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Let’s see the accounts
Here’s a “preview” of the second part of John McCoy’s interview with Rock Daydream Nation. Mind you, the complete first part, of which we also featured just a preview, clocked at an hour and 14 minutes. Here John continues lamenting the many wrongs that happened during the run of the Gillan band.
Thanks to Steve for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
OMFG 🙄 – John McCoy was in his late 20s and not a child when he met Ian Gillan and got the offer from him to become a co-shareholder in GILLAN as an enterprise with uncertain prospects – that is essentially what he was. You don’t need a master 🧑🎓 in business studies to realize that profit is what is left over from the turnover/revenue after costs/expenses, debts, interest & taxes have been deducted.
Most businesses work that way, even the convenience store around the corner. Yet John McCoy is telling us he did not think of asking the question(s):
“How will the start-up costs be financed? I don’t have the money to contribute anything. If you pitch in for all of us, Ian, then thank you, but how long will take for us to repay those loans and eventually generate profits for us to share?”
There are limits to how naïve you can allow yourself to be – even as a rock musician. And if John didn’t understand what he was doing, then perhaps he should have lost some weight, grown his hair back and knock at Ritchie’s or DC’s door to ask whether he could work for them on a steady wage. Because that is what you do when you don’t want to participate in losses and wait for a venture to turn profitable.
I’m pretty darn sure that IG never saw even a fraction of the money he spent to keep GILLAN running as a return on his investment. And John McCoy’s post-GILLAN career indicates to me that he never got any better in basic math either.
I also wonder how “coincidentally” all these lamentations by him are raised anew in lengthy interviews just at the time a comprehensive GILLAN release has seen the light of day. No doubt, John fears missing out yet again on a stream of hundreds of thousands of GBP if not more. The proceeds from Denmark alone where – as we have learned here – GILLAN was incredibly popular should see him become a wealthy man.
Hopefully, his wife doesn’t let him take decisions regarding her antiques business. 😑
Even big men can whine.
July 9th, 2025 at 04:57@1
I see it a bit different Uwe!
John is hurt very very much. As far as I can tell he thought Ian to be numero uno, in all aspects.
And when Ian turned away, John felt betrayed.
Often when people feel betrayed they find minor complaints and blow them out of proportion to justify the sad feelings.
John seems to be a stand up guy, and the only logical explanation is that he misses Ian so much.
And to add spite to the situation, Ian rejoined Purple and got old friends back there.
Not to diminish John in any way, I am really really not!, but you see the same with kids that are feeling left out and still haven’t found a way to tackle those hostile feelings.
I don’t know Ian personally but I guess he is a lot of fun to be around, and people like him shines and brings happiness to the people around them, which makes it even harder to miss.
Well, a little outlook on life from Denmark and a very nice cup of coffee 😃
July 9th, 2025 at 09:11John is allowed to have his say, just like anyone else. He obviously wasn’t into all that business shite back then, he was into having a good time rocking and rolling. He was a dedicated musician and human being. John is not the only one this has happened to. However, he is the only one bringing it to light though, in regard to that band, so be it. He has been burnt, that hurts. Some people can deal with it better than others. As that cursed saying goes, ‘winners are grinners’ etc etc. The losers, well many just say ‘tough shit, deal with it’. It ain’t that simple for the many who have been on the wrong end of negative shite. Better to get it off your chest than to take it with you. Cheers.
July 9th, 2025 at 10:12I think Uwe and Karin are both right. As an adult, John had a responsibility to consider the potential risks and rewards of becoming a partner in the business. Equally, he was clearly heartbroken at the sudden demise of Gillan, followed by Ian’s equally swift departure to Sabbath and Purple. One suspects that there has been little or no contact between Ian and John since then, with no opportunity for a reconciliation that may have allowed the latter to move on.
July 9th, 2025 at 11:51I’ve said this before …the truth obviously lies somewhere in between the middle of them …yes, I’m certain there was money missing and they were a little bit short changed ….and yes, I’m certain Gillan ( obviously funded it ) …and was thoroughly pissed off at the end with all the moaning and bitching …and couldn’t wait to get out of it .
I don’t think we should blame John for moaning about it ….he is only answering the interviewers questions…and his answers seem sincere .
It’s just a shame that they were such a brilliant and important band …and, it all ended like that !
July 9th, 2025 at 13:11You know, if GILLAN had been this wildly successful band and Ian had rowed John out to have a larger share, I’d get his bitterness. But we’ve established long ago that GILLAN weren’t nearly as successful as Rainbow or Whitesnake, that they never had a single gold record anywhere, that they refused to do the hard work and open for other bands, that they did not tour the US and that the UK market – while Pop Music-culturally extremely relevant – is too small to support a band unless you have a really significant status there – for which a few TV appearances as the token hard rock act of the longhaired former DP singer that gets invited for novelty value are simply not enough.
John totally overestimated Ian’s drawing power (which – let’s face it – has never been that great outside of Purple) and mistook him as this eternal cornucopia of fame, success and money earning potential that would keep on giving. He witnessed six GILLAN albums being recorded of which only two were moderately successful in one single market. Did he really think touring clubs and small halls in, say, Germany, generally a happy hunting ground for anything related to Purple, was evidence for the band advancing to becoming a major act while a band like Judas Priest were touring stadiums in the US as openers for KISS on the latter’s Dynasty Tour?
And did he expect this to last forever? It is ironic that John holds against Ian that the latter cut his losses and in 1983 decided to become an employee of the Black Sabbath organization rather than continue to hold a share in a failed business venture, something John should have perhaps considered a tad bit earlier for himself as well.
I don’t doubt for a minute that as GILLAN’s financial situation became more and more untenable, transparency from Ian (himself not a likely recipient for a Nobel Prize in economics or he would have perhaps thought twice about Ritchie’s offer to join Rainbow a few years earlier) wasn’t great and a few white lies were told, after all its highly embarrassing if you can no longer support something to the extent you used to (and people have grown to expect from you). But this pet conspiracy theory of John that Ian secretively purloined proceeds from the band’s operations via shadowy accounting is bullshit. If GILLAN was so great in making money (from where doing what?), why oh why disband it and become an employee of Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler? It makes no sense.
July 9th, 2025 at 14:30basta Mc Coy ya cansas,,,,te crees q ibas a tener la mediocre carrera q tuviste si no hubieras tocado en Gillan? Agradecé q te conocemos x eso,,,fin
July 9th, 2025 at 15:30@4
Thank you Chas, and then I forgot all about Ian’s fun year with BS!
I guess this is a good reminder to us all about saying goodbye gently..
July 9th, 2025 at 15:51John ripped off fans with his truly awful, scrape the bottom of the barrel Gillan releases, so I don’t think he’s in a position to preach. Ian went bankrupt, lost his house, everything running that band. John was also known for using his fists, punching Ian’s manager Phil Banfield, so Ian was never going to continue working with him if the band continued. Without Ian, John might have been yet another obscure musician, not ever achieving any recognition. Ian has always been somewhat naive about financial matters, but I find it difficult to believe that he knowingly ripped off the rest of the band. It’s been nearly 43 years John, please just stop whinging.
July 9th, 2025 at 17:51The Gillan band was spent by 1981, on all fronts. It wasn’t going uphill anymore, for want of a better description. Ian Gillan knew that and I am not only talking about the finance aspect to it. It was going nowhere creatively anymore, we can hear that in the Double Trouble and Magic albums. Ian Gillan would have been over many aspects to that band, it is the way it is. John needs to get it off his chest, so be it. How many people here when a much younger person back then, could have been easily lead? Looking at it all decades later is easy from the old hindsight. People make certain decisions and stumble around in their youth, they get used, burnt, taken for granted etc etc. It happens unfortunately. All the wisdom in the adult experienced world does not mean a lot 40 to 50 years ago. John was a young man on a mission back then, they all were. Too much partying and ego etc me thinks and not enough ‘common sense’ perhaps. How many people here look back at moments in their younger life and think, ‘how in the hell did I let that happen’ or similar. Cheers.
July 9th, 2025 at 22:33Everything can be sorted by talking to one another.
July 10th, 2025 at 06:09Peace ✌️
Karin: I’m with you entirely on the importance of saying goodbye gently. Unfortunately, as Roger Glover once said: “Musicians often abdicate their responsibilities as human beings.”
July 10th, 2025 at 09:18Not really justifying John’s words and actions, but just trying to understand his motives. First of all, let’s talk about perceptions. Uwe has made a strong point that Gillan the band wasn’t a profitable business. Most likely, that was the case. Yet the accounting was not transparent, Phil wasn’t a good manager and Ian was his usual bohemian self. If you use a bit of imagination, like human beings do, you can assume that the band was making money but it was going somewhere else other than paying the musicians. In the absence of transparency it is easy to make one point or the other without hard evidence in favour of either.
Second, people tend to get grumpy about the past, especially when they get older. Look at K.K.’s never-ending moaning about Priest. Dave Ellefson was fired from Megadeth and can’t get over it to this day. Dave Mustaine himself occasionally grieves his firing from Metallica back in, well, 1983. Even such a perfectly rational person as Georgivs occasionally gets grumpy about his previous company, despite leaving on his own terms and collecting all the bonuses on his way out.
My point is simple. John may be saying nasty things, but cut him some slack.
July 10th, 2025 at 10:27Mac
Fair point …but , I’d argue Double Trouble was a great album …Magic , maybe not so much …though What’s the matter and Bluesy blue sea were stand outs !….I’ll always treasure my picture disc of the album though .
Incidentally…do you think ” long gone and Caught in a trap ” …had a little cryptic meaning ? …a bit like ” Smooth Dancer !?”
July 10th, 2025 at 10:40If
– Ian had gotten a little bit of a haircut for a bit less of a “caveman-look”,
– the band had started wearing semi-matching outfits (boiler suits would have been fine, John already had one) for a less ragtag visual image (you can have one or two people look weird in a band and still have US success –> Cheap Trick
https://i0.wp.com/theseconddisc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cheap-trick3.jpg?ssl=1 ),
– knuckled down to touring with hard-rocking popular US outfits (most of whom would have been chuffed to have a band with the ex-DP crooner open for them!) for a year or two (Judas Priest, a band of by all accounts lower pedigree than GILLAN, crisscrossed the States for years with anybody who would have them as an opener KISS, Foghat, Status Quo, AC/DC, it eventually reaped dividends), sticking one or two DP numbers in their 45 minute opener sets, plus
– let an American producer (Eddie Kramer or Jack Douglas?) make their sound a bit more FM radio-compatible,
history might well have been different. It wouldn’t have taken much more than that, and let me assure you: GILLAN would have still sounded (and looked) idiosyncratic enough, just more palatable to American tastes.
Of course, Ian wanted none of that, perhaps understandably still traumatized from his Mk II days, but he’s also an obstinate old mule that sticks to his ideas until one day all of the sudden he just doesn’t anymore. You have to be able to afford such a stance and Ian could – thanks to Purple royalties – up to a point, but Bernie, Mick, Colin, John & Janick obviously could not.
Along with Ian, I blame Phil Banfield, his manager. But it was failure by design and the inability to face the realities of a hard-rocking touring act at the end of the 70s/beginning of the 80s.
July 10th, 2025 at 15:04Musicians, generally, make poor businessmen. McCoy, and Gillan for that matter, are no exceptions.
July 11th, 2025 at 08:45But Ian Paice and Ritchie aren’t, Niall!
Yet the accounting was not transparent, Phil wasn’t a good manager and Ian was his usual bohemian self. If you use a bit of imagination, like human beings do, you can assume that the band was making money but it was going somewhere else other than paying the musicians. In the absence of transparency it is easy to make one point or the other without hard evidence in favour of either.
I’m actually with you on this, Georgivs, the accounting was likely a mess (as it is with a lot of rock bands, transparency invites the taxman early on, intransparency will see you jailed by him in the end 😉) and incoming cash was likely devoured by Ian’s loans to get the whole operation up and running (as well as whenever cash ran dry). Remember that there was no Tony Edwards and John Coletta nor a big budget record company for GILLAN (like Judas Priest had with CBS who obviously saw something in them though it took Priest quite a while to break through, it’s hard if your lead vocalist isn’t exactly handsome), someone had to pay for all this stuff, money doesn’t fall from the sky. Bands tend to go heavily into debt with their record companies and management as they start their careers and their first real proceeds go into paying that debt off. If only Ian knew this (and he should have, coming from DP), then he should have perhaps taken more time to explain it to the others (though their naiveté still makes me scratch my head, these guys weren’t Les, Eric, Woody, Alan & Derek from the Bay City Rollers, but had all been around the block for a while making music professionally for a decade or more).
[I hasten to the defense of the tartan horde, they at least had a general inkling that money plays a role in things …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StSx0scuHnE&list=RDStSx0scuHnE&start_radio=1 ]
July 11th, 2025 at 15:11@12
‘Roger Glover once said: “Musicians often abdicate their responsibilities as human beings.”’
– this is indeed beyond sad.
But I guess if one’s feelings are hurt, the easiest thing is to turn the back to people and try to forget them..
The noble thing to do is to be able to hug them with genuine affection and swallow one’s pride.
Sometimes this ‘being-a-human’ – thing can be really hard and difficult.
‘Let the one who is pure throw the first rock’ and whatnot ☺️
July 11th, 2025 at 16:34@15
“Ian had gotten a little bit of a haircut for a bit less of a “caveman-look”,“
– what in all that is pure and decent is wrong with Ian’s hair at that point in time?
Long hair to a man can really do something (ahem… so sorry, I seem to have a bit of a throat issue ☺️)
July 11th, 2025 at 16:36Seriously, you one-woman-Ian-Gillan-adulation-convent, it was too long and it wasn’t a proper haircut. It also aged him and by the early 80s it looked simply odd – you could still have long hair back then, but it needed some shape and form.
I prefer Ian with shorter hair, the way he looked between 1973 and say 1977. When he wears his hair shorter, you see more of his natural waves; when he wears it down to his ass, it straightens out from the weight and looks boring.
I was never a fan of that late GILLAN/Black Sabbath Rapunzel look and was relieved when between the end of Sabbath and the Purple reformation he obviously met someone with a pair of scissors.
July 11th, 2025 at 23:53@ 19 – The ‘long hair’ Karin, gives the ladies something to hang onto, same as the chest hairs………………….As for all those images that some ‘men’ here are posting links to, those images of men with a ‘canoe’ in their pocket, well the jury is still out on that. I am totally innocent in all of this. Cheers.
July 12th, 2025 at 01:20@14- yes Steve, Double Trouble isn’t as commercial as Magic and it has some stronger songs too. Listening to it now and it has been a long time and the song Sunbeam I have always enjoyed. The band is much more straight ahead, less ‘out there and dangerous’ with Gers on guitar. That is the tour I saw them on, October 1981. The album had not been released as yet, but that didn’t stop a twelve hour train journey into the big smoke, all guns blazing. I seriously doubt that even Karin would be that dedicated to Ian Gillan, he he he. I feel quite proud to have undertaken that journey and survived to tell the tale and perhaps to have scored a few points of devout dedication to the Gillan-universe. They were full on live in concert with Ian going off big time. Hadely Bop Bop, ha ha ha, a short rocker that is. Having three different guitarists over a short period of time has a rather different take on things and it makes the band much more diverse in that regard. Just listening to the nine minute song Born to Kill. A good song and rather progressive in that sense, good to hear and another song I had forgotten all about. Colin Towns and his wonderful influence. I am not sure about the lyrics in Caught In a Trap but Long Gone could possibly have some message of despair there, in regard to things going on in the band. Hard to tell with lyrics as to what he is really going on about. Cheers
July 12th, 2025 at 07:25@20
🤣🤣
“I prefer Ian with shorter hair, the way he looked between 1973 and say 1977. When he wears his hair shorter, you see more of his natural waves; when he wears it down to his ass, it straightens out from the weight and looks boring.”
– 😂🤣😆😂🤣😆
UWE UWE UWE!
I don’t know anyone that, like you, can describe Ian in details!
“Seriously, you one-woman-Ian-Gillan-adulation-convent,”
– seriously! I love Ian’s voice, but ohhh man, I don’t offer him so much attention to his looks as you do, Lawyer Exceptionaire!
To be honest Ian can be bald! He can wear a hair piece, he can grow his hair until the rest of Purple trip and fall in it, I really don’t care!
What I do care about is his voice!
Ok?
July 12th, 2025 at 10:51Ok!
@21
“The ‘long hair’ Karin, gives the ladies something to hang onto, same as the chest hairs”
Well, well, well – MacGregor, I have never hung onto neither long hair nor chest hair 😄
But I do love long hair to a man!
Short hair, well groomed hair that is, has a lot of potential too, but longer hair surely adds to a man’s looks!
I do have a hard time explaining what I mean exactly!
But I’m sure Uwe will step in and finishing my sentence here:
Long hair to a man is…… (come on Uwe, you’re having a free shot here 😅)
July 12th, 2025 at 10:56If McCoy has evidence of the misappropriation of funds then he should make a legal stand instead of whining on year after year.
July 12th, 2025 at 17:13@ 24- that is a huge relief Karin, thanks for clearing that up. Here I was thinking that Danish women were wild or at least had a wild heritage. Why do I think of these things? Cheers.
July 12th, 2025 at 23:06@26
the answer is: I blame Uwe 😃
July 12th, 2025 at 23:31“Why do I think of these things?“
Because you tend to be easily distracted, Herr MacGregor.
July 13th, 2025 at 00:40@26: Wholehearted thanks! I’ve always prided myself in being a corrosive and corrupting influence.
July 13th, 2025 at 14:02@ 29- that you are Uwe, that you are. My life has never been the same since you started waffling on here that is for sure. Mind you, I think the same now since Karin has entered the fray too. Must be the European thing, a connection of sorts. Vikings, Teutonic trouble makers, I don’t know. Did the innocent Scots get in the way or something, not to mention my other half, the Irish. Was it all that bad? Do we take it with us into our next life. Now there is a mind shuddering thought. Cheers.
July 14th, 2025 at 08:26@30
Awww MacGregor 🥹 my life has also changed for the better ☺️😃
I laugh a lot more 😁
I do not know if the Viking influence is at all important!
But I’m sure the influence of Purple and Ian in particular is very very important 🥰🥰
July 14th, 2025 at 13:32As far as I know, Ian once said in an interview that it was settled in court and McCoy lost legally. That sums it all up; he should be grateful to have worked with such a rock icon for so long. I sold my McCoy LP 25 years ago because it was boring. (I should have kept it, it’s rare and has increased in value, but am I still complaining about that today?) McCoy has always made an aggressive impression on me. He hasn’t been successful in recent decades and complains that Gillan hasn’t filled his bank accounts with his singing talent? His bass playing is good, but honestly, not particularly imaginative in my opinion…
July 24th, 2025 at 10:14Don’t underrate him as a bass player, Gerd! I once read an illuminating interview with John back in GILLAN days where he explained his philosophy: A lot of people try to turn bass guitar into a midrange instrument – it simply isn’t. He also revealed Dusty Hill of ZZ Top as one of his favorite bass players: He’s very tasteful and underrated.
John had this concept of his bass as a tuned version of Mick Underwood’s bass drum, that is why the rhythm section of GILLAN sounded so relentless. In a way it was a comic book style of primal bass playing but executed with great precision and via his pick attack with a real edge. Plus that tension it always had.
His bass playing in GILLAN was imaginative in the way he almost hilariously reduced it to its basic rhythm core, often trying to play as little as possible by not following chord changes etc – kind of the Ian Hill school of bass playing. Just listen to the intro here where he mercilessly sticks to one ostinato note endlessly throughout Janick Gers’ many overlaying chord changes:
https://youtu.be/i4jRJ40spIM
And that is a song written by John, those chord changes he is not playing are his, he knew exactly what he was doing and it is unlikely that Jimmy Bain, Bob Daisley, Roger Glover or Neil Murray would have created the same tension if asked to find a bass part for those chords. Sometimes playing the absolute minimum or counterintuitive can be creative too.
I hate it when Ian covers GILLAN material with other musicians, you know why? No bassist I’ve heard can emulate John’s style and his groove is a huge part of GILLAN for me. He did something to that band I immediately found attractive though I was a card-carrying IGB fan and John Gustafson (whom McCoy rated hugely as a bassist) had an opposing bass philosophy.
John McCoy’s limited understanding of the music business and his continuous lament, moaning and whining are another matter of course, but I regard him as a pretty singular bassist. That doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate Gruber, Daisley, Martinez, Gustafson and the great Neil Murray with his many flourishes as well.
If I’d call one bassist in the Purple Universe unimaginative then it would be Jimmy Bain on Rainbow Rising and On Stage (though he greatly improved with Dio), that was indeed run of the mill to the point of punkish. Had John McCoy played on Rainbow Rising, that album would have been twice as heavy, tense and urgent. And you would have actually heard him over the barrage of Cozy’s drums!
Never forget that he came. With ZZebra from an ethno jazz rock background where his bass playing had been much more elaborate:
https://youtu.be/osUW02ovn7Y
https://youtu.be/ULkobBlN6HE
But John – whether playing fusion or heavy metal – always had one trademark, he played like a programmed sequencer, that was his shtick, . It had a subtle, yet huge influence on how he made the bands he played in sound.
July 24th, 2025 at 14:58The full final interview Rock Daydream Nation did with John McCoy premieres this week. Here it is:
July 24th, 2025 at 21:42https://youtu.be/yOuP-HloaNk?si=RAIBhi5bvzNBOmaa
@ 33- it is hard to believe it is the same bass guitarist. What a transition, I suppose John became bored with all that ‘jazz’ etc. He was obviously craving songs to rock out to no doubt and a bit more success. Did he ‘dumb it down’ for Gillan. Indeed it appears in some aspects he did. Cheers.
July 25th, 2025 at 03:53I actually hear the same type of slightly mechanical micro-groove between ZZebra- and GILLAN-McCoy, Herr McGregor. John was so precise and metronomic in his playing, he didn’t really swing. A human sequencer.
And I don’t see his bass playing with GILLAN as really dumbed down, it was rather an almost Dadaist concept of reducing the role of bass back to primal basics. There was thought behind it. McCoy’s minimalism was cerebral.
He mentions in the interview that Ritchie complimented him on his bass playing when that Blackmore/GILLAN jam took place. Ritchie had a good ear for bassists and I can see what struck him about John’s bass playing though with his conservative image views on how a Rainbow bassist had to look he would have never asked John whether he wanted to earn some serious money with him though Powell and McCoy together might have indeed proved invincible.
July 25th, 2025 at 18:57Great thanks Peter for taking the time to interview John McCoy at such a length. I have learned now that he’s a fan of Paicey and even auditioned with PAL – it’s a small world and the cross-references in the Purple Universe never end!
July 25th, 2025 at 22:44