Ian Gillan and Tony Iommi Team Up For WhoCares Charity Album

Stereoboard.com
May 4 2012

IAN GILLAN AND TONY IOMMI TEAM UP FOR WHOCARES CHARITY ALBUM

Friday, 04 May 2012 Written by Jon Stickler

Deep Purple´s Ian Gillan (right) and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi
(above) took everybody by surprise in 2011 by releasing a charity
single ‘Out Of My Mind’, renewing the collaboration that led the pair
to record the ‘Born Again’ album in 1984 under the moniker Black
Sabbath. For the occasion, the two rock legends called a few friends,
asking for some `help’. None other than Jason Newsted, Jon Lord and
Nicko McBrain completed the supergroup.

The single was a joyful and inspired moment. The spark to bring Iommi
and Gillan in a studio, together again was to finance the rebuilding
of a music school in Armenia they had visited together on various
occasions in past years.

Far from being a spectacular charity project, ‘WhoCares’ was a nice
gesture, done with class, from two musicians with nothing to prove,
willing to support music, where music is considered a luxury.

Speaking about the project, Ian Gillan says: `As I said once in the
song ‘Razzle Dazzle’ (from Deep Purple’s ‘Bananas’ album) …”it’s a
real fine line between an orgy of destruction and a wonderful time”.

The destruction of conformity in this case: Some of these pieces never
really fitted into their contemporary program and got side-lined or
forgotten, and some of the album tracks never had much exposure. As
the track-listing for this album came together I noticed many of the
titles had character similarities; a combination of freshness as they
finally felt the sun on their backs and rebellion in a `yeah told you
so’ kind of way.

And that adds up to a wonderful time. And that adds up to more money
for the music school we are building in Armenia.

And what about WhoCares… this ad hoc benefit band put together by Tony
Iommi and myself on a flight home from Yerevan, where we’d been deeply
humbled by the honours and expectations bestowed upon us. Well that’s
it really, in a nutshell, so to speak, what more can I say; it’s all
there in the music.’

‘WhoCares’ track-list is being finalized at this very moment. Among
the tracks: the 2 original ‘WhoCares’ songs, Deep Purple’s unreleased
studio jam ‘Dick Pimple’, a song from Repo Depo (a band Ian Gillan
formed before the Deep Purple reunion which never released any song
official before this CD), 2 unreleased songs from Tony Iommi featuring
Glenn Hughes, obscure collaborations, B-sides lost on 7′ vinyl,
exclusive live versions recorded live on radio.

‘WhoCares’ will be released on June 22nd on earMUSIC. A dream come
true for Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath fans!

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress