IAN GILLAN Reveals How He Joined BLACK SABBATH – “We Got Drunk Together One Night…”
November 20, 2018, 5 years ago
In an interview with SiriusXM, Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan spoke about his only album with Black Sabbath, 1983’s Born Again and how he ended up joining the band.
Gillan explained: "How it started is was just 'cause we got drunk together one night. I went for a drink with Tony (Iommi) and Geezer (Butler), and we ended up under the table. And I can't remember much more that happened. But I got a call from my manager the next day saying, 'Don't you think you should call me if you're gonna make decisions like this?' I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Well, apparently you… I just got a call. You agreed to join Sabbath.' So that's how it happened. I was at a kind of loose end anyway, having just finished with my own band and Purple not really being anything viable at the time. So we set a one-year plan, and it was to do an album and a tour. Nobody knew what was gonna happen, so we pitched up and I pitched my tent, literally, at the old manor in Oxfordshire. And we made an album. I didn't see much of 'em. They were night people, so they slept all day and worked all night. I got up in the morning, cooked my breakfast, went to the studio to hear what they had recorded the night before and write a song over it. And that's how the album was made."
