The following article is from the book, Minds Behind the Music, featuring over 80 music stars! More here Minds Behind the Music
How on Earth do I introduce a rock legend like Ian Gillan. Well I suppose I could say, Ian Gillan is a rock legend. See, now that wasn’t so hard.
Gillan is one of things you can point to when you say England has many things to be proud of – we have Ian Gillan, so there. He is a profound singer-songwriter and probably best known as the front man for Deep Purple. Yes youngsters, there’s a band called Deep Purple, go and type it into your zombie phone and see what comes back. When you hear those banshee screams coming out of the tiny speaker then you have heard Ian Gillan.
His first initial success came in that auspicious year, 1969, when he joined Purple. He stayed until 1973 but came back with his own Ian Gillan Band and then had a year as the lead singer of Black Sabbath. Eventually Deep Purple reformed and had two more big albums before he left again in 1989. Four years later, yep you got it, he returned, and has been the lead singer ever since.
There is so much more to Gillan, such as his business and charity ventures, but we all know and love him for his music. But what about aliens? I asked him.
If you could be any other musician past or present, which one would it be and why?
Cliff Bennet because; apart from my admiration for his voice, my teenage dream was to front The Rebel Rousers.
If you had to name one song from any genre that really speaks to you, which one would it be and why?
It must be two.
You’re gonna ruin me baby by Lazy Lester. Three easy chords and a simple song that taught me how to tell a story and sing my words.
And, Armonias del Romane by Tomatito because it gets me thinking more than any other piece of music; even Chopin’s Mazurkas.
Are you a Mulder or Scully? Do you believe aliens have visited planet earth and if so what do you think they think about mankind?
To take an angular view at these myths or realities, it would help to read Flatland (1884) by Edwin Abbott and look at the bit where – in a two dimensional world – Mr Square meets a sphere but can only see him as a high priest. We’d be sooner rewarded by trying to discover what an ant thinks of humanity.
If “God” (whatever your idea is on that) were stood before you now, what one question would you ask him/her and why?
My idea of God is Mother Nature and her great prophet Darwin through the door of Zen. She satisfies all my logical and spiritual needs; more importantly there’s no nonsense about Her. For an obvious reason there is no point asking her a question and if it’s not obvious I will happily explain, upon request.
As an expressive artist in the music industry, how does the state of the planet make you feel?
A lot of us – including our hero Nobel prize winner - have been writing ominous stuff about this for half a century. But now because we have, through our phones, some kind of ethereal global consciousness it may be possible to breathe for a while through fast action until – to survive - we are able to moderate our presence in this over-populated home of ours.
Other than with malice, we humans cannot kill or cull ourselves; it’s just not in us, even for survival, until maybe it is too late. So, we had better find a way to live with a smaller community and make better of limited resources. It seems unwise for a parasite to kill its host.
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