Former Deep Purple bandmates Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore have had a long and frequently tempestuous relationship. Gillan’s first stint in the band came to an end in 1973 after one too many run-ins with the guitarist, who recruited singer David Coverdale in his place.
Gillan himself went on to pursue a solo career, first with the jazzy Ian Gillan Band and later with the hard rocking Gillan, whose brief but productive career is the subject of a new box set, Gillan: 1978-1982.
But it could have been so different. In the brand new issue of Classic Rock magazine, Gillan reveals that his former nemesis Blackmore asked him join Rainbow, the band the guitarist founded after leaving Deep Purple himself in 1974.
The offer came over Christmas 1978, when Blackmore visited Gillan with an invitation to join Rainbow, around the time of original singer Ronnie James Dio’s departure. But despite Rainbow’s success, and Gillan’s difficulty in getting a deal for his newly launched solo band, the singer turned the offer down flat.
“The reason I had left Deep Purple was that they were moving into a kind of territory [later filled by Rainbow],” he says. “I didn’t want that. I wanted a group with grit, excitement and edge. Also one that had balls. That’s no reflection on Ritchie, who was a fantastic, amazing guitar player – in fact I said: ‘You can come and play in my band if you want’ – but Ritchie has firm ideas about how things should be, and there were things that we disagreed on.”
Blackmore couldn’t have been too disappointed by the decision - he joined Gillan onstage at a gig at the Marquee in London shortly afterwards. The working relationship between the two men was rekindled via Deep Purple’s 1984 reunion, though it soon became even more fractious than it had before, with Blackmore quitting the band for the second and final time in 1993.
In the same interview, Gillan addresses suggestions that there was a rivalry between Deep Purple and fellow hard rock/heavy metal founding fathers Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in the early 1970s.
“People often talk about the relationships between Sabbath, Zeppelin and Purple in the early days, and the magazines and media have always tried to pretend there was some sort of rivalry,” he says. “That was rubbish. We would drink together. We were mates.
Read the full interview with Gillan about his solo years in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, on sale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door
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