Ian Gillan Quotes

"We were the first generation of rock & roll, but life goes on."

"My grandad was an opera singer, my uncle a jazz musician; I was a boy soprano in the church choir. But the first performance with Deep Purple was something I'll never forget. All elements were working brilliantly."

"Elvis's voice was unique. Like so many others, he had natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery."

"You can never criticize a monumental musician like Jon Lord or Richie Blackmore, or the part they played in the group, but life goes on."

"We have been called old rockers, rock pensioners, and dinosaurs."

"I was an avid collector of Elvis' early stuff; for a young singer, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It's the same as being in school - you learn by copying the maestro."

"It was immaterial to me that Elvis didn't write his own songs. Those were very different days, and he selected whatever suited him best from material supplied by publishing houses and teams of writers - all of whom were extremely conscious of his style of delivery."

"It's a fine line between self-assuredness and arrogance."

"There's a wonderful woodland, spiritual song I wrote in Undercliff in Lyme Regis, and I used to walk up there with my dog and always come back with an idea."

"If you start adapting to audiences, you're really second-guessing the situation, and it becomes a bit more like cabaret."

"Glenn Hughes is one of the most naturally talented musicians, but he's still copying Steve Wonder to this day, so I can't call him a bona fide member of Deep Purple."

"Internet is a good and convenient device for us for easy communication. It has lots of value."

"The only advice I can give is to absorb as much as you can from as wide a spectrum as you can. If you're in a rock band and only soak up Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple kind of beginnings, then you're not going to have much leeway."

"I've never listened to any of Purple Mk III's records."

"When you think about it, we sold about 120 million records, which relates to about £1.2 billion in the U.K. economy. We've seen very little of that."

"I'm completely irresponsible, I'm afraid. I'm ignorant about money as a commodity - I have never really understood it."

"I don't think happiness comes with money, but if you are hungry, you can't be as happy as if you aren't hungry."

"I think there's something about having a purpose in life and a sense of belonging that is more important than money for any human being."

"I assume I must have a pension, but I don't know for sure. I have heard of ISAs, but I can't tell you if I have any."

"My father was a storekeeper at a factory in west London."

"I grew up moving from one council flat to another and finished up in a three-bedroom semi-detached on a council estate in Cranford, a suburb of Hounslow. This was in the days when there was still rationing, and we had to be thrifty."

"In the early Seventies, I bought a dilapidated hotel in north Stoke for about £100,000 and spent the same amount again renovating it, putting in a guitar-shaped swimming pool, painting the bathrooms purple, and installing gold dolphin taps."

"I hate it in America where the protocol seems to be you are expected to tip regardless of the quality of service. I like to tip when it's not being demanded of me, and if the service has been good, I tip quite generously."

"We've never gone into the studio with prepared material... we never have."

"When we arrive at the studio, we put the kettle on, have a cup of tea, say, 'How's the family? You still got that old car? Is that dog still alive?' and then we start jamming. That's how the songs get written."

"When I picked up my guitar, I spent the first day learning the chord E, the second day A, then B7, and all of a sudden, I could play the blues."

"I sang 'Nessun Dorma' twice with Pavarotti, and he told me he'd heard 'Smoke' about five or six times, and every time was different. He was so jealous because if he deviated one jot from the traditional interpretation of the famous arias, he'd be crucified. We have the freedom."

"Our partying was governed by licensing hours. When the pub or club shut, that would be it."

"What happens is we finish the show, have a couple of drinks, go back to the hotel, talk, and that's it."

"I've been in music all my life."