Here's the interview that IG gave to Croatian TV prior to their concert on 3rd April 1996. I transcribed it off the TV so it may have some mistakes, but on the whole it's pretty accurate.
HRT: Last time I spoke with you two years ago when you were in Corpus Christi in Texas, it was telephone interview. So what happened with Deep Purple from Corpus Christi to today?
Gillan: Well, we've grown up a little bit, I think. We've grown from men
pretending to be boys, to men being men. Steve Morse joined us just about
that time, on the Mexico shows just before Corpus Christi. He's been with us
a year now, we have a great time together. In that time we made an album and
started a tour.
After I've left Corpus Christi I drove across the States and had many
good experiences, some songs on the album are about those stories, like
"Somebody Stole my Guitar", "Hey Cisco", and stuff like that.
I can honestly say that this is a best tour I've ever been on in my
life, other tours have been exciting and had their moments of high drama,
for one reason or another, but this tour has been sensational, I have to
say. It's nice to be in a band that had so much history to date, that is in
an creative and expressive frame of moment.
As I said earlier, we had grown up, we enjoy the musical side of things
now very much. These guys are fantastic musicians, they're just wonderful
players, that makes my job, as a singer, very easy, not having to drag
everyone along, just to be in a band and enjoy it. So a lot happened in this
year.
HRT: So what do you mean when you say grown up?
Gillan: You know, couple of years ago I was talking to Roger, I've known him
since 1965, we were talking about what is it that makes young people's
lyrics so important, so vital, and we figured it was the naivity that gave
them the strength. Why is it? When you are a kid, you feel immortal, you
feel you can conquer the world, you feel that every idea in your mind has
got to be correct, you don't think about people's feelings, you say what you
think because you're young, a young tough guy, you think you are, and if
you get successful it's pretty hard to shake that image, that self image. I
think that reflecting back from point of view now, being fifty years old,
what we think is it was the naivity added to the strength of those lyrics,
and what can we replace it with now? It was difficult, because we were
searching for the things like love, how to be truthful, unsentimental, and
that sort of things. As you grow old, you start thinking more about how you
can wound people if you say certain things, you think twice before you say
something, out of experience, not always because you're frightened, but
because you sometimes think - well I just might be wrong, let me find out
more about this before I commit myself to an opinion, a spoken opinion, or a
written one. We were driving on this for quite awhile, we often sit and talk
about things like that, and than one night I sat up and said - hey, this is
ridiculous, of course I'm naive, I'm not a naive twenty year old, I'm a
naive fifty years old, I've never been fifty years old in my life. My life
is very exciting, I've travelled to some wonderful places, I've experienced
some great situations culturally, spiritually, creatively and artistically.
I think in a different way now, and let's start being men instead of boys,
so let's not just write about fast cars and loose women, as we used to, to
try and impress other people, so let's start writing about those
spirituality of things, the expressiveness of life as it is, as a mature
person. And as soon as we went through that door everything became so much
easier, ^Ñcos it was joy again, it wasn't a struggle to try and put together
the craft that had become dominant over the expression of the art. I'm not
trying to say pop or rock music is the art, but in a literal sense, I
suppose, it is. It got to the point where we concentrated so hard on the
craft that the craft had overtaken the art, and therefore it had become very
boring. You still write good songs, and you love them all, because they're
your children, whether they're good or bad you love them.
Then you start to get some vitality back to them, and you forget about
the craft, you just develop an idea and stream of consciousness comes out,
and all the sudden you realise you wanted to write about this for years and
years, and I think anything that's to do with a natural flow of expression
has got to be a good thing, no matter what age you are.
HRT: How did you choose the new guitarist, Steve Morse, and the one before him, Joe Satriani?
Gillan: It was all just a normal way to decide, brain is a wonderful thing,
you just make a decision, it's like having a conversation. I don't know
where these words are coming from, it's probably expirience or whatever, but
I've always been able to speak, so here^Å You have a conversation based on
the information you have. So when Ritchie took a hike we decided that we are
going to carry on, we've been under pressure with Ritchie for many years, so
many difficulties. We thought now it's time to see what happens without
Ritchie.
That was very easy, someone suggested us Joe Satriani, I can't remember
who, probably Japanese promoter. Joe was free for about six months, he
wasn't doing anything, so he came and helped us out, as a temporary
replacement for Ritchie. We got on great, Joe is a great guy, in fact we
still speak I spoke to him over the phone last week.
Then the time came to look for somebody permanent. Manager said:" Why
don't you write some names down on the piece of paper and we'll see what we
have.", and everybody wrote a list, it's at least I remember it this way,
someone else will remember it other way, there's always many versions of the
truth, but this is not too far away. It came out that Steve Morse was on
everybody's lists, he was the only guy everyone had mentioned. So I phoned
up his manager and asked him what he thinks, he agreed. It was just one
telephone call, and that's all it was. Steve said:" Yes, sure, let's see how
it goes.", and we said:" Yes, that's nice, we love your music and let's see
how it goes.". So he came on, we rehearsed, wrote a little bit, we did some
shows, in Mexico and Corpus Christi. He's a part of family, he's intelligent
guy, great sense of humour, and of course he can play the guitar very well.
HRT: Which old songs will you be playing tonight in Vienna?
Gillan: Well, we tried to break it up a little bit, because anybody seeing the band over the years knows we haven't deviated much from the program on Made in Japan twenty years ago, because the old guitar player liked it that way.
HRT: What do you think of Smoke on the Water? One song which many bands, year after year, find as an inspiration song for every new generation of musicians.
Gillan: The thing about Smoke on the Water is I don't know how many thousands of times I've sung it, but I never once thought "Oh no, not tonight.", every time it's been fantastic. It's a simple song, it has a simple structure, it's got a narrative lyric, so it's always a story which has it's own value, as opposed to, for example, Child in Time, which is a completely different kind of thing. It's a complicated song, in overall structure. Most of songs are simple underneath, but Child in Time is a song born in an era when cold war was on, it's very philosophical, the lyrics and the whole meaning is very elusive now. Smoke on the Water tells a story, and I think it will have it's own spirit, it's own life.
HRT: Do you remember the show in Zagreb?
Gillan: I can remember pretty much the whole tour, I remember the promoter Toni Sabol, I'll be seeing him soon, we've became good friends. I remember just meeting a lot of very intense, enthusiastic, wonderful people. We just had a great time, it was fantastic, we often talk about it. We've got good memories about things like that. I think we got pretty drunk as well.
HRT: Did Toni serve our wine?
Gillan: Yes, probably, lot of stuff, plum brandy and that stuff.
HRT: What are you doing when you are not in studio, when you are not with Deep Purple?
Gillan: I'm with my family, I live by the seaside in a small fishing town in England. I have a workshop, I make furniture. I like working in a workshop, with wood and whatever, do repairs, I always seem to be doing something in the garden, something in the house, painting, fixing or whatever. I enjoy life, I do a lot of walking, there are beautiful cliffs there, I spend a lot of time walking, I get a lot of inspiration there. I like going to the pub and drink with my friends, we spend evenings there just talking about football or politics, playing chess and whatever, we have a good time. They're good people down there, fishermen and farmers, and they have very interesting views on life, because they're not really in the middle of the city, they're able to look on the most of the world things from a distance, they have quite interesting philosophical point of view, different to the people who are directly, subjectively involved in world affairs, or the world situations in the city. It is calm and peaceful there.
HRT: What about the wild rock-stars life from the past?
Gillan: Well, you know, lot of stories got exaggerated. It has been pretty wild, particularly when you're younger. I still enjoy having a good party, I still enjoy the lifestyle we have on the road, when we're on the bus things get pretty crazy. Then some good parties, you know awfully lot of energy fills up in the band when you're finished playing at 11 o'clock in the night, and then you're still making adrenaline, so then you can't be sleeping till 3 o'clock in the morning, we've got to find something to keep us up. But it was never as quite as excessive as I've heard in some of the stories. These guys are primarily musicians, good musicians, very good quality players, they are also intelligent people. Some of the crazier extremes, that sort of things, get a little boring after a while. We were never into drugs as a band, believe it or mot. I grew up in a drinking enviroment, it was a part of our culture, we understood it. We knew how much to have, and when to stop before you're sick on the floor or star fighting, or everybody else gets crazy. We drank to excess in the early days, we partied wild and hard, but you know, when you've had too much to drink you normally fall over and you don't go on and do more crazy things, and if you are in a good company, you don't feel it like an exaggeration, but we did our fair share, we did our fair share in the past. I think there's just as much energy now, it's just that we look pretty stupid now, you know, fifty year olds behaving like kids. Our recreation activities are stimulating, there is a lot of sports still goes on, we don't play football like we used to, I got broken feet from playing football over the years anyway. But I still do a lot of swimming and canoeing, and we play tennis a lot, we keep creative. It's important to try and keep healthy, if you live on a diet of coffein, booze, cigarettes, and god knows what, it wears you down after a while. You need to get some fresh air, some vitamins, some decent food inside you, some healthy living - that's what's coming home all about.