IAN GILLAN WEIGHS IN ON WHO WAS MOST IMPORTANT OF “UNHOLY TRINITY” OF BRITISH ROCK BANDS DEEP PURPLE, BLACK SABBATH AND LED ZEPPELIN – “THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO GRUNGE OR HEAVY METAL”
If there’s one thing Brits are good at, it’s hard rock, reports Simon Cosyns for The Sun. With flowing locks hanging way down past their shoulders and impossibly tight flared jeans, the pioneers of this unvarnished genre strutted the world stage and sold millions of records.
Leading the charge from UK shores in the late Sixties and early Seventies was the so-called “unholy trinity” – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
Why, you might ask, did good Old Blighty supply these all-conquering monsters of rock? “We were all nutters, that’s why!,” says Deep Purple’s lead singer Ian Gillan, possessor of one of the form’s most commanding hollers.
“I used to listen to American bands and think, ‘My God, they’re so well-rehearsed, everything is just so absolutely tickety-boo.’ But, with the British bands, we were just nuts. We’d go on stage and do anything.”
Speaking from his home in Portugal, Gillan, 78, a mine of useful information, returns to the Led Zep, Sabbath and Purple phenomenon. “Just like ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’, the ‘unholy trinity’ was created entirely by our good friends the music journalists,” he says.
“We knew them, drank with them and they put into words what everyone was doing – something distinctive and identifiable.”
Gillan gives a huge amount of credit to the Brummie hell raisers led by Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Tony Iommi. From late 1982 until early 1984, he actually experienced Sabbath first hand, replacing Ronnie James Dio as lead singer during Ozzy’s lengthy hiatus.
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