Ian Gillan Band the jazz fusion direction. Released at the height of punk rock, there was no success beyond Japan and their label Island Records dropped them. The following year Gillan dissolved the band but retained Colin Towns and formed a new band called simply Gillan. A live album was released after the breakup. John Gustafson said: "Gillan decided he didn’t like the band’s direction and wanted to do more rock stuff. In reality, he should have put his foot down a lot earlier. I personally was expecting Deep Purple stuff, but he let us do whatever we wanted." Ian Gillan Band The
Ian Gillan performing to pursue various unsuccessful business ventures. These included a £300,000 investment in a hotel near Oxford. A second was the Mantis Motor Cycles project, which suffered from the collapse of the British motorcycle industry in the mid-1970s, culminating in Gillan being forced to file for liquidation. A more successful opportunity, however, came with his investment in Kingsway Studios in 1974, This led to a live performance at the Butterfly Ball on 16 October 1974, replacing Ronnie James Dio at the last minute. In 1975, Gillan formed the Ian Gillan Band with guitarist Ray Fenwick, keyboardist Mike Moran, quickly replaced