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Not far off
Music News publish some quotes from an interview that Ian Gillan gave to the UNCUT magazine.
It’s one of those things. I’ve only got 30 per cent vision. That won’t get better. It makes life mysterious. The hardest thing is working on my laptop. I can’t see anything on the screen unless I use my peripheral vision – I pick up a line by looking at it sideways. But you find a way. You adapt. But it’s achingly tiresome. It takes a long time to do the work.
It’s hilarious this growing old thing. It’s a laugh a minute. Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. I walk down the road and hear something drop off – clang, there’s something else gone. Nothing’s changed really apart from I can’t pole vault any more. Other than that, things move a little more slowly. But nothing’s changed. If you’ve got a sense of humour, you can get by with most things.
I think if I lose my energy, I’m going to stop. I don’t want to be an embarrassment to anyone. We’re not far off that. It creeps up on you – you don’t really notice. But then this isn’t like a normal job. It’s all in your mind. The writing certainly is, and the ability. And these guys who I work with just seem to keep improving. The hard thing is to keep them down.
Thanks to NME for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
🥹
November 16th, 2025 at 20:31My dad had that too, it bothered him no end because he spent (too) much time with his computer.
November 16th, 2025 at 22:58I think BigIan is asking the good Almighty God the strength for one last Tour…and we with him!
November 17th, 2025 at 00:11It sounds like Ian has macular degeneration and depending whether wet or dry there are good treatments.
November 17th, 2025 at 01:35You have to appreciate they guy’s work ethics. We all going to reach this point but the battle rages on when it comes to the aging process of the human body.
November 17th, 2025 at 05:40Total respect
Peace ✌️
I’m hoping Ian takes the hint his body is telling him and plans for a final farewell tour next year with DP. From what I understand the band has completed another album. Ultimately, it’s better to control your fate, than let fate decide.
November 17th, 2025 at 07:11Ian has talked before about having diabetic retinopathy which is a horrible condition. This could very well cause the problems he is referring to.
November 17th, 2025 at 10:31I admire Ian so much!
“It’s hilarious this growing old thing. It’s a laugh a minute.”
– no feeling sorry for himself whatsoever!
“If you’ve got a sense of humour, you can get by with most things.”
– ohhh man I agree so much 😃
“I think if I lose my energy, I’m going to stop. I don’t want to be an embarrassment to anyone.”
– he will be missed so much, but again: ooohhhh man! He is a great human being in all senses of the word 🤩
Thank you Ian Gillan! You have given me so many hours of listening to your voice with gratitude and man I’m impressed!
November 17th, 2025 at 10:43(Yes Uwe, I know he may not read this…. But it had to be said anyway ☺️)
Carpe diem.
November 17th, 2025 at 10:50what a blow!! 😔
November 17th, 2025 at 14:10Yeah, that is what it probably is, Bigbass, it is certainly what my dad had.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macular_degeneration
It’s very common among people 80 and above years old in the Western World, nearly 12% suffer from it. And once the damage to the central vision is done (it doesn’t turn you blind completely, but can reduce your central vision severely), there is no going back. I don’t remember Ian as a passionate driver, but the degeneration must be hard on him when reading, watching movies or doing his beloved crossword puzzles. In the linked Wikipedia article there is a demonstration how it affects central vision, imagine looking at a Polaroid snapshot with the middle scratched out.
November 17th, 2025 at 14:42Purple are essentially retired now.
November 17th, 2025 at 16:30Very few shows in 2025, MIJ and ROTD re-visits kept them in our ears.
So,if a new album comes in the New Year,call it a career.
Put up your feet,pour a shot of Bailey’s in your coffee. Job well done !
It was a good run with band. now slow walk.👨🏻🦯
November 17th, 2025 at 17:55Didn’t Gillan say previously that his vision loss was caused by diabetes?
Perhaps not entirely unrelated, in turn, to the oceans of alcohol he consumed over the decades.
Sad situation in any case. Thankfully it seems like he has a positive attitude in dealing with it.
There is a musician in canada, David Wilcox, who similarly experienced significant vision loss. Yet somehow still manages to sing, play and perform well. He may be a few years younger than IG, though. And rarely taxed his strength testing the upper limits of his vocal range even in his prime.
It’s heart-wrenching, though, to see him, a formerly full-sighted individual, being led offstage a la Ray Charles, one hand on his roadie’s shoulder.
November 17th, 2025 at 19:06There is still fuel (diesel)…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kno3iwazPk
November 17th, 2025 at 21:44Wasn’t the diabetes the cause for the lack of feel/sensation in his feet, Skippy? Ian is entirely right, as we all age, we never know what’s gonna fall off next. 🙄
Music is likely one of the art forms you can still do best without any or impaired vision or we would have never had Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles or Jeff Healey. But macular degeneration won’t turn you completely blind in any case.
Who wants to die completely healthy and at the top of his fitness?
November 17th, 2025 at 22:48I m not well versed on eyesight
I am not a physician as well.
Up till my 45th I had no issues
Then it started to deteriorate.
Since then I ve had a hard time reading small print and right now behind my computerscreen I need fairly big letters and glasses.
In 2019 I went to an optician for measurements/advice.
I m always procastrination so before I knew it covid hit us , I got ill, still am, and that opticianlocation closed.
Due to being unable for my skin to endure warmth and sunlight I got homebound, bedridden.
No one wanted/could disentangle the mess I made trying to wean off meds early 20.
I got damaged and gaslighted as well,because “they”dont want to link it with the too sudden stop of the meds, which I wanted to get rid off for so long because the side effects
I heard of lasering or implementing an artificial lense but its either not possible for everyone or very expensive.
Meanwhile I ve been most of the time inside, thus lacking positive input I used to ve from the sun, the warmth.
I am living in a too cold house,though colder temperatures ease my skin so I can sleep.
My depression which I battled for almost 50 years, returned and makes everything harder.
I dont know what to do.
I m very often dissociating behind this screen, not having energy for a lot.
I stopped drinking, again, early 2024, but instead I upped painkillers. So whats the gain.
Not eating very healthy though I try to inject some ingredients.
I dont know Ians specific healthissue, but yeah, expexted him to find options due to the money in the bank.
So Ritchie cannot fly after heart attack incl 6 stents, DC threw in the towell, Glenn collapsing from the heat, Ian still touring….despite it all…
I dont know how much his lifestyle paved the way to this or just aging.
He has had a rich unique life though.
I never smoked, tried to do sports, eat well, drink a lot of water, never did harddrugs but yeah drank relatively a lot of wine in some periods.
I used to swim, bike, work out which strenghtened the muscles near my knees which developed badly due to falling.
So now I m hardly moving the knees/legs often hurt like hell.
Sorry, this was kinda long.
November 17th, 2025 at 22:55#17 Rock Voorne:
I’m sorry for you, I wish you some kind of improvement in your health in the future, and to always find strength with the music of the Purple family
November 17th, 2025 at 23:31I’m sorry to hear all that RV. It seems to me that your depression is at the core of all this, maybe you should give psychatric treatment a(nother) try, in depression research there is always something new happening. And for some people overcoming (or living with) depression is a constant battle all their life.
*******************************************************************************
It was bound to come that our DP heroes would become feeble, ailing and eventually enter the eternal hunting grounds. In another music-oriented forum a friend of mine was born in the early 50s and a child of the rock’n’roll era of the 50s and early 60s. All his heroes from then started to go one by one like twenty to ten years ago. He always said (he himself passed away only recently) jokingly: It’s gonna happen to your heroes from the 70s too! and of course he was right.
This might sound caustic, yet it’s not meant to be, but I wake up everyday bracing myself for the potential news that someone from the DP family has left us, I really do. Except for Simon, nobody’s passing would really surprise me. They are all at an age where you might simply not wake up one morning (or somewhere else than where you went to sleep …), a gentle way to go. With just two losses from the core band so far (Tommy & Jon + who knows if Rod Evans is still alive), we’ve actually all been extraordinarily lucky, but look how diminished the ranks of the Slide It In WS line-ups are: Cozy Powell, Mel Galley, Jon Lord, John Sykes all gone, only DC and Neil Murray (+ Micky Moody + Colin Hodgkinson) are still with us.
This site is on its way for a whole lot of heartfelt obituaries in the coming years. Tempus fugit.
November 18th, 2025 at 02:59#17 Rock Voronezh
Heartbreaking. Please reach out for help to anyone who is close to you. Freinds, neighbours etc. People can be surprisingly kind to you if they see you are struggling. Good luck for the future, you made a good first step posting here amongst freinds .Your post is very impactful and immensely thought provoking. Best wishes.
November 18th, 2025 at 10:29Go on Ian, go on! Best Rock Singer in the World. Locking forward to see The Band in Dortmund. Health only the best for our heroes of Deep Purple!
November 18th, 2025 at 12:30Is it then safe at all to let Gillan wander on stage without any assistance? Just like Jon Lord said one day – he’ll do it until the day he literally drops and clanks off on stage. Sad but inevitable.
It feels weird now for me to remember IG walking by us when we were taken out from meet and greet with the band MINUS him prior to the gig, out of the backstage area. He looked frightened by the closeness of walking by people and didn’t react to any of the greetings, he was just led by the assisting woman to the band dressing rooms, looking uncomfortable. It was such a sad thing to see, since Roger, Paicey, Don and Simon were absolutely lovely and genuinely friendly and attentive during the short conversations during the meeting. The man with the voice not only refused to see anybody, he seemed to be completely on the different planet. You’ll never see it form the audience point during the gig, but that’s what it was and it made me feel sad.
November 18th, 2025 at 20:21When we met up with Ian last year in Toronto he was having trouble seeing things we were showing him on our phones, and said he was having vision ailments, now I understand better, having diabetes and some eye problems because of it. He is and always will be a well-loved legend no matter how and when he retires.
November 18th, 2025 at 22:41@17
I am so sorry for you RV 🥺
November 19th, 2025 at 07:28I send you a big hug 🤗
@Thorsun: He’s had some accommodations for some time. Looking at YouTube videos of recent shows, you’ll notice the yellow tape that has appeared on the Deep Purple stage that match the areas where Gillan roams the stage, including his passage behind the drum kit. As long as he can see the yellow lines, he’ll be OK.
(He does sometimes get past the yellow lines, but there seems to be a safety margin at the front of the stage.)
November 19th, 2025 at 07:56@17 @20
Andrew certainly is right. We often are ashamed to ask for help. Once we get it we may look back and wonder why and how we remained in that state so long without doing something about it and get some support. Things can get better. I have seen it happen many times. All the best!
November 19th, 2025 at 08:23Dear people
Thanx for the kind words.
It d go too far to lay out everything thats going on right now/for decades or what went on before.
To say it has become very complicated is an understatement and a very boring thing to say.
It might say nothing or nothing at all.
Not sure how to end this.
I tried a lot and…….a lot of walls and in recent years probably got too tired.
Depression at the core of this. Well, I dont think so but its interaction sure doesnt aid.
Some things went on/happened before it started, now and then I seemed to get on top of this black dog but along the way things got damaged and me older.
Its hard to keep it relatively short and doing it a bit of justice.
Weird thing is, I think,my English got better all those years, reading all the musicrelated texts,espescially DPAS way back I think.
I do miss those mags.
It was a very long time ago , summer of 2008, I hooked up with someone here who did a lot for me.
We lost contact and that pains me.
November 20th, 2025 at 01:19Wherever you are, you know who you are, thanx and stay well.
I normally don’t go for AI voiced vids, but this here maybe interests us all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5AK4IGFp4k
I haven’t found the original Paicey statements that fed into it yet though.
November 20th, 2025 at 05:09Yeah, no, I’m watching that and I’m like: how do we know Paicey ever said any of those things? And the mispronunciations are intolerable. Death to AI slop.
November 20th, 2025 at 20:19@28
Didn’t bother to watch it… got no time for AI crap.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81pczXZ4c3L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg
November 20th, 2025 at 22:52@27
RV, I am so sorry for you.
Really hope you have someone nearby who can comfort you a bit 😊
Life is sometimes unbearable, but I tell you this:
You writing in here means so much to us 😊 so please keep on writing here, and I’m pretty sure our dear Admin guys will allow us to comfort you as much as possible.
And if I may add a little advice: write a journal every day, where you write 3 things you’re grateful for every single day. So when you look back, reading in the journal, your mood will change and be better 🤗
Changing your mindset is not that difficult if you’re persistent 😊
Big hug from me to you 🤗🤗
November 21st, 2025 at 13:02#29 Reinder:
you’re right, AI generated shit!
November 22nd, 2025 at 14:59