Ian Gillan is back with a new solo album titled One Eye on Morocco. While Deep Purple faithful know that whenever Gillan steps out of the band to work on an outside project, the end result will not resemble his day job in the least. Going clear back to his early days in Purple, it was Ian who sang the role of Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar. That is a long way from "Speed King."

The new album is jazzy, upbeat, reminding one of being on a fun vacation in, say, a place like... Morocco. Ian, dedicated to make the music he desires even banned guitar solos on the album. There is not really much of hint that this is one of the greatest singers in all of Hard Rock’s illustrious history on this album. Instead, there is a man, in his sixties, making music the  he dreams of. It is a mature album. It is a musical album. It is a long way from "Speed King."

Still, Ian has those glorious pipes that are still capable of impressing even a jaded rock critic, even one who favors songs like "Speed King." The bottom line with One Eye to Morocco is that, despite it being an album by Deep Purple’s vocalist, it is a good listen. Despite the music coming from left field when compared to the glorious, historical moments like "Speed King," the new songs are pretty good. Maybe most of Gillan’s fans really dream of new versions of "Highway Star" or "Space Truckin’" but I think we all know that you can’t duplicate those songs. Besides, save that wishing for the next Deep Purple album. Let Ian step outside the box and indulge himself in his musical vision every now and then.

In this interview, we discuss that musical vision, going all the way back to Ian’s musical influences and his love of the blues. We also discuss how Deep Purple has changed over the years. Lastly, Ian explains the rules to a game called After Burner, which involve being naked, fire, a newspaper stuck up your ass and a lot of running.

Ian: It is one half of a saying in Poland. The full saying is "One Eye to Morocco and one eye to the Caucasus." It has its origins in the recent political times but in literal terms it means being cross-eyed, looking in two directions at the same time. It was said to me by a friend of mine, Tommy Jovinski, when I was in Poland some years ago; I was staying at his house. We were doing the tourist thing in Cracow on the first day. After going through the salt mines, we went through the Jewish Quarter. We were looking at Schindler’s Café and having some coffee, when an amazingly beautiful woman walked behind Tommy. I completely lost it and followed her with my eyes. She disappeared out the door and he said, "Oh, you have one eye toward Morocco." I thought that would be a great name for an album because Deep Purple is my Caucasus and Morocco is my naughty weekend away. It is a very evocative phrase. It suited some of the more eclectic approaches that we took, musically, on this record.

Ian: It was Steve Morris that I co-wrote with, not Steve Morse. Steve Morris is an English guy from Liverpool. He has been my most consistent songwriting partner through the years. Steve Morris, even more than Steve Morse, is a wild rock ‘n’ roller. He sends me demos and I say, "Wow, that is really heavy." His playing is always melodic and textured but I didn’t want that on this record. I didn’t want any improvised guitar solos on this record. I didn’t want anything at all improvised. I wanted everything written out, arranged and recorded. We left Steve at home, not because he hasn’t got it, but he is hard to tie down. As musicians get better in their life, they tend to get more complicated. Sometimes the performance is more important than the song. I think you lose production values by letting a rock band loose in the studio. This was not a rock album.

Ian: If a Deep Purple album is in-your-face then this might be seductive.

Ian: Whenever I am outside of Deep Purple, this is how I work. When I did Accidently on Purpose with Roger Glover, there was a lot of saxophone and piano on that album. The solos were all written out. There was only one solo that was improvised on the entire album. With Dream Catcher, to a certain extent, the songs were more important than the performances. Mind you, I didn’t have much of a budget for that one. If I had a band on that one then it would have been even more different.

When I grew up, before I joined Deep Purple, my influences were Rock ‘n’ Roll but then I really got into the blues. I was into everything from the slave songs to the field lament. I was into the Delta Blues and the progression up through the St. Louis Blues and, by the time it all reached Chicago, it had a much more commercial flavor. That made a big impact on me. We also listened to a lot of Soul music. By the time I found my own voice, which was pretty much when I joined Deep Purple. I melded my influences with Jon’s, Ritchie’s and Roger’s, which were Orchestral, Folk, Jazz and Big Band/Swing. Deep Purple, through that alchemy, became what it was. When you remove elements of that, then you are left with elements of what you brought to the table in the first place, plus little bits of what has gone on in the meantime. I know that if I had the experience of life that I have now, then this is the kind of music that I would have been making when I was twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three years old, had I not joined Deep Purple.

Ian: There is no point making a second rate Deep Purple album. Deep Purple have evolved and survived the changes. Most of the significant moments of development were behind the scenes. The time we grew up was really just fifteen to twenty years ago. It is difficult to discover that but when you change the balance . . . When people die or get divorced and then a new family member joins, you discover a lot subtleties. You still live in the same house and the garden is in the same place but you have replanted, repainted, refurnished and refurbished. People still come to visit but it is just different. It matures and evolves.

There are things that have touched you in early years that you can grab and use with a different kind of trigger. It is not written in stone. Rock music evolved and as long as it stays alive—it has always had these little bursts like Punk, Grunge and Heavy Metal. All of these things have sprung from Rock ‘n’ Roll. When you take that, and mix in a bit of new fashion and put a little technology in there, then you will find that one generation’s music is rejected and the next one comes along, mutates and then becomes a blind alley.

There is only so much you can do with Grunge or Punk but then that spawns more ideas and you end up with an incredible kaleidoscope of pop music over all the years. You can identify the original influences because they were so simple. You can also identify some of the blind alleys and dead end canyons that some of these mutations have arrived at. I think if you go back, and take a cutting from that original tree, you will find that those roots run very deep. I have seen some bands come out of retirement and there has been no continuum. It is hard to pick up that spark again unless you get a year or two under your belt and rebuild the alchemy. It is really a complex subject.

Ian: I have constantly said, with the greatest respect to everyone, that you only have a very short time where you have any contemporary value. The rest of it is really your life’s work. We had that short window of opportunity with great commercialism; it was part of our generation. Contemporary art and music can never be judged from a different perspective because you have to be part of it to appreciate it and value it. The previous generation doesn’t like it. My uncle, who is a great jazz pianist, ran screaming from the room when he heard Deep Purple In Rock. He said, "This is a big racket. It is nothing but noise." From where he was standing, he was right but from where I was standing, it was a glorious racket.

I never followed any of those musical mutations like Heavy Metal or Grunge. I was amused by dinosaurs and wrinkly rockers. I think the words ‘classic rock’ are the worst of all labels. I used to think that was a gravestone, in my book. I, then realized, that ‘classic rock’ means a lot more than it did when it set out to save, for heritage reasons, the music of the seventies and the eighties. It changed.

I have just come back from Japan and I had the most amazing time. Jon Lord got up and jammed with us. He flew up from Seoul, where he finished an orchestral performance. He came and jammed with us in Tokyo. I had dinner with him and we were talking about the way things have changed. There was a journalist there as well who said he noticed the way Deep Purple had changed, with the use of light and shade, over the past ten years. There is a huge splash of improvisation going on every night that makes my stomach churn around lunchtime. I get this nervous excitement about the show that is going to happen that night.

Ian: Every day. Look at the set list—when we hit on a really good running order then there is no reason to change it. The interesting thing is that if you look at the set list for a Thursday night and then look at the time of the show, we may have played an hour and three quarters. We play the next night, in a different town, and in a different venue, and the set list was the same, but the show was thirty minutes longer. Where did those thirty minutes come from? It is not in the arrangements. I am certainly not known for my verbosity between numbers. I talk gibberish between songs. The answer is quite clear, the extra time comes from improvisation between the musicians. I never know what they are going to do. It gets dangerous up there. You have to be sharp and in form. There is no music or map or guide. There is nothing other than what we call ‘horses eyes.’ You learn to look at each other and tell when somebody is going to take off in another direction.

Ian: No, it is a different thing. I equate Purple to a rhythm and blues jazz combo, whereas this is a collection of songs. I was doing a photograph session in Milan for this record. The record company came down to this beautiful villa. We had a fashion photographer and his entourage. My personal assistant was there, and there was a girl to do the hair, and a girl to do the translation; there were a lot of people there. The boss of the label was even there. Somebody put the record on, quietly. I was trying to do my work and something kept catching me out of the corner of my eye. It was the girls. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but their bums were all moving with the record. I thought, "Mission accomplished."

This is really what used to be called a pop record; It is really just a bunch of singles. I think the discipline in the studio is entirely different. It is not a cop out or a safe move or anything like that. The discipline is quite difficult. You have to look at the individual performances as well as the song. Your painting pictures with music. I had so much fun with the lyrics because the mood was set by the title track. You can’t skate too far away or people’s bums will stop moving. I like the idea that people may not be really listening to the record but they still feel it. That gave me great pleasure.

Ian: You’re right, there is a lot of rhythm guitar on this record. With Episode Six, we always had two guitar players; one was for lead and one was for rhythm. That provided rhythmic structure underneath. If you listen to improvisation then there has to be something underneath. If you grow wild roses then you have to have some trellis work for them to grow up. The universe needs gravity. All of these things that seem to be unconfined are all held together in that way. Purple, The Nice and Vanilla Fudge replaced the rhythm guitar player with the Hammond Organ. The second guitar player suddenly had no use. If you listen to the old Stax records or the old Blues records then there is some incredible rhythm guitar playing. Just listen to Otis Redding or Wilson Picket and you will hear incredible rhythm guitar playing. It is a vital instrument. It is almost like the conductor in the band.

Ian: That was one of a thousand pictures. The American label decided they needed to censor that. They had to cover up those dicks—and the plumbs too. We decided we would put Uncle Sam, with his finger, on the record, as if to say, "Naughty boys. Don’t do that." We concealed the furniture on the record but I was determined not to be censored.

That picture was taken one drunken night by my mother-in-law, or my sister-in-law. They were both there but I can’t remember which one took the picture. I never wear clothes whether I am in Portugal or if I am in England, like I am right now. It is a beautiful day in England right now so what is the point of wearing clothes?

I was working as a dive master down in the Cayman islands. We had a few rum punches that night. The boat captain, whose name was Chad, started playing a game called After Burn. The game involves rolling up a newspaper, sticking one end up your ass, setting fire to the other end and seeing how many laps you can make around the garden before you are screaming in agony. We put money on these things but we got bored with that. We started talking about fruit bats and decided to hang upside down on his daughter’s swing frame in the garden. If you look carefully at the photograph—not at the naughty bits but at the bar, just under our knees, then you will see there is a bend in it. Two seconds after that photograph was taken, it snapped in two and we ended up in a heap on the ground. That photograph is still on the website. I make no apologies at all for the fact that I have a birthday suit and that I wear it often in the right weather.