In October, DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan and BLACK SABBATH/HEAVEN AND HELL guitarist Tony Iommi were awarded the Orders Of Honor - which were delivered to them by Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan - for the Armenia Grateful To Rock program.

The objective of the program, was to express gratitude to those musicians who 20 years ago participated in the Rock Aid Armenia. In 1989, within the framework of Rock Aid Armenia, the British rock-stars recorded Deep Purple’s classic ‘Smoke On The Water’ and also released a disk called Rock Aid Armenia.

Following the award ceremony, Gillan spoke with Sweden's Dalarnas Tidningar about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat (translated from Swedish by BraveWords.com) follow:

Dalarnas Tidningar: Should you not do something more with the Black Sabbath guys?
Gillan: "It was strange that you would mention it because I was in Armenia with Tony Iommi last week and stopped at his house on his way to Manchester to finish writing a song that we started on. It is a charity band that we are thinking of putting together in the future. Tony and I and a few other musicians. But this takes time and sometimes none of it (materializes) in the end."

Dalarnas Tidningar: Born Again is a grossly underestimated disc.
Gillan: "Thank you, I think so too. I like it. It was a one-time thing, sometimes such (collaborations) work and I'm glad I did it."

In 2007, Iommi told radio Tangra Mega Rock about the 'Born Again' experience:

"Actually, we did have a problem with the sound on the first pressings of that album and it really sounded poor. We went on tour to America, and meanwhile the album was out in Europe and England, and before we got to hear it, it was number 3 in the charts, so we had to make it sound better. As a whole, I think some of the tracks on this LP are very good."