In the period just before Ian Gillan made a long-hoped-for return to Deep Purple, he worked tirelessly. The tour promoting a 1991 album titled Toolbox, in fact, lasted 10 grueling months. An impressed Deep Purple asked him back, but not before Ian Gillan had made a profound impact on bandmates like drummer Lenny Haze.
“Ian only had these rules,” Lenny Haze tells Maximum Metal: “Be on time. Play as well as you can and give all you got. Do not say anything negative about someone having a bad gig. We will all have them, but hopefully not all on the same night. Nobody tries to play bad in this band and nobody will feel worse than the guy who played badly. No arguments on his bus.”
During this brief, but intense period, the Gillan band enjoyed just six total weeks off, Haze says. At one point, they did 21 shows in just 19 days. In close quarters, together all the time, they learned many things from Ian Gillan: “That touring is about playing no matter what the circumstances are, that you are never too big to play anywhere,” Haze says. “I also learned with fans that you always give respect and your time. I knew this prior to my time with Gillan, but he cemented it. He said, ‘Without them you are not in business.’ Truer words were never spoken.”
And, really: Stay cool while in transit. Seriously. “Steve Morris played lead guitar and co-wrote the songs with Ian,” Haze adds. “He got fired at Christmas after the British part of the tour — because he argued on the bus.” Dean Howard replaced Morris in early 1992, and work began on a project called Repo Depot, but by August Deep Purple had called.
Ian Gillan was gone. Lenny Haze says they understood. “Ian, for whatever reasons, should’ve never been out of Deep Purple,” he concedes. “He needed to go home. He loved that band like nobody who has never toured with him will know. Ian belongs in Deep Purple.”
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