Singer Ian Gillan of legendary British hard rockers DEEP PURPLE — who have been eligible for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for two decades now — says the people who run the Hall Of Fame organization are “bloody arrogant and rude.”
PURPLE was recently nominated for Hall Of Fame inclusion for a third time, having been passed over in both 2013 and 2014.
Gillan told Classic Rock: “I have no respect for them. They’re the kind of people that having seen ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ decided that THE MONKEES would be America’s equivalent to THE BEATLES. They’ve no idea what goes on in the big, wide world outside of their self-arbitrating surroundings. To me, those people are bloody arrogant and rude.”
He continued: “I’ve heard that somebody on their committee dismissed us as one-hit wonders. I couldn’t figure out whether that hit was ‘Hush’, ‘Kentucky Woman’, ‘Black Night’, ‘Strange Kind Of Woman’, ‘Child In Time’, ‘Perfect Strangers’, ‘Knocking At Your Back Door’ or perhaps even ‘Smoke On The Water’.”
Gillan added: “I’m very grateful for the other bands and artists that stood up for us with a view to our induction — that’s nice of them. But I wish that the Hall Of Fame had had the discretion to ask us first. It’s now become a debate in which we are too late to have the final word.”
Read more at blabbermouth.net