Ian Gillan says Black Sabbath were more “important” than Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin: “Without them there would have been no grunge or heavy metal”

Ian Gillan on the “unholy trinity” of British rock bands, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and why the Brummie Rock Gods were the “most important” of them all

iam Gillian has declared who he believes to be the “most important” from the “unholy trinity” of British rock bands, a term which he explains was coined by the press.

As the singer of Deep Purple points out in a recent interview with The Sun to support the band’s 23rd new album =1, “The ‘unholy trinity’ was created entirely by our good friends the music journalists, just like’sex, drugs, and rock and roll.'” “They put into words what everyone was doing — something distinctive and identifiable,” said the people we knew and drank with.

Weighing up the trio of bands – which includes Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin – and their impact on music as a whole, Gillian, who performed as frontman to the Brummie metallers from late 1982 until early 1984, continues: “To a certain extent, Sabbath were the most important because without them there would have been no Seattle (grunge scene) or heavy metal.
What Tony [Iommi] was delivering in those early days was just awesome. It was so powerful.

Though he might view Sabbath as the most culturally significant, Gillan muses how altogether, the three bands “did something that had never been done before”, adding that “they were putting into action all the things that had been building up over the previous ten years.”