very low priority – so much so that, if I was a millionaire in the halcyon days of Purple, I was the only one not to realise it! People kept telling me how rich I was, but they obviously had better access to my life than I did. Of course, I exhibited wealth by owning a lifetime’s ambition – the Roller, for which I paid £3, 750 – and then I also bought my first house: Hyde House in Pangbourne. That cost £12, 500, but it was only a neo Georgian thing on a small private estate, and efforts to make it more palatial by building a small swimming pool in the garden were unsuccessful. So, in the bigger scheme of things, I was basically happy to leave my earnings in the hands of John, Tony and Bill Reid, as Deep Purple became increasingly ‘bankable’.