Deep Purple, 1969–1973
By spring 1969, Deep Purple had had a top 5 US hit with "Hush", but the band, particularly Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice, decided their future lay in hard rock, rather than the psychedelic pop sound of the early band. In June 1969, Blackmore, Lord and Paice went to see Episode Six perform at a pub gig and subsequently offered Gillan the job as new lead singer, asking him if he also knew any good bassists. Since Glover was by this point a reasonably experienced songwriter, he was also recruited. They were both accepted into the band on 16 June 1969, replacing singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper, respectively. The old line up of Deep Purple continued to do several concerts until the end of The Book of Taliesyn Tour. Evans and Simper were both fired by managers Tony Edwards and John Coletta after the last show of that tour, which was at the Top Rank Club in Cardiff on 4 July.
Gillan made his first onstage appearance with Deep Purple at the Speakeasy in London's West End on 10 July. As the band had only been rehearsing for a few weeks, they relied on older instrumentals such as "Wring That Neck" and "Mandrake Root" to fill in a set. Unsure of what to do, Gillan found a pair of congas onstage, and decided to play them during these instrumental sections.
Deep Purple Mk.II continued rehearsing at Hanwell Community Centre. One of Gillan's first contributions to the band during these rehearsals was the vocal melody and lyrics to "Child in Time". At Hanwell, the band wrote what would eventually become most of In Rock during 1969, though they were interrupted in September to perform Lord's Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a one-off performance in September at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Gillan, along with Blackmore, was initially unhappy at having to perform the concerto, and wrote the lyrics to the second movement on the afternoon of the performance on a napkin in an Italian restaurant.
Gillan has said he was inspired by Arthur Brown to incorporate screaming into his own style: "He changed my life".
In 1970, Gillan received a call from Tim Rice, asking him to perform the part of Jesus on the original 1970 album recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, having been impressed with his performance on "Child in Time". After rehearsing a few times with Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, he recorded his entire vocal contributions in three hours. He was subsequently offered the lead role in the 1973 film adaptation. Gillan demanded to not only be paid £250,000 for his role in the movie, but also insisted, without the consent of his manager, that the entire band be paid because filming would conflict with a scheduled tour. The producers declined, instead casting Ted Neeley in the Jesus role, and Gillan continued on in the band.
After 1971, particularly after the release of Fireball, Gillan started to become disillusioned with the workload of the band, who had not had any holiday since their initial rehearsals at Hanwell. He started drinking heavily, and relationships between him and the rest of the band became strained, particularly with Blackmore. On 6 November 1971, he collapsed with hepatitis while waiting to board a plane in Chicago, cancelling the remainder of a US tour.
By December 1972, having recorded Machine Head, Made in Japan and the yet-to-be-released Who Do We Think We Are with Deep Purple, Gillan finally decided the workload had driven him to exhaustion. Unlike some band members, he was unhappy about Made in Japan, and disliked live albums in general. He tended to go into the studio after the rest of the band had recorded and finished the backing tracks, particularly for Who Do We Think We Are, to lay down his vocals separately. He had been continually at loggerheads with Blackmore, disagreeing about music regularly, which culminated in Gillan writing "Smooth Dancer" about him. While on tour in Dayton, Ohio, he sat down and wrote a resignation letter to the band's managers, stating he intended to leave the band, effective from 30 June 1973.
