Roger Glover riff to 'Maybe I'm a Leo' after hearing John Lennon's 'How Do You Sleep?'." Glover contributed bass on Jon Lord's first solo album, 'Gemini Suite' [1971), and was the featured soloist in the bass movement. Glover departed Deep Purple, along with Gillan, after the band's second tour of Japan in the summer of 1973. Throughout the 1970s Glover produced albums and/or singles by such acts as Judas Priest, Nazareth, Elf, Status Quo, the Ian Gillan Band and David Coverdale. In 1974 Glover released his first solo album, "The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast", which generated the single "Love Is
Ian Gillan and Barnacle were quickly replaced by Bernie Tormé and by former Episode Six bandmate Mick Underwood, after Gillan saw Torme playing with his punk trio. This band had a more high-powered hard rock sound, and the release of "Mr. Universe" in October 1979 saw Ian Gillan back in the UK charts, although the independent record company the album came out on – Acrobat Records – folded soon after the album was released, prompting a contract with Richard Branson's Virgin Records. In Christmas 1979, Gillan was visited by Blackmore, who offered him the position of lead vocalist in Rainbow. Gillan declined