Ian Gillan has provided insights into his initial departure from Deep Purple.

In the summer of 1973, the singer unexpectedly left the hard rock band. While a heavy workload and clashing egos were often cited as reasons for Gillan’s exit, he recently revealed on the Rockonteurs podcast that the reasons were much more complex.

“You start off with five guys in a van, with your gear in the back, and then you expand a bit, buy a little truck for your gear, and get two roadies, and things grow,” the singer explained. “But you’re still a unit, still sharing rooms. I mean, I was Ritchie [Blackmore’s] roommate for a long time. We’d go on holiday together. We were very much five guys.”

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“Then you reach a stage where suddenly your party expands due to personal relationships, and outside influences don’t mesh as well as the original group,” he continued. “And so they start to drift apart, and suddenly one of the band members isn’t staying in the same hotel because these people don’t quite get along and don’t want to talk, and that’s where problems begin.”

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Gillan admitted he was “as much to blame as anyone, probably more than anyone,” regarding the split. He also noted that he and Blackmore had differing opinions about Deep Purple’s sound.

“One of the key factors was the slight shift in the mentality of the band,” Gillan explained. “Ritchie was moving towards what became Rainbow in terms of song construction. I felt that was largely what was happening, and I sensed that much of the excitement and craziness was fading.”

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After over a decade away from Deep Purple, Gillan rejoined the group in 1984 as part of the Mark II lineup reunion. “When we got back together, we were different people,” he recalled. “We had all experienced a bit of outside life. We all had families.”

Despite the time apart, Gillan observed that the band’s natural musical chemistry quickly returned.

“It was great. We sat down and did it secretly because if it wasn’t going to work, we didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” he recalled. “But we found a private place in Vermont, sat in the basement, and gradually started jamming. Everyone was sitting around quietly, and I could see smiles on faces as we got back into the groove. It felt just like being at Hanwell in 1969. It was fantastic.”