Ian Gillan says Black Sabbath were more "important" than Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin

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Ian Gillan has declared who he believes to be the "most important" from the "unholy trinity" of British rock bands, a term which he explains was coined by the press.

In a new interview with The Sun to promote Deep Purple's 23rd new album =1, the vocalist notes, "Just like ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’, the ‘unholy trinity’ was created entirely by our good friends the music journalists.

"We knew them, drank with them and they put into words what everyone was doing — something distinctive and identifiable.”

Weighing up the trio of bands - which includes Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin - and their impact on music as a whole, Gillian, who performed as frontman to the Brummie metallers from late 1982 until early 1984, continues: "To a certain extent, Sabbath were the most important because without them there would have been no Seattle (grunge scene) or heavy metal.

"What Tony [Iommi] was delivering in those early days was just awesome. It was so powerful.”

Though he might view Sabbath as the most culturally significant, Gillan muses how altogether, the three bands "did something that had never been done before", adding that "they were putting into action all the things that had been building up over the previous ten years.”

Elsewhere, Gillan reflects on the creation of Deep Purple's legendary hit Smoke On The Water from 1972's Machine Head. He explains: "We needed six more minutes of music to complete the album and we were short of time. We had this jam, so we quickly wrote lyrics that were a biographical account of making Machine Head, and that was it.”

"Many months after the record’s release, during an American tour, a guy called Russ Shaw from Warner Bros came along to see us and he saw the crowd reaction to Smoke.

"He tried to figure out why we hadn’t released it as a single. Of course, it was six minutes long, so no radio station would touch it. We edited down to three minutes 54 seconds and put it out a few days later. It became the most played song in the world at the time."

Gillan concludes, “It becomes stuck in the mind. Very simple song, very hooky, great riff.”

Deep Purple's =1 is out now via earMUSIC/Edel AG.