A true elder statesman of British rock and one of the most charismatic frontmen in history, legendary Deep Purple lead singer Ian Gillan took time off from touring with Deep Purple in 2006 and hit the road in the U.S. and Canada, leading an exciting new band through a blistering mix of Purple favorites and well-loved tracks from his numerous solo recordings.

Celebrating 40 years as a touring musician with the incredible multimedia DualDisc, Gillan's Inn, Gillan - the singer from Deep Purple - wanted to make the solo tour very fan-friendly and interactive, and even encouraged fans to bring digital and video cameras and recording gear to his shows. Much of the resulting footage, stills, and music made their way to this website and selected content was chosen to appear on the updated version of Gillan's Inn-The Deluxe Tour Edition, set for an October 9 release.

The Gillan's Inn tour was sheer celebration for Gillan, who threw together an incredible touring band consisting of Michael Lee Jackson (guitar), Dean Howard (guitar), Joe Mennonna (keys and sax), Rodney Appleby (bass) and Randy Cooke (drums). A number of Ian's musical friends stopped by the proverbial Gillan's Inn pub along the way, such as Jeff Healey who joined them in Toronto, Ronnie James Dio who hit the stage in L.A., Lars Ulrich from Metallica who sat in on Smoke in San Francisco, and Deep Purple's Roger Glover who played with the band in New York City.

In addition to the fan submissions, Gillan's label, immergent, culled a bunch of brilliant and candid, memorable onstage and offstage moments from this tour to create the exclusive bonus audio and video material for the Deluxe Tour Edition of Gillan's Inn. Additionally, the Deluxe Tour Edition expanded audio portion includes live performances of "Have Love, Will Travel" and "Wasted Sunsets" from The House of Blues in Anaheim.

Regarding the origins of Gillan's Inn, with his trademark wit fully in force, Gillan says, "My manager suggested to me that, seeing as how I had been in the business 400 years, I should do an anniversary album of some kind.

I decided the best approach would be to do brand new versions of some of my favorite songs from the entire span of my career with many of the friends who have been part of my life and career along the way. So I said, let's just imagine we have an old pub, Gillan's Inn, and we all turn up, get up and jam, everyone plays on a few songs each, with free beer for everyone!

While Gillan's musical heart belongs to Deep Purple, he had a blast taking a break from the normal schedule and hitting the road with his own group. "I always enjoy a little change of pace here and there, and it was great playing in small places again and touring on a bus with the band and crew in our varied states of exhaustion. It was fun in the more intimate venues being face to face with the crowd. When I look at the bootlegs from the tour, everyone looks so happy. I enjoy performing no matter who I'm with and I think diversity is a vital part of being a touring artist. As for specific memories there are lots of them. We hit the road running and it was incredibly fast and furious. It felt as though we played and traveled non-stop, and I loved every minute of it.

Gillan offers an inspiring perspective on the power of music to keep himself, his cohorts and everyone young at heart: "If you spend all your life doing something, you develop a certain aptitude for it and the personal reward lies in the doing of it. When I was a kid, after I had gone through my Elvis and Little Richard phases, I started getting into Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. I realized that they were just reaching their creative peaks in their 50s and 60s. Rock and rollers are no different. We're like craftsman who spend their lives working with metal or wood, and years into our careers, suddenly get a new perspective on what we're doing. You've taken a lifetime to get to this point, but still experience the same joy in the work that was there from the start. For me, recording and touring is not a job. It's still just as much fun as it always was."