by Ian Gillan
The ride was wonderfully spiritual, and we had some great times, including catching up with Mentor Williams, an old friend of B, and a fine songwriter. (‘Gimme the beat, boy, to soothe my soul’ – remember that?) In fact, the meeting turned out to be quite a coincidence, but, once ensconced in a hotel bar somewhere, we talked from around midday into the early hours. Well, it turned out that Mentor likes his tequila, and, after a few hours, we’d got the guitars out and were giggling, as if, yeah, we can really write a song now!
So he told us about this place on an Indian reservation, where the community live pretty much on their wits and the breadline, and where he decided one day to take his horse, Neil, and go hunting for an elk, so he could feed them all. Come ‘sun-up’, he’d packed his kit, gathered his guns and dog and disappeared into the forest, eventually to find what he was looking for: an elk. Having completed the first part of his plan, Mentor then shot the beast, and set about returning to the reservation, with it on the back of his packhorse.
Unfortunately, Part Two of his adventure now took a turn for the worse, because the dead elk was too big to transport as planned, and so he was well and truly stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Cursing his misfortune, Mentor eventually figured out that it was the rack on the back that kept jamming between the trees, and causing Neil to spook at what was not going on!
Undeterred, Williams decided to abandon the carcass, and return to ‘base’ to bring out another horse, a round trip that took him three days for another idea that would end unsuccessfully. The problem was that the elk was still too cumbersome to fit on the horse in one piece, and so Mentor decided that the only way to get his catch back to the reservation was to cut it into five pieces, which seemed a strange calculation, but finally it all worked out somehow, and he eventually arrived back at the village.
I suppose we’re now all ‘hanging in’ for a good and positive outcome, as Al and I most definitely were. However, it transpired that the Indians use every part of an animal’s carcass – the leather for clothes, moccasins and so on, meaning that each part has its value, whilst the arguably safe meat was still expected to keep many mouths fed for some days to come. Therefore, instead of being grateful for his huge effort, the hungry recipients were furious that he’d butchered the animal as he’d done, and thereby spoiled much of the worth of his catch! The fact that he’d gone for days and struggled to provide a lifeline for them seemed to completely escape their grasp. But then the clock on the wall said it was time for Al and me to move on.
On another occasion, we were getting into the car just as the sun was starting to go down, and I said to Al, ‘We’re going west, aren’t we?’
‘Yep,’ he said, nodding. And so we pondered the wisdom of driving for two hours into the setting sun, and decided to find a beer and see how things might pan out. So we found this stopover place, where there was a pool table (of course), and we were watched for a few frames by some guys who decided they’d like to take us strangers on. So we played doubles for a while, and got friendly over some more beers, as two more dudes arrived, and then another couple, until we realised we were with about nine brothers – and they were all cowboys, coming in after a day in the saddle.
We continued with them for a while longer, until one of them asked if we were planning on going to the Stage Bar that night. So I asked, ‘Where’s that?’ and, when told it was just at the end of town and it was where everybody went, we agreed we’d go and check it out. Unsurprisingly, the Stage Bar turned out to be an inn, and so we settled on the thought that we’d not be needing the car until the next day!
Once our bags had been offloaded, we went to the bar, which was totally empty, except for a four-piece band called the Hired Hands, who were setting up. Happy at the way our day had turned out, we settled down with our beers, and watched as the place began to fill up with cowboys and cowgirls, all wonderfully dressed in immaculate boots, jeans and hats. It was an unbelievable sight, which in my comfortable imagination had all the makings of a barroom riot, of the kind you see in John Wayne movies – indeed, believing we might die this night, we made sure we sat as near to the door as possible!
But it didn’t turn out as we feared, because no sooner had the band started playing than everybody took to the dance floor. It wasn’t line dancing, as we expected, but ‘waltzing’, like waves on the water, or, more appropriately, as in the mass movement of a herd of cattle, which you could detect if you just watched their backs in motion. Here at the Stage Bar, however, it was neither the waves on the water nor akin to the mass movement of cattle, because what we were watching was the most elegant ‘herd’ of immaculately behaved cowboys and cowgirls performing their inherited ‘movements’ and routines of generations past – and occasionally ‘yeehah’-ing!
I bought a CD from the band, and recommend anyone who sets eyes on a Hired Hands album to get it! Also, their influences can be found on the track ‘Country Mile’, which features on the Dreamcatcher album I was still on my way to record! And, yes, many fans have picked up on my life experiences such as discovered in the Stage Bar, and now shared in my music. Indeed, the explanations I’ve just given take me back to when Ritchie came to Hyde House for that pre-Christmas chat, and how we resolved to stay as we were, with him committed to the arena concerts, which were also fine by me, but then to include the routes of exploration and work of the kinds I’ve touched on occasionally through the chapters of this book.
Under a desert sky it is closing in
Another day gone by
And I don’t know where I’ve been
Said it before and it’s true
All of my life I give to you
The spiritual journey with Al followed no particular order or route planning, and we took things as they came to us. Indeed, I suspect it was this kind of journey that gives true expression to the meaning of following your nose, and that can lead to little and often humbling moments in life, which also make you smile. So, if you’ve warmed (or are still warming) to a side of my character that you find unexpected, I’d like to delve just a bit further into my notebook for two more experiences, one of which would find its way into Purpendicular.
We arrived at another Indian reservation where the first (handwritten) sign you happened upon, read: ‘Stop – Indians Ahead’, and then another instructed, ‘Stop – Indian Jewelry’, until we reached a market where there were silks, artefacts, dreamcatchers and their like. However, best was the sign at the point of leaving, which informed you to ‘Stop – Nice Indians Behind!’ We thought that much better than ‘Au Revoir’!
Further down the road, and at the ghost town of Calico, we found a situation that would emerge on Purpendicular in ‘Somebody Stole My Guitar’. It was inspired by our meeting up with a fella called Hard Rock Pete, who had his house built with a sloping floor, because he had one leg longer than the other. What he’d also developed was an experience of altered perspective, so that, when you walk into the room, you’d find a ladder leaning against a bookcase, and then Hard Rock Pete climbs up it, and is leaning into the room. It was brilliant, as Al and I – each with our legs of equal length – tried to deal with magnetic poles and concepts of physics in a building that tilted.
So there we were, leaning sideways, trying to be in harmony with the house, and, after a while, the brain accepts it all, and you feel upright! We even climbed the ladder, and that was also fine, leaning out into the room, and then leaning back. Indeed, from up there I could see across to a barrel of water, with a half-section of guttering leading from the barrel up to where a bucket was hanging at the other end. To add further to our disbelief, as if such were possible, Pete took a ladle, which he used to pour water into the bottom of the bucket, and that also flowed uphill! For the incredulous, the cynical, the disbeliever, Pete’s house has to be the most astonishing illusion on the planet!
Finally, our glorious journey brought us to Los Angeles, where Pat had got together a great bunch of musicians, with whom I tried out a few of the songs for Dre
amcatcher. Unfortunately, the effort didn’t really work out the way we’d hoped, and it had nothing to do with the musicians, Pat, the studio – even me. It’s just that the songs had a gentility born out of the time I’d spent with Steve Morris in England, and, rather like the wonderful story ‘You Stole My Love for a Song’, it just seemed that we were ‘playing away’. We couldn’t find the right spirit, and so I brought the project back home to be made at Ocean Reach Studio, Warrington, and Parr Street Studios in Liverpool.
Dreamcatcher was released on a new label I’d put together to look after some of my new projects and ideas (Caramba Music Limited), and, apart from songs such as ‘Chandra’s Coriander’, ‘Prima Donna’, ‘That’s Why God Is Singin’ the Blues’, ‘Gunga Din’, ‘Country Mile’, ‘You Stole My Love for a Song’ and ‘Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be)’, there’s also a song for my wife, called ‘Sleepy Warm’. It was also good to include some of the work that was written with Lenny Haze, Brett Bloomfield and Dean Howard during the Repo Depo project (‘Sugar Plum’ ‘Day Late and a Dollar Short’ and ‘Hard on You’), and two of these would also be included later on, when I’d record the Gillan’s Inn collection.
For Deep Purple, we wanted Purpendicular to do what it seems to have done: bring a smile back to the faces of those who know and love the band, and who also appreciate that we’re constantly searching to stay in the front line of our business. Terms such as ‘underground’, even ‘dangerous’, were applied to us in the early days, and I never forget what I’ve said on more than one occasion: that I don’t think it’s right to always serve up the same old material and play safe. Perform it, yes, but include new adventures, as I think we’ve done, and will always continue to do in our concerts.
In terms of presenting Purpendicular, we brought in Peter Bird to give the album a fresh look, and his contribution was very different. Peter basically took charge of the album’s design and promotion, and brought to us his skills as a ‘big ideas’ man. He stands on top of hills to look down to make his plans, and has built his reputation working in exalted company, mostly with multinational corporations. However, he also likes his rock ’n’ roll, and took up the rather more modest creative and financial opportunity with great enthusiasm, and the result was great. The album looked cool and it made a statement. However, I suspect he dipped his toe into the volcanic pool of the music business, and found it vastly different to the oxygen-starved atmosphere of the boardroom, where he’s doubtless more comfortable! Still, he came out of the experience with his dignity intact, but others will have to decide about his sanity!
The songs on Purpendicular have been judged and analysed, with observations made about its sounding more experimental, which is good to hear. The tracks on it are ‘Vavoom:Ted the Mechanic’, ‘Loosen My Strings’, ‘Soon Forgotten’, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’, ‘Cascades: I’m Not Your Lover’, ‘The Aviator’, ‘Rosa’s Cantina’, ‘A Castle Full of Rascals’, ‘A Touch Away’, ‘Hey Cisco’, ‘Somebody Stole My Guitar’ and ‘The Purpendicular Waltz’; and, all told, it was great to see it go straight to No. 1 in the Kerrang charts in March 1996!
Mother Nature’s been good to me
That’s why I’m sitting in this cherry tree
But it’s alright, it’s alright
It’s not so bad
I’m just a touch away
Although we’d gone through 1995 doing shows, they’d basically been confined to a brief spell in March and April, when we played South Korea, South Africa and India. However, that was then, and now it was back to the road with the new album, and a schedule of an intensity and fullness equal to anything I’ve ever done – if not greater. It was a tour that showed that Deep Purple’s star is as bright as ever, and a sample of tour dates is listed here, to show where we were taking the band, beginning in the UK.
February
15th Plymouth Pavilions
16th Rivermead, Reading
17th Portsmouth Guildhall
19th St David’s Hall, Cardiff
20th Colston Hall, Bristol
29th Newcastle City Hall
March
1st Capitol Theatre, Aberdeen
2nd Barrowlands, Glasgow
4th Apollo, Manchester
5th Liverpool Empire Theatre
6th Sheffield City Hall
8th/9th Brixton Academy, London
The rest of March saw us in Germany (including Ulm, Essen, Berlin and Dusseldorf); then to Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris and Grenoble; returning to Munich, Fürth, Hanau and Hohenems. April was a bit quiet – a day off on Fools’ Day! – then Wels (2nd), Vienna (3rd) and Budapest (4th), while on 19–26 May we were in America, returning to Europe for the Esbjerg Rock Festival on the 31st (having played the night before at the Multihus Tobaksfabrikken, also in Esbjerg). In June we played:
June
2nd Arena, Poznań, Poland
3rd Spodek, Katowice, Poland
4th Hala Vitkovice, Ostrava, Czech Republic
6th Palasport, Pordenone, Italy
7th Palasport, Turin, Italy
And on to Milan, Bolzano and Bologna, then to Germany, Sweden, France, Finland and Russia, though not necessarily in that order! We went backwards and forwards, and July was the same!
OK, so to break this up, we were now playing songs from across the history of Deep Purple. In Europe, the set list was from ‘Fireball’, ‘Maybe I’m a Leo’, ‘Vavoom: Ted the Mechanic’, ‘Pictures of Home’, ‘Black Night’, ‘Cascades: I’m Not Your Lover’, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’, ‘Mary Long’, ‘The Purpendicular Waltz’, ‘No One Came’ (my fear song – still unfounded!), ‘Rosa’s Cantina’, ‘Smoke on the Water’, ‘When a Blind Man Cries’, ‘Somebody Stole My Guitar’, ‘Speed King’, ‘Perfect Strangers’, ‘Hey Cisco’ and ‘Highway Star’. In case we might run out, we would have in reserve, or even perform, ‘Woman from Tokyo’, ‘Rat Bat Blues’ and ‘The Aviator’. And on we went… and on!
July
2nd Fyrishov, Uppsala, Sweden
3rd Slottsruinen, Öland/Borgholm, Sweden
4th Kungshamnsvallen/Smögen/Kungshamn, Sweden
5th Torget/Brottet, Halmstad, Sweden
7th Tallinn, Estonia
9th Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux, Switzerland
We continued through Europe in September–October, and then into Japan for the back end of that month. The Japanese love our music, and that of other bands who fit into our genre, and of course it’s familiar territory to us: Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, Tokyo, Kawaguchi, Tochigi, Sendai, Sapporo and Yokohama. Then it was into Canada and the USA around the New Year, arriving in South America for spring 1997: Buenos Aires, Porto Alegre, Rio, São Paulo, Lima and La Paz, for which concert I was this time on notice of the potential consequences of performing at high altitude with its thin air. We went into summer playing Germany, Baden-Baden and Lahr Airfield (5th/6th), and then, on the 8th, to the Mont La Salle Arena in Lebanon!
So you can see that I’ve truly never been busier, and it makes me sometimes reflect on that childhood moment with Granddad Watkins, when we put up the tent, and I dreamed of travel and adventure to exotic places. Well, making music has most certainly allowed me to realise those dreams, and I know I’m very fortunate, despite the highs and lows that travel with this kind of life!
So I’m writing this account of my life thus far, and we are in 1998, working on Abandon with our old friends at EMI. Purpendicular was our last with BMG, and I don’t know quite what went on behind the scenes to bring about the change, although I’m aware there are various stories doing the rounds as to what may or may not have happened. Some think the incident at the NEC, Birmingham, with Ritchie was the moment that put us on the road for a crash; but, then maybe it was that fateful day when I met their top brass.
As I recall, there were three of them – one at least a squillionaire, who came to see a show, and it so happened that, on the night in question, I was having trouble with the ‘old rear gunner’. Unfo
rtunately, there wasn’t a private toilet/bathroom in the dressing room, which meant I needed to go into the arena area naked, but for a discreet towel. Across the corridor I mercifully found what I needed, and, once the door was closed, I applied into my rear end, what the Mayor of Hell calls ‘hoop grease’.
Having completed my temporary repair job, I walked back into the corridor, with the towel now in my left hand, and ‘hoop grease’ still on the second finger, only to see Bruce Payne approaching with BMG people, all of them dressed in Armani and Versace, and oozing wealth and success. Well, of course, there was no escape, no side alley or large empty box to jump into, and so the two factions came face to face: the BMG people in their immaculate state of repair and condition, and their artist, with his long hair and towel held over his private parts, and looking rather less elegant! Still they came forward to greet me, arms outstretched in a warm hello attitude. Of course, I quickly withdrew my finger, to join the rest of the digits, but to no avail, as everyone who met me that night found themselves very touched by the occasion! Otherwise, so far as I’m concerned, BMG were lovely people to be with.
We’re recording in Florida again, but still journey out to play shows, while we complete the new album. The smile is there, the glint in the eye is back, as is the spirit and rock ’n’ roll!
So how then to end for now? But, then, where better to find the answer than to go back to what I said way back in the Prologue, when I referred to Deep Purple as ‘that enigmatic rock band I have always loved in torment. Jon Lord (keyboards), Roger Glover (bass), and Ian Paice (drums)’ – and now, of course, Steve Morse the guitar player – ‘are essentially moderate people with good hearts and only the normal amount of wickedness.’
However, I’m now going to suggest that the seesaw itself is steady now, and, as the singer of Deep Purple, I sit confidently at its fulcrum!