Ian Gillan is a rock singer born August 19, 1945 (74 years old) in Hounslow, London. The most emblematic singer of hard rock band Deep Purple, he is also known for a very rich solo career and a brief stint at Black Sabbath.
He plays in several bands, including Wainwright's Gentlemen (in 1965) with Sweet's future drummer, Mick Tucker. In August 1969, he joined Deep Purple with his friend bassist Roger Glover, whom he worked with in Episode Six. This formation of Deep Purple, commonly called "Mark II", produces the band's most famous albums: In Rock (1970), Fireball (1971), Machine Head (1972) and the live Made in Japan (1972). At the same time, Gillan participated in the recording of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber with among others Murray Head, as well as Karl Jenkins and John Marshall future Soft Machine, in which he played the role of Jesus. However, tired of his conflicting relationship with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, he left Deep Purple in 1973, in full international success, while the album Who Do We Think We Are. He withdraws momentarily from the rock scene.
In 1975, he founded his own band, Ian Gillan Band, and released the album Child in Time (produced by Roger Glover), which contains a cover of Ian's favorite song, Child in Time. His band then performs an energetic but sophisticated jazz-rock that somewhat disconcerts fans of hardcore hard rock. The lack of success of the band encourages Gillan to return to a rock more hard. The formation is modified, like the name of the group which becomes simply Gillan and obtains a certain success from 1979 to 1982.
In 1983, after a party with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, he accepted the position of singer Black Sabbath replacing Ronnie James Dio. He recorded with the band the album Born Again, commercial success for the group. But this unexpected assemblage was soon controversial, with some (including Gillan himself) believing that his style was not compatible with Black Sabbath's. Gillan had a bad experience with Black Sabbath: he was frustrated by the artistic direction of Born Again, disapproving of the cover of the album and especially his mixing. His influence on the band was frowned upon by some fans, Sabbath even going so far as to play Smoke on the Water as a reminder on the promotional tour of the new album. Gillan himself admits that this tour will inspire the parody film Spinal Tap. Definitely not his account, Gillan leaves Black Sabbath immediately the tour completed. Although he declared himself to be "the worst singer Black Sabbath ever had", he never questioned his friendship with Iommi and Butler. The Born Again song Trashed will often be picked up by Gillan in the aftermath of his solo career.
