Gillan Interviews

We grew up as a pub band so our poison was beer, basically.

I got two months off for bad behaviour.

And he recalled another rock anecdote when he was playing at a festival with Twisted Sister and Motorhead.

"At the time Motorhead had a new guitarist called Brian Robertson. In the dressing room later they were doing spoonfuls of all kinds of substances and Brian said they hadn't played their new single. Lemmy piped up that he'd played it fourth and Filthy Phil Campbell said he played it seventh."

There were rumours of a Deep Purple reunion this spring…

- Well, I actually went over to America this January to meet with Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover for talks about Deep Purple. Jon Lord and Ian Paice were ready to do it. But somebody changed their mind so it fell through. I thought it could happen for a little while. As the situation is today it really can´t happen for the obvious reasons, but you never know.

You don´t get royalties anymore from the back catalouge?

- No, but I really don´t want to talk about that. One gets a little pissed off thinking about the fact that there are people who were not even members of Deep Purple who are making money from those records. I haven´t seen any money, except from a life insurance thing, from that part of my life in ages and I really don´t know what is going on with releases. Sometimes I open up a magazine and there´s an ad for some new Deep Purple LP…

Harald Stein: Wie verbringst Du Deine freien Tage während der Tournee?
Ian Gillan: In meinen jungen Jahren habe ich die Zeit für Partys genutzt. Jetzt, in m einem Alter, lässt man es nicht mehr so krachen. Ich versuche diese Zeit zu Hause zu verbringen. Ich benötige zwar jedes Mal eine kurze Zeit um mich wirklich Zuhause zu fühlen. Beim abendlichen Entspannen bemerke ich meine Körperanspannung weil der denkt, gleich auf die Bühne zu müssen. Ich gehe manchmal dann für eine Stunde in unseren Pup. Bei einem kühlen Bier kann ich dann fantastisch abschalten.