Could you tell, please, some stories on the time with Gillan and Ozzy?
GILLAN. I suppose my best memory is of being in a hotel guesthouse in a grim place in the north of England called Carlyle, up by the Scottish border. We had played a gig the night before, gone to this little hotel, got up in the morning to get some breakfast, except there was none: all there was a little instant coffee machine that didn’t work in the hall, which was about the size of two telephone booths put together. We were all cold, hungry, depressed and fed up. Then we had a call from our office in London to say that “Mr. Universe”, our first album, had just gone in the charts at number 11. What a feeling! Ozzy? There weren’t too many happy stories, it was an unhappy time for Ozzy and the band. One thing I remember was playing Madison Square Garden: backstage and in the loading area was all the animals and gear from the Moscow State Circus from the night before! It was weird having the animals backstage, walking past them before and after the gig. – For how long had you known forme
