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An excerpt of "Unchain Your Brain" from "Gillan's Inn"

March 7, 1971—Packed to the walls with screaming fans was a dump called Gilligan’s, a beatup old airplane hangar desperately pretending to be a concert venue, on Walden Avenue, not far across the Buffalo city line. An explosive set of blues-imbibed, loud, hard, British rock and roll had the crowd in rapture. What would come to be known as the “classic lineup” of pioneering British hard rockers Deep Purple was heading toward a defining moment. One of the stepping stones along the way was the Queen City.

Within two years, the band would have three albums under their belt with Fireball, Machine Head and the colossal double live Made in Japan, which would, along with seminal sets from Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, help build the rock and roll beast called heavy metal.

Deep Purple boasted a lineup of prime players, each one as skilled as the next: ace drummer Ian Paice, quick riffing guitar virtuoso Ritchie Blackmore, the smoldering organ playing of Jon Lord and powerhouse bassist Roger Glover. Leading them through it with a walloping voice was London-born singer Ian Gillan.

Thirty-five years after that night in 1971, the venerable hard rock icon Gillan calls Buffalo his “spiritual home.” He doesn’t live in Western New York but it was here where his new album, the 40-year celebration of his years in music, Gillan’s Inn (Immergent),was largely born. Key parts of the tracks were recorded here because of Gillan’s associate and confidant, local guitarist and bandleader Michael Lee Jackson, who helped conceive and oversee the project. Local heroes like Charlie Quill and Howard Wilson perform on Gillan’s Inn alongside names like Ronnie James Dio, Joe Satriani and Tony Iommi.

Gillan’s storied life in rock, from playing the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s original production of Jesus Christ Superstar, to the heyday and the ultimate realignment with Purple, his stint in Black Sabbath and a rewarding, hit-yielding solo career, is all here in the songs revisited on Inn. His famed pipes, which, as legend has it, once leapt from the low bass E2 to the soprano high C in his prime, are still mightily on display.

What Gillan might not be so famous for is being the owner of one of rock and roll’s greatest senses of humor (take his comic turn on “Fools” from Purple’s 1971 opus Fireball or his memories from the Black Sabbath Born Again Tour, which undoubtedly lent crucial inspiration to Spinal Tap), and he even gladly took a jab at some of the absurd questions volleyed by Artvoice in an interview he fielded by phone during a holiday in Portugal.

ARTVOICE: Gillan’s Inn has a pretty strong Buffalo connection, doesn’t it?

IAN GILLAN: I met Michael Lee Jackson years ago and we got on pretty well and became good buddies. At some stage a couple years ago I told him about all these projects I had going on and that I needed help. He said, “I’ll help you!” My other manager in London suggested that as I’ve been singing now for what, 40 years, I should have an anniversary album. That’s how I came to Gillan’s Inn, and Michael helped me put it together. The producer, Nick Blagona, is in from Toronto. We did the bed tracks there and then we brought them back to Buffalo. All these different guys from Buffalo, like [bassist] Rodney Appleby and [drummer] Howard Wilson, came and played and they were fantastic. I also got to enjoy some of Buffalo’s social life, and meet some fantastic people. I think of Buffalo as my spiritual home now. It’s a fantastic place.

ARTVOICE: You put yourself in front of famed local nightspot the Old Pink Flamingo (allegedly a.k.a. Allen Street Grill, but no one calls it that) on the cover.

IAN GILLAN: What a place that is! Going back through the years of rock and roll that’s the sort of place we used to hang out in. It’s great.

ARTVOICE: They don’t have Deep Purple’s Made in Japan on the jukebox there, however, and sometimes when you’re really drunk you just need that 20-minute version of “Space Truckin.”

IAN GILLAN: [Laughs.] Oh well!

ARTVOICE: In spite of the fact that there’s no live version of “Space Truckin” and they haven’t officially changed the name to Gillan’s Inn yet, are you still going to stop by for a nip when you’re in town?

IAN GILLAN: I might pop in for a quick half. [Laughs.] I won’t be there all night because we have quite a grind in front of us with this tour, but, without any doubt at all, we will be there for two or three cold beers.

ARTVOICE: When you were picking the material for the album were there obvious inclusions? You could hardly leave off “Smoke On the Water,” could you?

IAN GILLAN: The material actually became self-selective. I started off with the idea to choose something from each period of my life, even from the early period like Episode Six and The Javelins. Then I started phoning up some mates. Tony Iommi said, “Yeah. Janick Gers from Iron Maiden, who used to be in my band, said he would do it. I knew I could get the Purple guys to do it and I knew it would fantastic. I figured we could do a Deep Sabbath or Black Purple version of “Trashed” with Ian Paice, Roger Glover and Iommi. Then we get Joe Satriani, who was in Purple for a year before Steve Morse. He’s a pretty good banjo player! [Laughs.] So when we got the people in place it all became self-selective.

ARTVOICE: What kind of sets will you and the band be doing on the tour?

IAN GILLAN: Quite a lot from the Gillan’s Inn record. I spoke to Michael and he’s been rehearsing the band in Buffalo. We’ll do quite a few Deep Purple songs. Of course we’re doing “Smoke” and songs like “Knockin’ at Your Back Door,” “After the Fire” and “When a Blind Man Cries.” Then stuff like “No Laughing in Heaven” and “Have Love Will Travel,” which is going on Michael’s album. It’s quite a selection of material from my career over the years. Real hard-rocking stuff.

ARTVOICE: All right, once and for all: heavy metal or hard rock?

IAN GILLAN: Hard rock. Without a doubt.

ARTVOICE: Blackmore or Iommi?

IAN GILLAN: Hard to choose, really. They’re both brilliant, just fantastic. I couldn’t choose but I’d have to say Blackmore because I know him better and I worked with him longer. Although, Tony is a really nice guy…

ARTVOICE: When you were in Sabbath the band headlined Reading Festival 1983 with Thin Lizzy. There was a t-shirt of you fighting Phil Lynott from Lizzy like two giant Godzillas. Do you have one? If so, can I have it?

IAN GILLAN: [Laughs.] I wish I did! I wish I did. What good memories.

ARTVOICE: Honestly here: Who has more “frontman charisma”: Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar or Ian Gillan singing “Highway Star”?

IAN GILLAN: Who had more charisma? I would think neither one.

ARTVOICE: It’s a trick question. The answer, either way, is “Ian Gillan.”

IAN GILLAN: [Laughs.] Okay, I’ll say Ian Gillan, then!

ARTVOICE: You’ve got a great sense of humor. Has it helped having that in the music business?

IAN GILLAN: If you take yourself too seriously, you’re going to have some major disappointments in this life. We’re all at the center of our own little universes, I guess, but it’s important to take a humility pill every morning and see what the day brings. Most of the people I know have a pretty well developed sense of humor. It’s not that “office” sense of humor where we tell jokes all day. A lot of people think musicians talk about music all the time but, in fact, they talk about it very little. We talk about everything else and in a humorous way.

Ian Gillan and his band play the Town Ballroom this Wednesday, August 16 at 7pm.