DEEP PURPLE vocalist Ian Gillan is featured in a new interview with Robert Gray as part of a new series at Ultimate-Guitar.com entitled Hit The Lights. An excerpt appears below:

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You said that One Eye To Morocco has its roots in late December 2005. You were in a cafe situated in Cracow, Poland, and had a meeting with your friend Tommy Djiubinski. How did this meeting come to inspire the album's title?

Gillan: "That was roughly four years ago, and was where I came to hear the phrase 'One eye to Morocco.' 'One eye to Morocco' was half of a complete phrase, the complete phrase being 'You have one eye to Morocco and the other to The Caucasus.' At the time, it seemed to me to be a good musical metaphor; The Caucasus could be a Deep Purple equivalent, and 'Morocco' could be my naughty weekend away so to speak. One Eye To Morocco, the album itself, was recorded last summer. Roger's mum was very ill, and died in fact. For that reason, there was a break in Deep Purple's touring schedule. During that break, I travelled to Buffalo, New York with the thirty-eight tracks I had in the library. The tracks then underwent a selection process, and became whittled down. Following this, the tracks were rehearsed and recorded in a short period of time."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: One Eye to Morocco' is your first solo album of original material since 1997. How does it compare to the older solo material you've recorded over the years?

Gillan: "Well, each solo album has proved musically different. I recorded group material as part of GILLAN during the seventies and eighties, cut when I wasn't part of Deep Purple's lineup. Consequently, I think working with a rock group, or rock style musicians, or a standard style lineup, was fairly natural insofar as keyboards, guitars, drums and bass are concerned. Following that, I recorded something completely different with Roger Glover called Accidentally On Purpose (1988), which I think is likely the greatest record I ever cut in my life.. The greatest gig I ever performed at was only witnessed by forty people, and the greatest record I ever cut in my life only sold roughly five thousand copies. I then recorded an album entitled Dreamcatcher (1997), which featured good tracks really. However, I didn't have a budget, I didn't have a record company, and I didn't have a producer. People who know about such things have made comments regarding how similar Dreamcatcher is to One Eye To Morocco, with the exception of production."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Although you could discuss a hundred others, are there one or two other impressionable gigs which you particularly remember?

Gillan: "(Laughs) Yeah. In my life, the most important gig for me was my first ever show as part of Deep Purple, and that occurred in London's Speakeasy Club in August 1969. Roughly forty people were in the audience, or maybe sixty if you count Keith Moon (THE WHO drummer). It was amazing though. I looked at Roger and said "Boy, this is what I've dreamt of mate. This is the kind of group you can work for years, years and years to try and be in"."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Could you provide an update regarding Deep Purple's plans for the next several months?

Gillan: "Well, we have shows booked up until January 2010.. I'm just home for a day or two to do some laundry. We'll be performing little one-nighters in Brussels, Berlin and Dubai, and then we'll perform dates in Japan, Russia, and a batch of European concerts. We have shows booked in South Africa and North America, as well as a UK tour in November. We'll then tour France over Christmas and January, and on it goes."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Are there plans to record Deep Purple's nineteenth studio album?

Gillan: "There are no plans, no. It's like everything, I guess. We don't make plans - it'll just happen."

Read the whole interview at this location.