by Ian Gillan
A pop star has entered the motor cycle world with plans to market an all-new British 4-stroke engine. This weekend he opens the first of a planned chain of motor cycle supermarkets, and at research premises he established two years ago, a prototype lightweight 4-stroke engine has been produced. The pop tycoon is Ian Gillan, 29, former lead singer with Deep Purple, a rock group which made a small fortune each time it toured America. He left the group two years ago to pursue business adventures, which also include a small hotel and music recording and publishing companies. He is currently making a solo album. On Saturday, he opens his supermarket under the company name World on Wheels in Mangotsfield in Bristol. The premises were originally built as a natural supermarket. Meanwhile, at his research shop, Mantis Motorcycles in Salisbury, Jack Williams, father of bike racer, Peter, and former road-racer, Mike Egglington, are working on the smaller of the two projected engines. 87cc, it is based on one cylinder from a 350-stroke originally designed by Mr Egglington. Plans to develop the 350cc are also reported to be in hand.
We quickly moved on to buy an old removal truck for about £250, and then found enough fairings and general gear to make up three bikes. I basically became Mike’s grease monkey, helping him hold things together for welding, and generally finding out how you ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’. I started staying with him while he worked on cars during the day, and then we’d roll them into the street, and start on the bikes at night. We’d work on the machines until about 3 a.m., ending up with a couple of production Norton 750 Commandos and a bored-out 997, which we put in for the Open Class. Mike built a special frame for that, made out of Reynolds tubing, and welded it together in a criss-cross pattern that was state-of-the-art! It was brilliant, and he started to win races, although he fell off many times, a misfortune we’d put down to the fact that he drove to the limit – and sometimes past it!
Then came the day when we wondered whether we should go up a grade or two and buy a quicker Japanese model, to which Mike said, ‘Why don’t I build one?’ We sat down to look at the idea seriously, and it was based on an engine concept he’d had in the back of his mind for years. We took a great old boy, Jack Williams, on board, because he used to design aircraft for Vickers at Bristol, and so he started preparing working drawings for us. Others joined in to help fashion gearboxes and cooling systems, and Dunlop were happy to give us all the tyres we needed, while Girling also gave their support for the braking system, and Lucas came in with the electricals.
We had basically tapped into all the A&R departments at the factories, and bought a house next to the garage, which we turned into offices. An advert went out for a production manager, and the whole thing snowballed into a company with ambition – and apparently of financial substance! With about fifteen people on board, we dug out the basement in Salisbury to make room for the test bed and benches, until the happy day arrived when all the newly made castings, bearings and assorted components came together to make a working machine. We all got obliterated on champagne!
The decision had been made that we’d take on the Japanese, and so the Bristol showroom became our sales and PR centre, while plans were made to open a similar facility in Coventry. We set an initial target to make about ten machines a week, increasing to around twenty-five after three years or so, and the whole operation was put in the hands of Ted Wood, with the instruction that he also keep Bill Reid closely involved. In fact, it was hard to keep Bill away from the enterprise, as he loved the whole idea, and was a great admirer of Jack Williams. Indeed the two of them, one a pipe smoker, and the other a cigar man, would end up nattering away into the early hours about what we were doing.
We next opened in Edinburgh, and were looking at Dublin, with our spirits buoyed up and fed by excitement and ambition. Each commercial unit looked to be self-supporting, and things even got to the stage where I’d turn up to races in a helicopter. But then the bubble burst, or, rather, the British motorcycle industry did, and mainly around the Triumph motorcycle works at Meriden.
Tony Benn, the then industry secretary, pumped millions into the now ailing company, which was renamed Norton Villiers Triumph or NVT, having hired a chairman to make sure the money was well spent. However, it seems the immediate priority was to redecorate the factories and replace worn out manually operated gear, while everybody else was converting to automation and focusing on technology for the future. Eventually, the government money came to an end, and the great leaky model of British machine excellence collapsed, leaving a group of people trying to set up a partnership from out of the wreckage. Today, they call such a process a ‘management buyout’, and it was frankly an incredible effort to see, as Ted, Zoe, Dixie (her father) and I went to find out what was going on.
What we discovered was a workforce in gloves and coats, without electricity or gas, trying to see how they could somehow save this great national heritage in a market where people such as Lord Hesketh were moving into the game, much along our lines at Mantis. However, the sad fact was that, with Japan’s growing stranglehold, companies such as BSA (who’d already gone) and NVT just weren’t in good enough shape to compete, and the knock-on effect meant that companies like Lucas, Dunlop and Girling had to diversify their activities. That, in turn, meant our company lost valuable sources and resources for R&D, although, even if they had remained, the morale and enthusiasm was no longer around to support us.
In desperation, we went to meet an MP at the House of Commons, and it turned out to be a disaster, because all he was interested in was where best to invest his money, and to ask what I knew (from my travels) about tax havens such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands. Whenever I tried to steer the meeting back to the collapsing bike industry, he ducked the issue by blaming it on some report the government had commissioned (the Boston Report, as I recall), which looked into ‘alternative strategies’, while basically passing a death sentence on the industry, including its support companies and services.
It was a horrible few hours in London, from which moment my whole world began to slowly and cynically collapse, as phone calls only meant ‘pay up’ or ‘sorry, but we’re no longer in business’. When Mantis closed, all that remained in the factory at Salisbury were a few plans, and an engine with no bike!
I took Ted Wood with me to another venture closer to my area of skills: the studio I’d bought from De Lane Lea in Holborn, London. As already mentioned, my departure from Deep Purple did not mean I’d totally cut myself off from the many people I’d been with during those halcyon times, and neither had I really fallen out with everybody. I would still visit Bill at his office in Wallington, and it was quite early on, even before The Springs was bought, that Martin Birch, Lou Austin and Terry Eden had come to see me. They told me that the De Lane Lea Studios we’d used for our early projects had moved their operation to Wembley, and that the lads didn’t like the new set-up. They also said that De Lane Lea had left all their gear in situ, and, apart from still having to pay the rent of about £25, 000 a year, they’d basically locked the doors and thrown away the key.
Martin, along with half the world, was convinced I was a millionaire, and he asked if I’d be interested in buying the place, and putting them into it. So, with Bill’s help, we began negotiations for the whole thing, beginning at around £100, 000, but then being offered it for £40, 000, which was considered a giveaway! Finally, I bought the basement studio with some parking spaces for £15, 000, which was thought to be a steal at the time! And talking of ‘steals’, an anecdote taken from my website many years later might amuse you, because it touches on my ever-present and keen business acumen. Hmm…
Wandering through the Wednesday market in Quarteira on the Algarvean coast, the lovely B (my wife) said, ‘If you see anything you like here, then I’ll buy it for your birthday.’
I’d already spotted a stall of unusual leather goods, all beautifully hand tooled and each featuring some inlaid red tapestry work, so we meandered back through the shuffling crowd.
‘There.’ I p
ointed at a briefcase; ‘that’s the one.’
I was encouraged to haggle, so I stepped forward and asked the chap what he thought would be a fair price for such a fine piece of work.
‘Fifty Euros,’ he said, without hesitation.
‘How about sixty?’ I countered with confidence.
‘Seventy,’ he said with a strange look in his eye.
‘Eighty-five.’ I had him on the run…
And then a sharp pain in my ear as I was grabbed and twisted.
The bartering came to a sudden end. I was hauled away from negotiations at the crucial stage.
I felt sure I’d have got the thing for One Hundred Euros; absolute minimum.
The lovely B later returned to the stall and acquired the briefcase for twenty-five Euros.
I changed the name of the former De Lane Lea Studios to Kingsway, because that was the name of the main street outside, and thought the whole thing pretty neat – except it wasn’t, as we quickly ran into problems. When Deep Purple had used the studios in earlier times, the upper floors were occupied by an advertising agency, and they were a great bunch. Next to musicians, those guys drink the most, and we had some memorable sessions in the Newton Arms nearby. However, by the time I took over, they had sold their interest to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), who put their computer room directly above us. Not long after this, we were informed about a slight bass leak that seemed to travel from our floor, through the building, to emerge upstairs as a quite serious thumping sound. The CAA tried to have the studio use stopped, and we had people over from Southampton University to do reports on what was reasonable and tolerable; but, in the end, I had to use the studio more for fun than as a serious business concern, although I was still liable for the rent of £25, 000 a year!
Punitive restrictions were further imposed that meant that we could record only after 6 p.m., unless we had a very quiet string quartet in, and that left us to use the place as a planning office during the day. It was not what I needed; in fact, the whole idea was a stupid thing to have embarked on in the first place, because I’d never been in the least bit interested in the technical side of making records, and that didn’t change with taking on Kingsway. Martin and the lads had told me it was a really funky studio, and, having settled into the idea – by which I mean after about four days – he came to see me. He was very sheepish, and told me he’d just been offered £40, 000 a year to go on a permanent retainer with Deep Purple, and, because he’d just got married, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. That left me with Lou Austin, who’d barely cut his teeth as an engineer, and under Lou came Terry, Bob, George and Chas Watkins. In fact Chas stayed with things for some time to come, while, through my contacts, I was able to bring in a number of artists and bands, and we did make some good records for people like Leo Sayer and The Sweet. Roger also used it to make the album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast in 1974, and I’d later use it for making my own records.
I suppose it was Roger’s project that reminded me of what I’d walked away from and, although I don’t feature on the album, I was glad to help him with the live production of The Butterfly Ball at the Royal Albert Hall (16 October 1974), after Ronnie Dio had to pull out at the last minute.
Putting that show together in aid of the Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Fund and Action Research for the Crippled Child was a major effort by Rog, and it brought together a lot of old mates. Jon Lord was there, as well as Tony Ashton, Twiggy, Al Matthews, plus David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes from the current (Mk. 3) Deep Purple.
For me, horribly unfulfilled in my various ventures, the show was one of great emotion, surprise and joy, because I’d thought that, with the passing of time and the ongoing Deep Purple, I’d be a forgotten star. However, that was not the case, not the case at all, because, at the announcement of my name for ‘my song’, the audience rose and gave me a standing ovation! ‘Welcome home, Ian!’ they seemed to say, while Vincent Price needed to pause in his narration from a peacock chair in the organ loft, so the applause and cheering could run its very long course! As I sang from a crib sheet, the experience at The Butterfly Ball was totally overwhelming, and I left the venue feeling good, and with warming thoughts!
Back in the hard world of cashflow, which meant money going out, I struggled to maintain some form of dignity in the tidal wave of my collapsing business ventures; and it was difficult, particularly with Zoe, who showed an incredible tendency to lay the blame on everybody but the two of us. OK, so I’d given a job at Mantis to my old mate Barry Higgins after he’d made it known that he was fed up working at the Inland Revenue in Hammersmith. In fact, after chatting with Ted, Mike and Dixie, we created a new position for him, caring for our paperwork, and, when it didn’t work out, I asked him to get involved in a solo project I’d dreamed up in the days when Barry Dass was alongside me. I explained my idea to Barry Higgins in terms of the design and building of an entirely new engine, because I could see the end approaching for the internal-combustion engine, which was dirty, noisy and heavy on oil. So, as my explanations helped also to increase my enthusiasm, my thinking progressed to an absolute prediction that electricity would emerge as the best alternative to the aforementioned outdated beast; indeed, it was the only way forward for mankind. Taking a pause to catch breath, and looking up, I couldn’t be sure whether I had Barry’s full attention, but I picked up on where I’d stopped, and continued with a summary of the complications of recharging units in a vehicle, where the search for perpetual motion was paramount – but, you know what, I never heard from Barry again!
You never lose the inventive spirit, and some years later I’d actually design a household product of great potential, and went on to assemble its prototype with Graham Underwood (‘Squiffy’), who’d later come on the road with me as my tour manager. Until then, our priority was to bring to market the ‘Motorised Garden Fork Mark II, with Optional Strimmer’, the purpose of which would in due course be clearly stated on its label, as ‘An engine mounted on a garden fork, and fuelled via a whisky bottle’. As I say, you never lose the inventive spirit!
Beware of the chair that isn’t there
A furniture illusion
If you ever squat on a chair that’s not
You’ll suffer some confusion.
CHAPTER 7
With the roofs of several ventures falling on top of me, various people still seemed to want me to keep them employed, and Zoe’s dad, Dixie, was one of them. An ex-RAF officer, Dixie approached me one day with an idea that he’d open a travel agency that specialised in making arrangements for rock bands.
So we found ways of setting it up, and I said, ‘OK, Dixie, go ahead, use my house, my table and my name. It’s over to you!’
Well, all I remember about that project is being woken up in the middle of the night with one of the Stranglers screaming down the line about Dixie. It seemed they had arrived at some destination a very considerable distance away from where they should be, and it is sufficient to say that Dixie didn’t like being spoken to like that!
So he went to work in a health shop that his family owned, at which point Bill Reid called to say we should have a chat. When we met, he was not the Bill of old, and it was clear he’d been trying hard to come to terms with a very difficult situation, and one that had been rumbling around for some time. He told me things were not good with my different ventures, and that the only solution was for me to go and live in Paris.
He explained that the nucleus of the Deep Purple business (which was still a source of income) had been located offshore through Deep Purple Overseas Limited, and I was assured that this was a perfectly legitimate way for the management and its advisers to run the affairs of the company, and for the musicians. However, he went on to say that there were moves afoot by the government of the day to close a loophole and draw what would become a fine line between what was legal and what was not, specifically when it came to issues of taxation and so forth. Bill used two words to make the point: ‘avoidance’ and
‘evasion’, the first meaning permissible and the second meaning illegal. I think I was listening diligently when he explained all of this, but the bottom line seemed to be that, despite the fact that I’d apparently gone through vast amounts of money on my lost ventures, Deep Purple (with my name attached) were still selling records, their music was earning royalties, and so not all was ‘lost’ so far as I was concerned!
However, the only way to protect myself in the times ahead was to live abroad, which meant that, under the legislation at the time, I’d be allowed back into the UK for only sixty days a year. He said John Coletta and Tony Edwards had already bought homes in Paris and, despite the past, he thought I should also go there quite quickly, even meet up with them again. Once that had been done, he’d go about sorting things out for me at home, by which he meant The Springs, because the other projects were already dead ducks. As for The Springs, well Bill said he’d find a full-time manager, and we could then see what might be possible.
In later months, it would dawn on me as to just how much pressure Bill had found himself under, as I understand the Inland Revenue gave him and our business affairs a very thorough going-over, to the extent that I began to wonder how well thought through the new game plan for Paris really was for me. I know the burden of his work and responsibilities took a lot out of his poor wife, May, who I don’t think was too well, but, in the final analysis, what I don’t know is whether the authorities ever got to understand what secrets Bill may or may not have had. One thing’s for sure, there was a time when a stellar number of new clients were going in and out of his Wallington office, as the spirit and business of Purple multiplied itself many times, and the band spread out to become Rainbow, Whitesnake, Paice Ashton Lord, with each coming into the fold with new musicians and friends. Indeed, it was this considerable and growing network of artists, both at home and abroad, whose (business) affairs added to the vault that was Bill’s brilliant, but now clouded and tired, mind, and, in the fullness of time, he would take it all with him to his grave.