06 July 2021 Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan revisits the roots of his teenage rock‘n’roll education and picks eight songs that changed his life (Image credit: Will Ireland) Music has been an ever-present constant in Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan’s life for as long as he can remember. “My grandad was a bass baritone and sang opera, my uncle was a jazz pianist and my grandmother was a ballet tutor, so the house was always full of music, Chopin and Verdi to boogie-woogie,” he recalls. “I was a boy soprano in the church choir, so I always knew I could sing.”