Legendary DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan spoke with Greece's Rockpages.gr recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Rockpages.gr: Are there any plans of a new album?

Ian Gillan: "I think it’s about time. Although, you can’t put the words 'plan' and 'new album' in the same sentence, when it comes to Deep Purple. I can smell it coming… there has been the occasional talk… we are thinking about October-November… that’s a good month for writing the new record."

Rockpages.gr: That means you don’t have any written material…

Ian Gillan: "We never go into the studio with written material. We’d probably start recording next year. It shouldn’t take long… if you struggle to finish a song after 20 minutes, then forget it… destroy it… start something else. Otherwise, it becomes contrived and unnatural."

Rockpages.gr: Have you talked about which direction you will take with this new effort?

Ian Gillan: "Again, we never discuss that. You see… I don’t decide on Wednesday what kind of music I will listen on Saturday. You know, what I mean… it depends on the weather, it depends on the mood, and it depends on the company of people that you have with you at the time… lots of things involved. You can play rock n roll, flamenco guitar… even pop music. It’s a spontaneous thing and music really captures the mood. It’s the same thing with writing… I remember being really influenced and inspired by the location and the environment when I was writing the songs for 'One Eye To Morocco'. If you are somewhere in a beach or a sunny place you tend to write happy songs while if you are living somewhere in a big city you write more aggressive stuff. But, I can say that we are now in the mood of making another Deep Purple record. It will be a last-minute thing, though… no planning, at all! We never plan anything… when we arrive at the studio… the first day… we make some tea, talk for a while, get comfortable with the environment etc. We definitely talk about football for a little while and then probably we are getting into the writing mood. Most likely, we start jamming… everyday for six hours… at least. The engineer of the record is responsible for capturing the most interesting parts of those jam sessions. Then, the band sits down and listens to the stuff that the engineer has recorded and we discuss about the possibility of turning those riffs into proper songs. After two-three days, we return to those tapes again and no one probably remembers the riffs and in a way we revisit the music! If something grabs our attention then we start working on it more seriously and try to develop the whole idea into a song. It’s great… everyday, there is actually a different song or two. The whole thing… from start to finish should not take more than four-five weeks maximum. But, we haven’t gotten a thing until we start."

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