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

  Ritchie had rented a different boat, which was a modern fibreglass type. It had only a couple of berths, as opposed to the six or seven we had in our more sedate craft, and of course his vessel turned out to be a bit quick, as he demonstrated when the two boats arrived unannounced during the Henley Regatta. As I recall, there were all sorts of signs on the river saying, ‘Don’t do this’, ‘Don’t do that’, ‘Max speed 2 miles an hour’, as well as quite a few well-‘blazered’ people who were shouting, pointing and waving at us. Well, Paicey and I were fairly accommodating in the larger and slower boat, but Ritchie very quickly got bored with the whole affair, and decided to show the many onlookers that his craft could reverse just as quickly as it could go forwards. He also showed its ability to manoeuvre, by describing circles around The Gay Joker so fast that it mattered not if you were on the river or on the shore. Wherever you stood, you got soaked, as ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ pounded the ears. Dear Lord, I’ve never seen so many pissed-off Hooray Henrys and Carolines in all my life, and there were a lot of Carolines – mostly with their tits out. Anyway, we all waved back at them!

  As your impoverished newcomer to Deep Purple, I’d need to come to terms with many things quite quickly. For example, having seen Paicey offload serious material wealth when boarding The Gay Joker, I’d find myself in his ‘wake’, after we’d moored up near the riverside pub! So off he strode, in hipster jeans with a wide belt, and loaded with banknotes, which he’d folded in the belt, so that half the money would be hanging out for all to see. Once at the pub, he’d strut around, just willing people to wonder who this guy was, although, when it came to approaching the bar, he’d usually allow others to get there first!

  An early problem also turned out to be his total disregard for personal hygiene ‘on board ship’, and, apart from having smelly feet, he showed a resolute reluctance to clean out the toilet, which was basically a bucket. After a while, I decided not to do it for him any more, and we used the pub facilities instead. The unpleasant situation didn’t seem to bother him too much, even though his bunk was next door to the cubicle; but, unfortunately, we moored up badly on one occasion, and the boat tilted sideways. To be fair, he rolled up his sleeves to help sort that problem out!

  Still on the river, and Ritchie and his German-born wife, Babs, would meet up with us from time to time, and I’d begin to learn more about this eccentric and moody musician. On one occasion he decided to explore an island, and got the engine tangled up with the roots of a tree. Unperturbed, he hopped ashore, leaving Babs (whose figure would have proudly adorned the prow of the finest galleon) to amuse herself with their dog, Strokie. Well it happens that Strokie was an extremely clever animal who’d happily entertain anyone for hours on end, showing off with his backward somersaults and other party pieces. Now alone and stranded with Babs, he started his routine, presumably to cheer her up, except Babs, resplendent in her bikini, had got beyond the stage where even Strokie could make things better for her, and she was getting agitated. It was another moment for Gillan’s gallantry, as I stripped down to a pair of jeans and dived under the hull, where I cut the boat free with my knife. Coming to the surface, I realised to my horror, that the current was rapidly taking Babs and Strokie downstream. At this point Ritchie returned to see what was going on, while the distraught Babs screamed, ‘Ach, Ritchie! Vot I do?’

  ‘Turn the wheel, you soppy cow!’ was his unenthusiastic advice, before he promptly returned to his wanderings on the island!

  There were a few good and relaxing moments on the river, although nothing was ever normal. For example, Paicey, for all his expensive fishing gear, never seemed to catch anything, and I often suggested that his luck might change if he substituted Nat King Cole for Vanilla Fudge. Of course he’d have none of that, but the point was probably better made the day this kid was fishing the bank, using just a bamboo pole, a length of line, a bent pin and some bread. Over a few hours, he filled his bag with trout, and towards the end of the day my shipmate, who’d not had a single nibble, went over to him to see if he’d like the treat of fishing from our boat. So they swapped places and, as Paicey threw out his line and cranked up the stereo, the kid continued pulling in fish from the comfort of our boat.

  Later, in the pub, the drummer started making up bait for the next day. He used a biscuit tin full of maggots, which he rested on the wall while I went (again) for the beer. Waiting at the bar, I heard all this shouting and screaming, and looked out to see that the wind had blown the tin off the wall, so that his vile maggots were now crawling in the sandwiches, hair and private parts of other customers. They really were evil-smelling things (the maggots were), and it hurt Ian a lot to remove notes from his belt, to replace the spoiled food and drinks!

  Meantime, while we were taking things easy, Ritchie was somewhere upriver with his airgun (or maybe it was a catapult), popping off at the riverbanks, until he finally went too far near Windsor, and the river police caught up with him. That was one of the few incidents the press didn’t get to hear about, and it was also my first awareness of the management skills of Messrs Edwards and Coletta, who somehow got him off, when the case came to court!

  When I joined Deep Purple, my salary doubled to £20 a week, despite the ongoing troubles with the record company, which included gossip about ‘bad investments’ in other entertainment projects. However, I decided I had enough to concentrate my mind on as a musician, and left that side of Deep Purple to the management! Eventually, the Tetragrammaton issue would be sorted out when Warner Brothers came to the rescue, and, while that was great news, I felt particularly good having two managers, two roadies in Mick Angus and Ian Hansford, and being in a band that was going places.

  Talking of ‘managers’, and feeling particularly good about the status that situation brought to us, I’d also learn they were very different characters, and needed to be understood as such. So, as the weeks and months passed by, I worked out how to approach John for one thing and touch Tony for another – or whom not to approach or touch for one thing or another! For example, an early mistake was when Roger and I approached John to ask him for a sub, so we could buy decent clothes to wear on stage. His reply was not very positive, to say the least, and proved to be a salutary lesson and an introduction as to how big-time management worked. Perhaps we should have gone to Tony.

  In truth, John and Tony were a united front, with good and bad ideas, but generally fine to be with, while I’d soon be meeting our full-time accountant, and my future mentor, Bill Reid.

  So, with business matters seemingly in good enough order, the band completed ‘Hallelujah’, which I first mentioned in the pre-joining phase, when Rod and Nick were still involved, and it was released on the EMI label (Harvest) in July, and later in America. In fact, it’s not a performance I’m terribly proud of, because, for starters, it wasn’t my lyric, and then, apart from mentioning that I’m not on the B side, the record showed me more as I’d been with Episode Six, as opposed to where I was at now. Still, it got me my first press release with the band, when Tony Barrow International Ltd printed that my ‘voice sings powerfully on revivalist lyrics, and tells us that it’s time for smiles and Deep Purple’!

  In fact it wasn’t all smiles, really, because, when the managers told us we’d be performing the song on The David Frost Show (not Top of the Pops or Ready Steady Go), Ritchie refused. If we’d but known it, this was probably the beginning of things to come, but that was for the future, as they say, and, in present time, songwriting with Roger was well under way, as we ditched the culture of restraint and ‘holding back’, which had defined the way we went to work in the past. Then we were ‘nice people’, but, as a certain drummer, Lenny Haze, would say to me one day about different people in a different place, ‘They play like “nice people”!’ Well for us those days were now history and we didn’t have to be nice people any more. We could just stick two fingers in the air and go for it, and I think this is what Purple had been looking for – and we were going to deliver on it!


  You could feel it in the music, and the way the band played. It explains very simply why songs like ‘Speed King’ took off. Right now, my entire music background of appreciation for the likes of Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry had found its new purpose, and, as I’ve suggested with Ritchie and the way he called on his past, so the time had come for me to put into practice everything I’d also learned.

  Good Golly, said little Miss Molly when she was rockin’ in the house of blue light

  Tutti Frutti was oh so rooty when she was rockin’ to the east and west

  Lucille was oh so real when she didn’t do her daddy’s will Come on, baby, drive me crazy, do it, do it!

  The early months of Purple were something of a blur, partly because of the energy and work, but also because I’d come to a drinking band, as a good drinker myself. However, because of the way we went about things, and what was going on around us, people thought we were on drugs, when the simple fact was that alcohol was our choice, and that was sufficient for me in the beginning! The problem arose only as the momentum and excitement increased, and I’d start going (almost daily) to buy a bottle of sweet Martini, which I’d use to set me up, having poured it into a tumbler loaded with ice. A bit further down the line, and I’d add gin to the Martini, which, although not very macho, did at least hit the soft spot for me quite quickly. So, with breakfast and brunch time sorted, I’d get into the day proper, and by nightfall I’d be having a sociable time in some bar or other, finally to find my way home perfectly well, with about ten pints of beer inside me.

  It made no difference whether it was a working day or not. There was an occasion when we went to Germany, and I began drinking gin and vermouth quite early at the airport, ahead of the noon departure. During the flight, I must have had three or four miniatures of gin and tonic, which when chased by a similar number of beers, saw me through the short trip. I then found myself in a restaurant ‘somewhere’ doing an interview, and quaffing German beer – many large steins – before going on to do a TV show, and then having an evening meal, where the wine flowed. The session then transferred to a club, where I’d get back to Scotch and beer to dilute the taste of wine (which is not my favourite beverage), before I eventually crashed out in bed.

  The monks of vine who crush the wine

  And get it on their smocks

  It dribbles down their legs

  To their intoxicated socks

  They roll about in ecstasy

  And frolic on the lawn

  Until they hear the bells that signal

  Matins … after dawn!

  Now for those who may have been (or are) appalled by this account, the good news is that, come the morning, I’d wake up feeling great, and ready to carry on with the duties required of me. It was a recovery trait that I know used to irritate some musicians and other folks, particularly after they’d struggled down for a late breakfast, to find me doing a crossword puzzle, with a nice cup of tea stewing alongside. I think Tony Iommi (whom I recorded with on Black Sabbath’s Born Again album), was one such ‘disbeliever’, but, again, more about this later on, circa 1983!

  On a more serious note, and back with the time when the above German trip was made, what I was doing was of course ‘abuse’, and it would catch up with me one day. However, until then, and as with so many of us who were in that situation, there was nobody to put me straight, and so the indulgence continued without comment, and possibly unnoticed. It certainly didn’t affect my performances on stage during the many months and years the band toured relentlessly, and of course produced some of its greatest music.

  As Roger and I were still being eased into the band, we rehearsed a lot, while John and Tony mapped out a huge touring schedule as well as personal appearances and other business. There was still the need to balance early gigs using material written and performed before my arrival, but we also introduced the new songs we were now writing. So we’d perform ‘Hush’, ‘Kentucky Woman’ and ‘This Bird Has Flown’, all from Shades of Deep Purple and The Book of Taliesyn, but then we’d do stuff like ‘Speed King’, ‘Child in Time’ and ‘Into the Fire’, none of which had yet been recorded, but which we were trying out on audiences ahead of our first album, Deep Purple in Rock, on which they would feature.

  At around the same time, Jon’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra had started to emerge from the walls of his flat, and become a project, as well as a bit of a problem. It was something we all found very difficult to cope with, Ritchie in particular, and words were spoken to the effect that we were a rock band making a major album, not an orchestra. So the discontent rumbled on, as we continued to write and rehearse at the Hanwell Community Centre, where, in its great echoey space, Jon first started to play a certain few notes.

  We’d recently heard an album by a new band called It’s a Beautiful Day, on which there was a track called ‘Bombay Calling’. It was mainly instrumental, and was quite fast, but Jon had become fascinated by it, and was tinkering with ideas on the keyboard. After a short while I started to sing, ‘Sweet child in time…’ and rock history was about to be made! It was totally spontaneous, and conceived without a storyline (unlike how ‘Smoke on the Water’ would be constructed); and, through its development, with the help of tight trousers, I discovered ‘the scream’.

  ‘Child in Time’, remains elusive for me to sing to this very day. The timing and weighting of delivery can be a nightmare if I’m not in the right frame of mind, and, for a number that was written without a narrative style, it would shock me to learn – as far away as the 1990s – that it had been adopted as an anthem for some resistance groups who were operating underground in East European countries. Some songs are written with specific reference points and/or a ‘message’, but this was not the case with ‘Child in Time’, which illustrates the occasional scary part of being a singer/songwriter!

  Other songs would be inspired by their own surroundings, and usually started with working titles. ‘Speed King’, for instance, began in a smaller room at Hanwell, and was called ‘Kneel and Pray’ for some time. It was performed at early shows, including one for the BBC, while ‘Flight of the Rat’ began as a joke, when ‘Flight of the Bumble Bee’ was mentioned; our ‘rat’ of course, was a drug habit, as was ‘Into the Fire’, which was similarly drug-associated. So, with a collection of material like this, to which add ‘Bloodsucker’, I suppose it’s understandable that most people continued to believe we did drugs, and when we said we didn’t the stock answer was, ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ So we gave up arguing about it, although we’d dabble with substances in later days – at least I did.

  Other songs – for instance, ‘Highway Star’ – found their inspiration and ‘being’ elsewhere, and in this particular case, it came from a journey on a bus to Portsmouth, where we had some journalists on board. One asked Ritchie how our songs were written, and, caught in a helpful moment, he picked up his guitar, and said, ‘Like this.’ So he started a rhythm, and I came in with, ‘We’re on the highway; we’re on the road; we’re a rock’n’-roll band.’ Moments later, and we’d all be in the right kind of mood, with the creative juices flowing, so that by the end of the night the seeds had been sown for what would become our standard opening song for many years: ‘Highway Star’. It has been wonderful occasions like this that have made me realise why Deep Purple became the band I’d later admit being ‘willing to die for’; and, looking back on the camaraderie (most of the time) and a willingness to be experimental and innovative, I also realise, so powerfully, why my lapses into disillusionment in later years were based on sound logic.

  As we’ve seen, my first significant appearance with Deep Purple was at the Speakeasy, and, although it was a small venue, it became the main watering hole in London for musicians, while the roadies seemed to hang out at the Marquee. So you could walk into the Speak at any time and find yourself in the company of people like Keith Moon, the Kinks, or perhaps one of the Yardbirds, and it was a sobering moment
(or perhaps I should say a ‘defining moment’) when I realised that I was becoming part of that elite club of influential and respected musicians. At last, I was mixing with the heavyweights of the business on equal terms and, although the best was yet to come, it felt so good, even at the beginning!

  My hair was halfway down my back, and I was comfortable in flared jeans, vest and buckled boots. I’d also found greater confidence in myself (which some took to be arrogance), and happily fell into the rock lifestyle, which existed in a microcosm at the club, where you could eat in their funky little restaurant, or just sit at the bar talking to some guy whose show you’d seen a while back.

  There was always the nonchalant blow job (BJ) happening while you were waiting for another pint, but of course it didn’t interfere with the conversation, and we always used to say that the ideal groupie stood four feet tall, with a flat head, so you had somewhere to rest your beer!

  Groupies came to feature greatly in the culture of rock ’n’ roll, and willingly helped create the basis for a lifestyle no self-respecting parent would wish their daughter to associate with! Come to think of it, there were not many self-respecting parents who were keen on their sons becoming rock-’n’-roll musicians, either, but over the years, there would be many wonderful occasions when the girls would enhance our lives, and those of the roadies and crew.