Quotes from Ian Gillan

'Classic rock' is never a label that we've given ourselves - it's one of the many labels that's been imposed on us.

There's very little you can do these days about having any impact at a launch for a record unless you keep it very secret, because communications are so immediate, and YouTube and everything else kind of spoils the party.

I've never been troubled by disappointment, and I get over it quickly. But I'm not good at making plans, and I don't have any ambitions. I never did.

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.

If you think of a solo artist, you normally know them by their name; you don't normally describe their kind of music. You just say, 'It's so and so, or it's so and so.' But with bands, everyone feels an obligation to categorize them.

I love extended solos. I used to like them in the old days a lot, because it used to give me time to go to the pub for a drink.

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 don't think we were anti-commercial. But we were anti-contrivance, and like Zeppelin, we found dignity through the music we were playing.

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.

We soaked up everything from Beethoven to Chopin to Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

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.

If there was such a thing as a typical English gentleman in rock music, then it was Jon Lord.

Can you imagine doing 'Nessa Dorma' with Luciano Pavarotti the maestro? It's unbelievable. He's a very generous man.

I remember my uncle, who was a jazz pianist, when we did Deep Purple 'In Rock,' he ran from the room screaming, holding his ears: 'I can't hear anything. I can't hear any instruments.' And I was rubbing my hands going, 'Great.'

When I was a kid, every street had a band, and we'd steal members from each other.

No matter what I do, I've always recognized that Deep Purple is primarily an instrumental band. That's where all the music comes from in rehearsals - it all stems from the music.

I'm not a writer; I'm not a novelist.

To the general public in America, the lifespan of Deep Purple probably finished with our 1984 album, 'Perfect Strangers.'

I used to do interviews - I still do - interviews every day, all day. And you go from maybe doing a couple of professional interviews, where you can hear the sound right, to everyone else sounds like they're at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

We've been touring ever since we were able to afford to buy a van, and I don't think we'll ever stop until something falls off or is irreparable.

Purple - I mean, the music and the influence and the subliminal touches range from orchestral conversation to jazz to blues and soul and God knows what. It's a vast range of expressions.

I was in a band called Episode Six with Roger Glover, which was more of a harmony band, really. At one gig, there were a few dodgy characters leaning up against the wall of the venue - and we ended up joining their band. Purple was the talk of every musician in the country - they had something new and very exciting.

I've been in music all my life.

The reason 'Fireball' is my favorite album of that period is that without 'Fireball,' we would never have been able to make 'Machine Head.'