Ronnie James Dio left Black Sabbath in 1982 and wouldn't return to the band until 1991. After his departure, in stepped Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, though he doesn't remember the exact conversation that led to his joining. According to Gillian, he went out with guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, got blackout drunk and somehow managed to join the band.
Gillian adds in his interview with SiriusXM that he only found out he joined the band after his manager called him the next morning.
"How it started was – we got drunk together one night. I went for a drink with Tony and Geezer, and we ended up under the table. And I can't remember much more that happened. But I got a call from my manager the next day saying, 'Don't you think you should call me if you're gonna make decisions like this?' I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Well, apparently you… I just got a call. You agreed to join Sabbath.' So that's how it happened.
"I was at a kind of loose end anyway, having just finished with my own band and Purple not really being anything viable at the time. So we set a one-year plan, and it was to do an album and a tour. Nobody knew what was gonna happen, so we pitched up and I pitched my tent, literally, at the old manor in Oxfordshire. And we made an album.
"I didn't see much of 'em. They were night people, so they slept all day and worked all night. I got up in the morning, cooked my breakfast, went to the studio to hear what they had recorded the night before and write a song over it. That's how the album was made."
Gillian joined in 1983, recorded Born Again and left the band in 1984. The band would go on to have a string of short lived vocalists until gaining Tony Martin for a few years in 1987 prior to Dio joining again.
