Arch-Blackmore'isms.
Most of this is tongue in cheek and he's a notorious practical joker (hiding eery sound audio equipment in bandmates' hotel rooms to spook them at night), but he has a penchant for the occult (in a non-satanist way, I think he believes neither in God nor Satan, just spirits) and drove Rainbow members (the Purple guys were too down to earth to ever take him serious with this) mad with his habitual requests for seances which would freak some people out.
Dio and other then-Rainbow members have stated that the recording sessions for the Long Live Rock'n'Roll album in the late seventies in a French castle (the legendary Chateau Studios - as in Elton John's Honky Chateau) were plagued by supernatural occurences that unhinged even Blackmore a little and that the place was haunted by a ghost named Baal. Hence the album credit on LLRnR "No thanks to Baal!". But with Blackmore you never know whether he was behind all that as well.
Ian Gillan was the guy in a woman's dress, he would sometimes wear one and spend a night drinking at some hotel bar just to see how other guests would react. Or he would wear nothing at all to elicit reactions.
For all his jibes against Gillan, Blackmore is also on record for admitting that the physically larger and stronger Gillan saved his life in some boating accident on the Thames in the early 70ies. The recurring "one day I'm going to kill Ian Gillan" just plays on their feuding image. A lot of their conflict came from the fact that Blackmore thought that Gillan did not take good care of his voice on tours (too much partying, too much talking, too little sleep, smoking and alcohol - though Blackmore was no slouch in that department either), that grated with his professionalism. And Gillan is the type of person who if criticized for one thing will do it twice over.
