Kaaos TV conducted an interview with DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan prior to the band’s June 8 concert in Tallinn, Estonia.
On whether he has any plans to release new solo music:
Gillan: “I’ve got about five projects in mind. I’ve got about 30 songs in my library that have never been recorded. I don’t know which of those will actually end up coming alive, but there is one, a project that we’ve just finished recording in Hamburg. I recorded a new album with my first-ever band, THE JAVELINS, from 1962, and we finished recording that material of the time. And that’s coming out in August. And I’m gonna start promotion work on that in a few weeks’ time. So you’re the first to actually know about it. And it contains songs like Ray Charles and Buddy Holly and Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry and stuff like that, from that era. And the guys in the band, most of them tickled along at the occasional gig and they practiced, but most of them haven’t really played in any progressive way for 50 years or more — 55, 56 years now. I prepared all the material with Steve Morris, my old partner from Liverpool — not Steve Morse; Steve Morris. And we sent the tapes, 16 songs, to each of the guys, and said, ‘Okay, practice like crazy for six weeks.’ And so we all met in the studio in Hamburg and we recorded 10 songs on the first day. And the whole 16 were recorded in two days, and then the solos and extra bits and pieces, a few mistakes, were repaired on a Wednesday, and then we did a video, and that was it. It was unbelievable. And I was listening to the rough mixes, before we put on the vocal backings, the girls, and the brass section, because a lot of those old songs, like THE COASTERS and Ray Charles, had brass sections on them, so we’re doing it authentically, augmenting the band. But, you know, because they hadn’t played professionally for 50 years, they didn’t evolve at all — they kept playing in the style which was in 1962, and consequently, when I’m listening to it, I think, ‘My God! This is so authentic. It sounds just exactly as it did in those days.’
