EX-DEEP PURPLE VOCALIST, IAN GILLAN, HAS HAD HIS FAIR SHARE OF TRIALS N' TRIBULATIONS. HOWEVER, THE TALENTED SINGER IS, IF NOTHING ELSE, A RESILIENT STRONG-MINDED CHARACTER. NOW HE'S BACK IN THE FRAME ONCE AGAIN, WITH AN IMPRESSIVE NEW BAND AND A CONVINCING NEW ALBUM. LYN GUY MET UP WITH HIM, OVER A BOTTLE OF CHILLED WINE TO DISCOVER HOW HE'S PUT THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF HIS CAREER FIRMLY BACK IN PLACE.
Who can forget that voice belting out "Smoke On The Water" at Knebworth in 1985, or even at Ipswich Corn Exchange in the middle of 1990? Not me, that's for sure.
And now Ian Gillan is back, with a new band, a new album and a comprehensive tour of UK clubs. Sitting chatting to him over a bottle of barely palatable French cider, it is clear that he feels this current project has given him a new lease of life.
Despite more than a modicum of success in Europe and South America with last year's Naked Thunder opus and tour, Ian is keen to emphasise that this was an experimental period which didn't quite bear fruit. As he says himself, one solo album was enough. Now, with Toolbox, he is looking forward to enjoying life as an integral part of a band again.
Ian, when did you actually start working on Toolbox then?
"Pretty much the day after we finished the last tour. The only guy from the past who's involved in this project is Steve Morris, the guitar player. He's a very prolific writer, an amazing talent, and he's the only guy I've met who comes up to the standards of Roger Glover. So he sent me some tapes of backing tracks, then he came up to the house to work on them with me and it progressed from there really. We ended up with about thirty songs and I was trying to bring in other writers as well. Leslie West (of MOUNTAIN fame) came over and stayed at the house whilst we cranked up loads of ideas, though we only ended up with one of Leslie's songs which was 'Hang Me Out To Dry.'"There are no keyboards on this album at all, just guitar, bass and drums recorded by the same players as we're taking on the road. We've really developed into a kind of family unit now and there's a great empathy between us. We got quite excited about the idea of no keyboards, though I was terrified the first day we played together because with just three guys behind me I felt I was going to have to fill a lot of holes. But you forget what an important thing space is, you can let it groove for a while, you don't have to fill everything."
Why did you choose Chris Tsangarides as producer?
"He was on a list. We were looking for a producer and I wanted somebody who was totally committed to rock music. I looked at his CV and it had a very long list of major names on it, plus I listened to some of his work and it was fabulous. When he came out to the house we got on like a house on fire. He's quite unique as a producer and he's become a really good friend. He has a very perceptive and clear-minded idea of what you should end up with, and he's not happy to just accept something that's good, it's got to actually make a mark. So if it's a guitar line or something that's a significant fill on a record, he wants it to have character and distinction. I like that because he goes for the bits that I look for in a record"Chris is a guitar man so he was of great benefit to Steve, who's really focused his style on this album. If you compared his playing on this album to the last one, you'd think it was a different person. Chris also recommended Leonard Haze (ex-Y&T and now GILLAN drummer) to us, who eventually suggested a bass player from his home town of San Francisco and he (one Brett Bloomfield) has turned out to be just sensational."
Toolbox is a much tougher and rockier album than Naked Thunder was. Have you fully progressed in the way you wanted to?
"Well, there's more screaming on this album than I've done in thirty years! Purely on a technical level, I'm happy to play the vocal performance on this album against anything I've ever done in my life. So the answer to your question is yes. I'm very pleased with this album, it's very natural to me and it's focussed. People can take it or leave it, it's not the sort of album that tries to please everyone, and I don't think you can confuse it with anyone else's music. It has an identity and it's GILLAN. What I'd like to see is carry on with this band and develop that identity."
To delve deeper into some of the individual songs, what is "Dancing Nylon Shirt Parts I and II" about?
"Well, some songs are about real things, real events, real experiences, real attitudes, and some songs are things that come out of your memory or are images. 'Dancing Nylon Shirt' is one of those. There are a few things attached to the song dealing with the frustrations of life, but the actual ‘dancing nylon shirt’ bit came from the chant in the second part. It's a poem that I wrote, oh, eight years ago that I'd pinned up on the wall in my studio. There was an advert on ITV in the early days for a shirt you didn't need to iron. The image used was a washing line of shirts where the shirt tails were like legs and they were actually dancing! I've remembered that image since I was a kid."Are there any other tracks that have specific meanings or stories behind them?
"Yes, though you're not going to be able to print this. The title 'Toolbox' has been around for a long time. Suffice it to say the song was inspired by an incident at Kingsway Recording Studios involving some girl, a box full of tools and my girlfriend interrupting my band, er, playing games with the tools and this woman...Use your imagination dear readers, because the story is unprintable.
"'Pictures Of Hell' is a combination of two things. Last year I did some work on the Live Aid for Armenia, and whilst we were doing some shows in the Soviet Union I went to the earthquake region for a day. I got back just in time to go and change before going on stage, and I walked into the dressing room and started to speak about the things I'd seen and I just collapsed in tears. It was so heart-breaking."
"I was thinking about this when the Gulf War was on and I was fascinated by the almost pioneer cowboy and Indian type of way that this was going on, with the images of cruise missiles cruising slow and low in the sunset, Tornadoes and computer cowboys out there riding Operation Desert Storm. There's an awful lot of imagery and fairly obvious connotations in the lyrics, but 'Pictures Of Hell' is a desperate reflection of the things that made me cry. It just goes to show I think that all the elements you see you actually draw into your music."Now that you're fully in control of your own career, what's the most exciting aspect for you?
"That's very easy. The most exciting aspect at the moment is the prospect of a year on the road. Suffice it to say that if there's one thing above writing, recording, above the glamour and the money that I find more entrancing, it's the travelling and playing live. I know it's short term, but as long as you're living and you've got two legs and a voice you can always do that. I've got a fundamental rule and that is that you take your music to the people.So it doesn't really bother you then not having that feeling of going out and playing to X-thousands of people?
"Now, given the choice of doing thirty shows in the UK in the clubs or two nights at Wembley Arena and two nights at the NEC, there's absolutely no hesitation in which one of those I would choose to take. And that would be the small places."
"I think people get the wrong idea. I love playing to 70 or 80,000 people. But even if you're playing the Marquee it's all the same to me. It's an intimate experience and I can't describe it any other way. I cannot stand those big screens though, that amplify the image of the person onstage, because it seems to me almost that you're doing things by proxy. There's no intimacy in that. I like the audience being right there, where there's no escape."
When you tour will you be concentrating on Toolbox rather than doing songs from your back catalogue?
"Yes. For one thing the old songs aren't compatible. If you try playing stuff that's got serious keyboard parts in it with a three piece it just doesn't hang at all well. Even stuff from the last album doesn't make it as these songs have been specially written for this band and it's a new style. We did a couple of festivals in Denmark a month or so ago and we did put a couple of obscure PURPLE songs into the set. But I really am very confident about what we're doing now so I want to lay the emphasis on that."Therefore the PURPLE stuff that we do has to be compatible with what we're doing rather than fitting in the show around previous glories. Also, I don't want to ignore the past because I'm very proud of having been in DEEP PURPLE and I don't want people to think I'm blowing PURPLE out and being arrogant about it."
Having seen you last year and DEEP PURPLE earlier this year, it was quite obvious that your voice is better suited to DEEP PURPLE than Joe Lynn Turner's. Have you any comments on that?
"Yes. I think we should let sleeping dogs lie. I also think calling a compilation album Purple Rainbows is a cheap shot, but a classic way of setting up the reformation of RAINBOW by laying the thought in people's minds on the back of DEEP PURPLE. However, I'd be very happy if RAINBOW reformed because I think the guitar player in PURPLE has destroyed PURPLE. I am very sad about PURPLE but I've nothing to say about Joe Lynn Turner. He's just a very talented musician and singer who's stuck in an impossible situation.
"I would have loved to have recorded Toolbox with DEEP PURPLE, but that was not to be, so now I just want to get on with what I'm doing for myself.”
Lyn Guy
Riff Raff
November 1991
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