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

  Withdraw from the world, my friend

  I said to myself

  It’s time to heal and mend

  And discover yourself

  I put together a band called the Hickies to complete outstanding bookings, but we aimed to do no more than that, as I drifted with diminishing enthusiasm into a soul band called Wainwright’s Gentlemen.

  The ‘Gentlemen’ were originally formed by Brian Connolly and Mick Tucker, and were a very competent six-to-eight-piece outfit who were well managed and always working. We played good venues, such as the Rikki Tik in Windsor and the Café des Artistes, but, once again, success remained just an aspiration, with hopes of fame remote – remote, that is, until the night we played Wistow House. I was singing Brook Benton’s ‘Kiddio’ when my eyes strayed to a magnificent pair of tits, for which read that life was about to take a significant turn for the better!

  While trying to concentrate on the lyric, I literally had to force my eyes up, to find the face of Gloria Bristow – or Glorious Bristols, as she would later be known to me – and a while later we were chatting. It turned out that Gloria worked for Helmut Gordon, whose main claim to fame was that he’d discovered the Detours, later to be the Who, and, although he’d lose that band, before disappearing off the scene himself, it turns out that Susan Siegal from his office had heard of me, and sent Gloria to check me out as a possible replacement for Andy Ross of the Hatch End band Episode Six.

  Well, I’d certainly heard about Episode Six, with their line-up of Tony Lander (guitar), Graham Carter (guitar/vocals), his sister Sheila Carter (keyboards/vocals), Harvey Shield (drums), Roger Glover (bass) and of course the outgoing singer, Andy Ross, who’d decided to get married, and quit the business. In fact, the band hailed from outside of my area, having all met at Harrow County School, and they would later come together from two bands, the Lightnings and the Madisons. So I knew they were good, but what was particularly attractive to me was the fact they’d turned pro in April 1965 and seemed to be well managed.

  Gloria was very businesslike, and explained that I’d be with people who were ‘going places’, would make records and tour anywhere and everywhere. She also reminded me that their stock-in-trade was harmonies and ballads, and that I’d be expected to dress up in various styles of cabaret clothing, and generally do as I was told. Above all else, she said, we’d become famous – and that was music to my ears!

  I know Audrey was, well, let’s just say, concerned, and, when I look back on those times, I can totally understand how difficult the situation must have been for her. After all, she had worked so incredibly hard to help give me a good start in life, and suddenly I’m telling her that I’m ‘going on the road’, and was under Gloria’s wing, and answerable to her. That said, she took it very well, I was grateful, and I still am!

  The Episode Six set-up impressed me the more I got into it. For starters, they had their own office, with a secretary, at 43 Aylesford Street in Pimlico, London, and this, together with a fan club, suggested these people knew their way around. They also had contacts and Honorary Members such as Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart, Keith (Cardboard Shoes) Skues, Mike Lennox, Colin Nicol and Tony Blackburn, all of them well-known DJs. Unfortunately, there’s always a price to pay for keeping in with the ‘right people’, and one was that we’d sometimes have to put up with, for example, Tony Blackburn joining us on stage to sing. Frankly, it was embarrassing, as he moved around with this silly grin on his face, completely ruining the Ray Charles song ‘What’d I Say’, which was a favourite of his, but mine too for that matter! Also, I’m afraid he just couldn’t keep time with the breaks, and I’m not saying that because he cut me ‘stone dead’ in one of the green rooms at the BBC in my early days with Purple a few years later. It just happens he was much better at being a DJ!

  However, to bring some kind of balanced closure to this incredibly important period of formative/early days of rock ’n’ roll, it’s only fair that passing reference be made to the first pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, which operated in international waters, offshore, and in which enterprise Tony and others (for instance, my mate David ‘Kid’ Jensen and Simon Dee) stirred their fair share of trouble with the establishment – although he’d later join the BBC, where I suppose he came to see things differently, including my hairstyle!

  Anyway, they all seemed happy to be associated with Episode Six, and we were pleased to have the chance to appear on radio, and most auspiciously on Radio 1 Club, the first legal pop programme, which was also first broadcast on Monday, 21 October 1968, and continued until October 1971. It was a great showcase for many bands, and recordings took place in either a club or a hall, or indeed in the BBC’s Paris Theatre in London. Above all else, it offered a chance for us to perform live, have our records played and meet other artists, including the Tremeloes and Julie Driscoll, whilst I believe the Brian Auger Trinity and even Pink Floyd played there.

  Between October 1968 and June 1969, we performed eight times for the Club, and also gave the programme a couple of interviews, which apparently, set some sort of a record, while back at the office the fan-club newsletter was full on, and always colourful and enthusiastic. Here’s how it described me:

  IAN GILLAN

  Real name Ian Gillan

  Stage name Ian Gillan

  Birthdate/place 19 August 1945, Hounslow

  Personal points 6’ 2’”, grey eyes, dark brown hair

  Brother & sister Pauline

  Present home Hounslow

  Where educated Acton County School

  Age entered show business 15

  First professional appearance College dance at Twickenham

  Biggest break in career None yet

  Biggest disappointment in career Too many to list

  Biggest influence on career Other groups

  Hobbies Watching Queen’s Park Rangers, swimming, water-skiing

  Favourite colours Turquoise

  Favourite food Anything English

  Favourite drink Light & bitter, Scotch

  Favourite clothes Suits, American casual

  Favourite singers Brook Benton, Johnny Gustafson

  Favourite bands/instrumentalists None

  Favourite groups None

  Favourite actress Elke Sommer

  Favourite actor Alfred Lynch

  Favourite composers None

  Miscellaneous likes Enjoying myself, sunshine

  Miscellaneous dislikes People with no sense of humour

  Best friend Barry Higgins

  Most thrilling experience Playing at Nottingham Palais to a great audience

  Tastes in music Anything exciting

  Pets The odd cat here and there!

  Ambition To own a big house in the country

  Professional ambition To never run out of ambition and to be a good film actor

  Against this revealing profile, I suppose the best way to introduce the musicians I’d be with for the next three years or so is to look at the things that interested them, what their ambitions were, and so on. As their own profiles explained, we were all about the same age, and I guess from similar backgrounds, although influences, experiences and interests varied. Graham’s favourite colours were red and black, his dress preference was English and Chinese, and so too was his favourite food. He was a cold-coffee drinker, with a taste for cider, vodka and Pepsi or Cinzano, and he had a wide range of musical influences, which included the Beach Boys and the Barron Knights, all of which gives the clue as to the type of music we’d play. His best friends were Sheila, a poodle and a budgerigar, plus, he’d already tasted fame on Ready Steady Go, and had ambitions to see the world, stand on the moon and never change his profession! When it came to his big break, he had the good grace to admit to meeting Gloria, unlike my own rather ungrateful ‘None yet’ reply.

  Sheila liked the colours blue and purple, steak and Chinese food, the poodle and the budgie; also, she went for ice-cold milk and advocaat, but didn’t like opening milk cans! Influenced by Cleo
Laine, Jimmy Smith, Alan Price, Georgie Fame and the Beatles, her ambitions included to own a chimp and a baby elephant. And, of course, her biggest break was also credited to meeting Gloria.

  Tony Lander liked purple and blue, Zoot Money, Nina Simone and George Benson, while he was a sausage-and-chips freak, with an ambition to live ‘happily ever after’! And, of course, Tony was also grateful for having met Gloria!

  Then there was Harvey, who counted his own Episode Six among his favourite groups, along with the Drifters, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Beatles; while he also loved himself best, wanted to ‘live happily ever after’ and admitted to enjoying ‘doing nothing’. Harvey Shield’s biggest career break was meeting … OK, you’ve got it!

  Which brings me to Roger Glover, or the ‘stinking hippie’, as he was then known. Born in Brecon, Mid Wales, a month or so after me, Roger liked the colour purple, and his favourite food was Chinese, with musical influences noted as Tom Jones, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Beatles. It would emerge, and continue throughout our lifelong friendship and collaborations, that Roger’s dislikes were arguments and violence, while his only nasty streak was a confessed love of driving through puddles in the van, but, of course, he too was immensely grateful to Gloria, although Les Reed also won his gratitude!

  Roger came to the business from a background that was pretty helpful in some ways, beginning with the fact that, when he was ten, his family came to London to run the Richmond Arms pub in the Old Brompton Road. It’s since been demolished, and is now the Tournament, but while they were there, they put on live music, and so he had his first taste of the ‘business’, mainly through skiffle.

  With the sudden departure of Helmut from the management (I still owe him £100!), Gloria took full charge of us, and set about putting the band to work very seriously. Under her enthusiastic management we had organisation, a fair degree of discipline and a gig schedule that took us around the UK, over to Germany and as far off as Beirut! And finally, at long last, I signed a recording contract, which meant I’d cracked it. Or so I thought!

  CHAPTER 3

  The deal I signed to was with Dick Katz/Harold Davison Ltd, and it took us to Pye Records. Typed up in about ten thousand words, what it basically said was, ‘Dear Episode Six, I’m going to earn you £30, 000 this year, and deal with the record company for you.’ It sounded extremely good, and so we signed a royalty agreement that gave us 75 per cent of 1 per cent, rising to ‘of 3 per cent’ after twenty-five years, and on that outcome, as we’d soon learn, we were supposed to live and keep our manager happy!

  Of course it’s always easy to be wise with hindsight, but these sorts of deal were commonplace then, and would continue as such for many years, until the balance of power shifted more in favour of the artist, helped by a couple of well-publicised court cases. Still, that was how it was, but it’s certainly not how it’s done now, and it’s good to know that the artist’s status is not as low as it was before, that we’re now getting a fairer share of the pie. If we compare the Episode Six period with today, it also seems to me that, although the kids have much the same as we had, nevertheless there’s more of it now, but probably with no fewer problems, pro rata. Crucially, what we didn’t have then, or was even considered necessary, was a clinical ambition of the kind that seems necessary today, and that’s because in our time we saw ourselves as immortal, and it was that mindset that helped create and drive an ideology, which meant we threw everything we had into what we were doing.

  So the reason we got better was simply that we wanted to get better, and our resolve was singular and unambiguous. On the flipside, I have to admit that the kids today are much smarter than we were about what they’re letting themselves in for, and so it appears that most get to understand the basics of business and contract law early on, and keep abreast of things like that, alongside their writing, rehearsing and playing. It’s an attitude we simply never had, or even thought about having, it being our way of being businesslike and attracting attention to (for example) post a spoof advert which read: ‘EPISODE SIX – APPEARING ON DECCA RECORDS (SOON!)’.

  Well, Pye didn’t much like that, but we’d committed to them, and went along with being good artists for them to have, just as we also went to work with great energy for Gloria, who kept the bookings up, with weddings, college dates and the odd American bases. However, the same dedication and excitement didn’t seem to be forthcoming from our new business and agency associates, and that was a huge disappointment. When we decided to take the matter up with them, it was quietly pointed out (before the hysteria began) that what we’d signed up to meant they would find us £30, 000 of work before the year end, and, if they didn’t, we were free to leave. It was very different from expectations, and a bitter blow, which left us to join the chorus of musicians who said success was possible ‘despite your agent’! However, as I’ve already alluded to, we’d made ourselves willing lambs to the slaughter, and needed to simply put it down to experience, and not do it again! (Well not until the next time, at least!)

  Our first record with Pye was the Hollies’ number ‘Put Yourself In My Place’, which we took from one of their albums, and made after a typically brief session in a basement studio at Marble Arch. It was done with very few takes. Tony Reeves (a respected musician) produced us – he’d later play with a band called Colosseum – and another early studio guy was Glenn Cornick, who went on to play bass with Jethro Tull.

  Unfortunately, things in the studio did not go as we’d planned, either, because instructions came down telling us we’d be needed only for vocals in future so not to bring our instruments. A hammer blow, but true, and when we next arrived we found a group of session players waiting, including a drummer, whose very presence deeply (and understandably) upset Harvey. Still, once again, we had no choice but to take it on the chin, and realise this was just another new experience on the learning curve, that the contract allowed for it to happen, and that it did just that for most of our early releases.

  As for the song, well, despite all that had passed us by, we were still glad to get our hands on our first piece of vinyl, and an appointment was made for us to meet the group who’d first made it, to see what they thought of our effort. So we arrived at the hotel, where we felt grudgingly received, but still to hand over a disc we’d signed, as a sign of our admiration and gratitude to them. It was all a bit uncomfortable, really, but the song was released in January 1966, with Roger’s composition, ‘That’s All I Want’ on the B side, and we followed it up in April with ‘I Hear Trumpets Blow’, plus another Glover song, ‘True Love is Funny’, on the other side.

  In the meantime, and very differently, the Beatles were steaming on with George Martin at the production helm, and John Lennon was telling Maureen Cleave of the Evening Standard that they were ‘probably bigger than Jesus Christ right now’. So it sometimes needed a sense of humour to be in Episode Six, and we showed that in various ways, such as when Roger did a spoof on ‘Surfin’ USA’ (the Beach Boys), except our song was called ‘Mighty Morris Ten’:

  Come on, everybody

  Grab your automobile

  We’re going down the Harrow Road

  I’ve got a little old Morris and it’s doing fine

  Although it’s ninety-six years old!

  Another way of dealing with the different emotions of the time was to enjoy a drink or two, except this slipped into ‘something more’, with beer and Scotch being my favourites. So with this starting to become a bigger part of my lifestyle, and in the absence of any warning lights flashing, it became my fate to acquire a reputation that would cause other people concern from time to time, although, I’d often think, needlessly. However, to neatly digress a little, it’s a drink-related story that gave the band a precious moment to savour, for which read that it cheered us up!

  Graham was responsible for the group van, which his (and Sheila’s) lovely parents allowed us to keep at the family home, and this had a valuable and add
ed convenience, because he’d usually be our driver. Now on the occasion that’s about to be explained, Graham must have had other things on his mind, as he drove the six-wheel, long wheelbase Commer van we called Wagger (WAG being the first three letters of the number plate) through the lights, just as they began to change. Perhaps we were arguing, I just don’t remember, but this gent, whom we’d soon discover to be of Irish descent, suddenly drifted off the kerb in front of us, giving Graham only one choice, as he saw it. And the choice he made was to accelerate through and onwards, which proved to be a mistake, as became clear when we had a body on the bonnet, along with our visitor’s face, which was plastered against the windscreen wearing a look that suggested neither joy nor genius. Frankly, I think Graham had panicked, but, whether that was the case or not, he certainly did so next, when he slammed on the brakes, and our impromptu hitchhiker (being only lightly attached) flew off. Graham’s foot then slipped on the clutch, the van leapt forward, and we ran over our unfortunate visitor.

  Getting out to check the extent of the damage to Wagger, Graham unfortunately stepped onto the poor guy’s head, but then, to the victim’s eternal credit, he somehow got to his feet and started giving us a hard time! Amid the teasing, raging and laughter, we all agreed on what the moral of the story was: if you want to run over an Irishman and get away with it, make sure you perform the exercise at least ten times; except that I’m going to admit that in later years I’d regret the extent to which the delightful Irish were the butt of too many jokes at the time. I really do, and Gawd bless ’em!

  We travelled everywhere on wages of £10 a week; and a typical schedule would look like this:

  August