by Ian Gillan
Then, when I turned to grab a towel, I became witness to one of the most frightening sights of my life. There, through the backstage area and across the pitch behind, were a couple of hundred storm troopers in full riot gear and looking very organised. Whatever was going down must have been properly thought through, and they looked and clearly meant serious business, as they broke into a phalanx and started assaulting – beating up – the audience. Of course I’ve seen and experienced difficulties from manageable disturbances to violence before, but this one was on a seriously big scale, and getting worse, so, very sadly, I was left with no choice but to end the show immediately.
Otherwise, when we were on stage, this was a great band to work with. Although Mick and Colin were happy to keep low profiles, they were experienced and fine musicians, as were John and Bernie, who in contrast lent a huge dynamic to our performances, with John’s awesome appearance and rolling, lumbering, stage manner, sometimes adding that extra dimension when he’d dismantle his guitar and stage gear. So, with Bernie’s guitar heroics and hyperactivity around the stage, plus my own way of projecting my music, the fans definitely ‘got off’ on Gillan, and it was always a far more satisfying spectacle to witness from the stage than the experience at the AEK Arena!
The humour was there as well, both on and off stage. For example, we adhered to the obligatory ritual birthday celebrations rock musicians take so seriously, the spirit of which I’ll introduce with a question: why is it that bald heads are so attractive to cake? Still, behind his fearsome appearance, John could be very generous, as fans who collected the European Tour brochure would discover by the competition he set. For those who impressed him with the most ridiculous photo, he’d award a signed album, with a rare cassette of silly bits we couldn’t fit on – ‘for Gillan fans only’. As second prize he’d give away a backstage pass from the American Glory Road Tour 1980, along with a tin of baked beans, although he made it clear that the snaps could not be returned, because John would make it known he’d be eating some of them!
Bernie was a more reflective guy, and his brochure contribution offered no prizes, except that he included a crossword puzzle he’d devised. So try Clue One (across) Name ‘the greatest guitarist alive’ (6, 5). You got it! Finally, to complete the band offerings, Colin and Mick just lent their portraits, while I gave revival to some thoughts on infinity.
Seldom if ever are we knocked off our perches
With the threatening ‘beginningless’
Time goes forward doesn’t it?
Endless we can cope with,
After all we understand procreation
And humanity’s determination to be around forever
Let alone any personal plans for the hereafter
‘Beginningless’ that’s another story
It never started?
Ha, that surely means we’re not here
Well here we are, so that can’t be right.
In between the demands of rock ’n’ roll, I still kept up with my old mates, and played as much football as possible, often for charity. Because of Jonathan Crisp’s connection with the sport – he was very involved with advertising and sponsorships at clubs such as Ipswich Town FC, where I got to meet a number of my heroes, including Terry Butcher, Russell Osmond and Paul Mariner.
I know football managers hate it, but these guys like to party as much as musicians do, and there was one famous occasion when Jonathan arranged that we all get together on a seagoing barge, which was moored on the Orwell Estuary. Although we started in the pub, he’d ordered tons of booze for the vessel, but forgot to supply any food, so a few of us went to the fish-and-chip shop and ordered a lorry load, plus a barrel of pickled onions.
After a while, I felt a bit hot – indeed, a bit strange – and decided on a swim. I began to strip down, but they all started shouting, ‘No, no, Ian, you can’t do that!’ But it was too late, as I dived into the Orwell, and swam round to the bow end, beneath the gaze of the now very drunk partygoers.
The vessel was moored by chain, and so I clawed my way up, to arrive back on board, furious, and caked in slime and grease. But why should I be furious? Well I’d gone over the side without a knife, hadn’t I? And how can you possibly climb back on board a vessel without a knife between your teeth, eh? Of course you can’t, so given that the only thing I could lay my hands on was this plastic knife we’d brought back from the fish shop, I grabbed that, put it in my mouth, and was about to return to the slime and grease when Russell and Terry grabbed hold of me, and said, ‘No way Ian. That river’s dangerous. It’s littered with disease and God knows what else.’ At this point I had to inform them that I don’t get diseases, I only give them! With the amount of alcohol inside us all, plus my ridiculous appearance, it gave us all a good laugh, but it wasn’t so funny the next morning when I looked at where I’d been swimming. Just imagine, if you will, a flat calm of oily water with a load of dead fish floating on the surface. As I said only the day before, ‘I only give diseases!’ Back on tour, we wrote new songs and, in April 1981, Virgin brought out Future Shock, so called after the book by Alvin Toffler. With Future Shock, I think we played some of the best material I have ever written with Colin, and the band were fantastic. We were at our peak, and Virgin put a lot of energy into making sure the album and our singles sold. They offered a sixteen-page colour booklet with the first sixty thousand sales, and alongside the touring, plus the eye-catching sleeve image by Alan Daniels, it wasn’t surprising the project was a success, making No. 2 in the UK charts with songs such as ‘Future Shock’, ‘Night Ride Out of Phoenix’, ‘(The Ballad of) The Lucitania Express’, ‘No Laughing in Heaven’, ‘Sacre Bleu’, ‘Bite the Bullet’, ‘If I Sing Softly’, ‘Don’t Want the Truth’ and ‘For Your Dreams’.
Gone were the days when Phil had to beg the organisers to have me at the Reading Festival, because those days were now a distant memory, as we returned this year as ‘headliners’! ‘No Laughing in Heaven’ is a song from the album that I’m particularly proud of, as it tells the story of a guy who’s been a sinner all his life, but then decides he’d better reform if he wants to get to heaven. And so he does a lot of obnoxious and cynical things to find his way there, but then will come a ‘twist’!
I decided to reform and pray,
Beg mercy for my soul, I prayed in Church,
Threw away my bad habits,
Prayed out of Church,
Adopted an entirely different role,
I gave money to the poor,
Until I was poor,
But at least I ensured,
That I would go up there,
Instead of down below,
To the inferno.
Well, on arrival in heaven our friend is so chuffed, that he starts laughing and jumping around, enjoying himself, only to get arrested. He’s told that, if he wants to do that sort of thing – such as have fun – he’d be better off in hell, and it ends with his screaming:
Let me out of Heaven,
I’ve got it wrong, no I can’t stay in here,
No laughing in Heaven
Oh God it’s awful here,
Going crazy in Heaven,
Take me out, let me go to Hell,
No laughing in Heaven,
Don’t laugh this place is Hell.
(And I wonder what Father Stubbs would have made of that?)
CHAPTER 10
This was a fantastic period, and I felt great. For the first time since the heyday of Purple, I was back in the vanguard of rock music, with strong and confident material. Although I’d never seen myself as a singles artist, I could see that Virgin’s policy for lifting a track from an album made sense, and my cover version of Gary U.S. Bonds’s 1960 hit ‘New Orleans’ was released and reached No. 17 in the UK charts.
We were enjoying going to work, playing flat out, and the fans could see it. Unfortunately, as with a lot of major acts, we couldn’t crack America, and our tour over there was not a success. We lost money, but our situation w
asn’t helped by the fact Virgin seemed to also be having their problems breaking their label into that huge market. It’s a complicated business, that side of things, so we decided to concentrate on the UK, Europe and the Far East, where Phil was getting involved in negotiations to establish a strong platform for us to grow into, while we went back to Kingsway to follow up Future Shock. We were brimming with ideas, and Double Trouble was the outcome. However, it wasn’t to feature Bernie.
Beneath the façade of our success, there were still niggles within the band, and John was being quite difficult. Looking back, I suppose that’s where the parting of ways began concerning Bernie, and we were in Germany when the problem came to a head. Basically a call came through telling me that we’d been booked to go on Top of the Pops, for which we needed to fly back most immediately. Well, John was dead against our doing that gig, and it seems Bernie shared his opinion, because he failed to arrive at the airport, where we were all clockwatching and going, ‘Where the fuck’s Bernie?’ Then time ran out, and it was decided that he too was ‘out’. In the end, we had to board the flight, and, on the journey back, we discussed who might take his place, so we could at least finish the tour. Janick Gers of White Spirit (and later Iron Maiden) popularly came to mind, and so I called him to explain the situation. It was also a good and lucky call, because he immediately started to learn the songs, and agreed to help out while we still did TOTP, but as a four-piece!
In the meantime, there was a call from Bernie, asking what had been going down, to which I replied ‘We’re in bloody England, and we’ve just done Top of the Pops as a four-piece! That’s what’s been going down!’ I then told him he was out, to which news he vehemently denied that he’d deliberately let us down, and John also denied any complicity.
Bernie put out stories saying he was furious with the way he’d been treated, adding claims that Gillan were basically a backing band for their singer, that they weren’t as democratic as they should have been, but saying that, although he was disappointed, he didn’t hold me entirely responsible. It is true that he offered to complete the German tour with us, but I’d now settled the new situation with Janick, and therefore wished Bernie well with the solo album, on which he immediately started work.
Double Trouble was also a double album, released by Virgin in October 1981, and, with a couple of exceptions, the work was either based on live recordings taken at the Reading Festival on 29 August that year or done in the studio at Kingsway. We’d rehearsed the material in Lyme Regis, Dorset, using a place called Drake Hall (named after Sir Francis, the sailor), and Steve Smith produced and mixed it. What followed was a bit strange, because I remember taking a copy of it with me in the car, on a visit to London, and, after listening to it, I simply ditched it somewhere. I hated it, and left it to rot in some field or a roadside verge. But it went to No. 12 in the UK charts!
A few weeks later, I listened to the tapes again, and realised how stupid I’d been, how I’d completely missed the point, because Double Trouble was a fine piece of progressive rock, and I don’t think I’d ever felt that way since the early Purple days. Songs such as ‘Restless’, ‘I’ll Rip Your Spine Out’, ‘Hadley Bop Bop’, ‘No Easy Way’ and the single ‘Nightmare’ all jumped out at me. And who was it who said you couldn’t make a good album while on the road? Well, Gillan were doing it with consistency, while playing two hundred shows a year. ‘Nightmare’ was released at about the same time as the album, and went to No. 36 as we approached the year end, having toured Greece, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, plus a forty-two-date programme in the UK.
Janick turned out to be a brilliant find, and, yet again, we were pleased with our record company. Songs on the album continued to show my commitment to hard-edged rock, and kept us in the front line, while constant touring, for which I live and breathe, was guaranteed for months ahead.
As Phil was rapidly discovering, setting up tours in new territories is always a major challenge for management and their artists, and over the years I’ve learned not to be too surprised by demands and expectations. The first time Gillan went to Kuala Lumpur, we did three nights there, and another three in Manila, where we played to big audiences – between 12, 000 and 18, 000 a time. As always Phil’s people were diligent in checking for every point of protocol that we needed to respect, one such example being our lyrics, which the authorities dissected and analysed for possible messages of insurrection or revolt, until finally everything was set to go – or so we thought! In the hours before our departure, we received an extra rider, which went something along the lines of: ‘The boys in the band shall not allow their hair to fall upon their shoulders’!
So Phil said, ‘How do we deal with this?’ and I told him we’d deal with it when we got there, one way or another!
Another first for the band was the fact that the tour was being sponsored by Pepsi-Cola, who I gather were making big efforts to catch up with Coca-Cola in that part of the world, and so part of the deal was that we’d do a promo conference in a hotel. When everything was in place and ready to start, the guy in charge, Jack, kept telling me he’d feed the lines to the questions being asked, but I quickly got into my stride, as can be my way, and, when reminded that he had all the answers for me, I told him I’d say what I thought, which miffed him a bit!
Still, it was an incredible gathering of people from radio, television, cultural departments, the papers and so forth, and the questions were very wide-ranging, and sometimes quite difficult. For example, they wanted to know my political views on various matters, as well as my thoughts on religion; and, while this wouldn’t have been a problem in Europe, America and so forth, I felt the need to be extremely careful all the time. Responding to matters musical was of course easier, and I was happy to talk about the Beatles and our other well-known bands back home, and to explain my own approach to rock ’n’ roll, which was of course our purpose in being there! Still, the event was quite stressful, and it also lasted about two hours!
As for my long hair, well I had that tied back, and wrapped in a shawl of neutral colours, having been told that, when we took to the stage, the first five rows would be occupied by ministers, trade bigwigs and privileged guests, all of whom would be dressed in suits, ties and evening gowns. Of course, such formalities didn’t extend to the rows behind, where the kids went wonderfully crazy over the show, and so our first appearance in Kuala Lumpur was a great success, which continued backstage afterwards.
It was in the closing moments of the evening that a high-level spokesman came over to have a few quiet words, concluding with, ‘If your headdress should fall off tomorrow night after the third song, forget about it – you can just be natural. We understand a lot more now, and it’s been excellent!’
The occasion was a superb moment for us, and we had a brilliant time over there. As it happens, the headdress did fall off the following night, and the whole place went ‘Wow!’ They had never seen hair like it before; and remember that Cliff Richard had been refused entry to Singapore because of the length of his. So my situation was something else!
I believe the audience had travelled from far and wide to see us, and in all means of transport, which was quite humbling, and so we spent the next few days making everybody comfortable with our work, and received unbelievable hospitality in return.
In fact one night did go a bit off the rails when we were taken to a club where a great blues band were playing. We had a few drinks, and then, around midnight, a party of off-duty strippers and hookers turned up, to relax a little. About an hour later they closed the bar, and the girls all said, ‘Let’s go party, let’s go party,’ which sounded fine by me!
I thought they were going to another club, or to someone’s house as off we went, walking through the streets in the tourist area, and passing the hotels, shops, cafés and restaurants, where everywhere was lit up by neon lights. Then we moved into another part of town, which was obviously the banking area. It wasn’t like New York or Tokyo, but just a collection of average-he
ight modern buildings, with lots of glass, and as high as around six or seven storeys. The streets struck me as spotless, as we all turned into an alleyway alongside one of the buildings, and followed the girls up a fire escape, thinking maybe they lived on the top floor. Which they did!
So we finally arrived on the roof, where there was a mini-condominium of little shacks among the lift houses and air-conditioning enclosures; and it was also around now that I could see that Mick was unhappy with what we’d got ourselves into. Well, it was certainly an astonishing sight to behold on the roof, as we took in the sight of about fifteen girls sitting around a fire, or asleep in the nooks and crannies. There was a delicious smell of food wafting around, and so, under a beautiful moonlit night, we started to party, although Mick decided he’d leave us to it, and returned to the fire escape whence we’d arrived. The girls started to strip off, and I began to get intimate with one of them, as I gradually removed my clothes – or had them removed.
Eventually, I was invited to eat with them, and there I lay, propped on one elbow, being fed food and wine by this beautiful Eurasian girl, who’d moved alongside me. It was like being on a magic carpet, flying somewhere, and after a little while I became drowsy.
I must have fallen asleep in the middle of eating my rice, because the next thing I remember was being woken by the early-morning sun beating into my eyes. I couldn’t breathe or suck in air, until I realised to my horror that my mouth was full of clogged and congealed rice, within which (and over) three or four cockroaches were commuting between my open orifice and the rice bowl, which was now on its side next to me. Moments later, I rightly got the sense that one of the cockroaches was looking to crawl out of my mouth, and so I spat the whole lot out with as much force as possible, before grabbing a bottle of wine, which of course tasted like warm vinegar! And then my gaze wandered across the fire to see this ugly, fat, bloated, toothless horror who just a few hours ago had been a beautiful girl with whom I’d shared time and pleasure!