David Coverdale’s career as a singer did not get off to the best of starts. In 1966, at the tender age of 15, Coverdale had a chastening experience when his band Vintage 67 entered a talent contest in his hometown of Saltburn-by-the-Sea in Yorkshire. “We lost to a guy who sang songs from The Sound Of Music whilst beating his head with a tin beer tray,” Coverdale said, adding for comedic emphasis, “I shit thee not!”
This was, he said, “not very encouraging”. But if ever a kid had the desire and the voice to become a star, it was David Coverdale.
Born on 22 September 1951, he grew up the hard way, in what he calls “a very working class environment”. Having cut his teeth as a singer in Vintage 67 and another local group, The Government, a dream opportunity arrived in 1973 when, as a complete unknown, he replaced Ian Gillan as the frontman for one of the biggest bands in the world, Deep Purple.
With that, Coverdale’s life was forever changed. In three whirlwind years, he made three albums with Purple, toured the world, and found stardom and its various perks very much to his liking.
The band’s messy break-up in 1976 left him bereft, but the solo album he made in the following year, White Snake, provided the name for a new band with which he would create his defining work and enjoy his greatest success.
Originally styled as a blues-based hard rock act, perfectly attuned to Coverdale’s rich, soulful voice, Whitesnake had a first great run in the late ’70s and early ’80s with classic albums including Lovehunter, Ready An’ Willing and Live… In The Heart Of The City.
But it was Coverdale’s radical reinvention of the band in the late ’80s which transformed Whitesnake into a multi-million selling global phenomenon.
On the blockbuster album 1987 – titled simply Whitesnake in America – a slick and super-sized sound yielded huge hits in the power ballad Is This Love and the anthems Still Of The Night and Here I Go Again, the latter a US No.1.
Equally important, in the age of MTV, was the band’s new image, Coverdale leading a younger line-up with hair as big as Mötley Crüe’s.
In the early ’90s, with Whitesnake on hiatus, Coverdale teamed up with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page in the short-lived superstar project Coverdale•Page.
After two brief Whitesnake reunions in the ’90s, Coverdale continued with the band from 2002 onwards.
But now, with the announcement of his retirement, an epic career has come to an end.
In a 2019 with Outlaw magazine, Coverdale spoke at length about his life in music. The Outlaw interview is reproduced here in its entirety.
As the man himself said: “The universe does move in mysterious ways. I can testify to that.”
At what age did you first get turned on to rock ’n’ roll?
“We never had any kind of music delivery device in my childhood home, although my mam would sing Irish rebellion songs she’d learned from my Nana growing up. And when I stayed with Nana, my Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Eddie, who were teenagers, would let me play their rock ’n’ roll singles on a huge wireless, a giant beast of a thing. That’s where I first heard Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. I clearly remember Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock E.P.”
You would have been six when you heard Jailhouse Rock.
“I have absolutely no idea why it was so incredibly inspiring, but it was –including influencing my song Still Of The Night decades later.”
In those young days, what other songs lit a fire in you?
“Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally and Good Golly Miss Molly – sweet Jesus, they’re still as fresh for me today. I asked for Little Richard’s autograph years later. I still have it.”
When did you realise that you could sing?
“Very early. I was always asked to feature in the school choir as soloist. I actually started singing in a band with a local bunch of lads around fourteen. We all lived in streets next to each other. I painted the kick-drum head: ‘Vintage 67’. Ha Ha! I’d sing through a Dynatron tape recorder or through the bass player’s twelve-watt amp while he was playing.”
In your student days you sang for another band, The Government. But when you got the call from Deep Purple, you were working in a boutique…
“Yes. Gentry boutique in Redcar. I’d left art college somewhat disillusioned and I was only earning a modest amount from local gigs, so some friends suggested I work with them at Gentry. I think it’s a hairdressers’ now. Anyway, I was already into having long hair, so any ‘normal’ job where I’d have to cut my hair was out of the question. I became quite good at it. I’d joke about being a ‘Singing Salesman’, but it’s absolutely true. And had it not been for some guy who dismissively suggested I go after the job with Deep Purple, my life would have been quite different.”
Ian Gillan’s were big shoes to fill. Did you believe you were good enough?
“I didn’t know, to be honest with you. And I really had no concept of how globally enormous the band was. Had I known, it would have been over-intimidating.”
What do you remember of your audition with Purple?
“I was only 22, and I think I was the only singer they auditioned. First, they asked me to go into the Purple office at 25 Newman Street in London to be grilled by the managers, who of course wanted to know if I had a criminal record, a drug bust or anything that could have caused any potential issues.”
Purple’s guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was famously moody and difficult to read. Keyboard player Jon Lord, by contract, was known for his charm. What were your first impressions?
“Ritchie was standoffish, but Jon was just great. During my audition he calmed me down. And Bell’s whisky helped. Apparently they decided that night that I was in, but they didn’t tell me for a week. I was already making excuses why I didn’t want the gig!”
And when you were hired?
“Once I was actually confirmed as the new singer I was told to get the train down to London, where I was driven to Ritchie’s house in Surrey, called Blockhütte. That was the big test. Sitting in Ritchie’s crazy German bar, listening to his amazing demos on a Revox tape machine, we realised we had a very solid connection for writing together… and drinking, of course! We did like a drink or four. I was with this fucking amazing guitar player who was already a global superstar, and actually writing with him! It could have so easily been a royal fuck up, but, thankfully, it wasn’t.”
Coverdale was one of two new members recruited to Deep Purple in 1973. The other was bassist and co-lead vocalist Glenn Hughes, formerly of funk rock power trio Trapeze.
Purple’s 1974 album Burn was the first release of Coverdale’s career, and what he delivered was a performance beyond his years. On the album’s title track, a powerful statement of intent from the new ‘Mark III’ line-up, the voices of Coverdale and Hughes combined to brilliant effect, and so it continued through soul-influenced songs such as Sail Away to the epic blues number Mistreated.
Coverdale’s friendship with Hughes has remained close in all the years since. “Glenn and I are still The Unrighteousness Brothers,” he said.
But during their time in Purple, Hughes was a heavy drug user, which added to the tensions within this most combustible of bands. And after Blackmore quit in 1975 to form a new group, Rainbow, his replacement Tommy Bolin, another hugely gifted player, was already in the grip of the heroin addiction that would lead to his death in 1976, shortly after Purple disbanded.
For Coverdale, the years in Deep Purple brought dizzying highs and devastating lows. It was, he said, a formative time in his life.
“It served me exceptionally well, my Purple experience. God bless them for taking such an incredible risk on an unknown. They have my eternal gratitude.”
You became a star with Purple. How did this change you?
“I think initially it changed people’s perception of me, rather than the other way around. All my mates expected me to change, become big time. I tried very hard to prove it hadn’t changed me.
“I’d go back up North at every opportunity, but it became a kind of pain in the arse. If I offered to buy someone a drink, I was a flash bastard, and if I didn’t I was ‘tight’.
Did you find Ritchie Blackmore intimidating?
“Who didn’t? Once I started getting more and more ‘in’ with the band I could see they were all intimidated by him. Ritchie took me under his wing initially and I was his willing disciple. I learned so much from him and most certainly from Jon Lord, who was another amazing mentor for me, and much more sociable than Ritchie.”
You lost a great friend when Jon died in 2010.
“I miss him immensely. But I feel his presence a lot in my life. A certain piece of music will come on – Mozart, or Vaughan Williams’ A Lark Ascending – and he’s with me.”
During your time with Purple, as Glenn Hughes and Tommy Bolin were using hard drugs, did you view that lifestyle as dangerous, foolish?
“I never thought it foolish. I was a part of all that, to be honest, though not as deeply invested. I liked a strong Scotch and Coke – several, actually – and Mary Jane, spliffs.
“I did my share of the naughty nose stuff. I think I gave Ritchie his first spliff, and Jesus, we laughed all fucking night. But that wasn’t his thing. And it did descend into madness after Ritchie left.
“I realised his being in the band maintained a certain seriousness. And after he left, all hell broke loose. Apart from Paicey [drummer Ian Paice], we were all pretty fucked up, and my soul brother Glenn kind of went for it when Tommy came on board.”
Which songs from your time in Purple are you most proud of?
“The songs I wrote early on with Ritchie – Mistreated, Sail Away, and definitely Soldier Of Fortune. I still wonder what my muse was up to, feeding me such a mature lyric on Soldier Of Fortune.”
When Purple split, what emotions did you go through?
“I actually left the band after walking off stage at the last UK gig in Liverpool. I didn’t want to be a part of bringing such a beloved band to its knees.
“I was asked not to say anything about leaving until Jon and Ian had decided what to do, but I was done. I went home to my mam’s pub in a village called Hutton Rudby, where slowly but surely I was able to decompress and come back down to earth. I then wrote a nine-page resignation letter…”
And when you made your first solo album, White Snake, aided by guitarist Micky Moody, were you aiming for a career as a solo artist, or just trying to move on from Purple as best you could?
“I had a bunch of song ideas that were not necessarily Purple-related. It was more blues and soul, and [guitarist] Micky Moody helped me get things sorted.
“There was minimal, if any, support for both Glenn and I. All the focus was on an ill-fated project that Jon and Ian Paice put together.
“Glenn hung out at my house for a while, and we were both very conscious that we had a lot to prove, not to each other, but to the powers that be. We were given an embarrassingly small budget to do our respective solo albums. Really, truthfully, no one would back our horses at that time.”
It was in 1978, following the release of his second solo album, Northwinds, that Coverdale formed Whitesnake,
The band’s debut release, the Snakebite E.P., featured Micky Moody and a second guitarist, Bernie Marsden, formerly of UFO, plus bassist Neil Murray, drummer Dave Dowle and keyboard player Pete Solley.
On the first full album, Trouble, also issued in ’78, Jon Lord replaced Solley, and after the second album, 1979’s Lovehunter, the first classic Whitesnake line-up was completed with the arrival of another ex-Purple heavyweight, Ian Paice.
In 1980 the band had two top 10 albums with Ready An’ Willing and Live… In The Heart Of The City – the latter one of the greatest live albums of all time.
With 1981’s Come An’ Get It, only the leading pop act of the time, Adam And The Ants, denied Whitesnake a first UK No.1. In 1982, the Saints & Sinners album also made the top 10. For Coverdale, however, this was not enough. Most of all, he was focused on America.
A series of changes in personnel followed. By 1984, both Moody and Marsden had departed in acrimonious circumstances, while Lord and Paice had reunited with Blackmore and Gillan in Deep Purple.
It was the 1984 album Slide It In that provided the big breakthrough for Whitesnake in America, after the album was remixed with additional guitar parts from Coverdale’s new sidekick John Sykes, previously of Thin Lizzy.
Some of Whitesnake’s greatest music was made in those early years, but as Coverdale said: “I knew things had to change. If you don’t share the same vision anymore it’s better to find people who do, so you can grow as players, as a writer, as a singer, as a band...”
When you first put Whitesnake together, what kind of band did you want this to be?
“I was very inspired by The Allman Brothers Band. Loved their first album, loved how they harnessed the blues and soul and exceptional musicality to die for. Also, I loved Little Feat.”
For the Snakebite E.P., you recorded a song made famous by American blues singer Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City…
“When we first auditioned drummers and bassists, Micky Moody and I rearranged that song to see if the players we were trying out had groove. But I never thought about recording it until we were doing the E.P. and we were a song short.”
And when you performed this song live, it developed into a kind of communion between band and audience.
“Absolutely. Suddenly, a Whitesnake anthem was born, as was the Whitesnake Choir.”
Do you remember the moment this first happened?
“I’ll never forget it. It was at Newcastle City Hall. I was singing, eyes closed, in the moment, then I could hear more and more voices, getting louder and louder. I opened my eyes and it was like a soccer crowd swaying, singing along with us – an unforgettable, spine-tingling moment. The song belongs to the Choir. Every time we play it, they own it.”
The covert art for Lovehunter – a naked woman astride a giant snake – proved controversial.
“The artist Chris Achilleos used to do illustrations for Men Only. That cover was of its time, and there was such an outpouring of pissed off-ness. ‘This is sexist!’
Guilty?
“No defence mechanism is necessary for me. And I enjoyed the physical aspect of relationships – that’s kind of fucking obvious – so that’s what I wrote about. It’s not fantasy stuff – it’s diaries. But not naming names…”
Fool For Your Loving, from Ready An’ Willing, was Whitesnake’s first hit single, but you almost gave it away to BB King…
“Bernie Marsden had done an interview with BB, whom we all adored, and he asked us to write something for him, as he’d loved what we’d done with Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City – as did Bobby Bland, by the way. But when we listened back to the demo of Fool For Your Loving, we agreed we should keep it. Sorry, BB! And that demo is actually the track featured on Ready An’ Willing.”
For all the success that Whitesnake had in the early ’80s, you brought in new musicians, including ex-Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell, to push the band forward.
“We would joke about the comings and goings in Rainbow, and then it started happening with us, the infamous revolving door. I find whatever happens usually happens for a reason. And I knew we’d gone as far as we could with the early band. It’s the nature of things to change and grow.”
Is it true that in the early ’80s you declined an offer to join Black Sabbath after Ronnie James Dio left the band?
“I think I was asked way before Ronnie became a member. I was honoured, of course. I used to get stoned to Sabbath’s first album. But I knew what I wanted to do.”
Guitarist Michael Schenker said there was talk of you and him joining forces at that time – either you becoming the singer for The Michael Schenker Group, or him becoming the guitarist in Whitesnake.
"Actually, I was looking at both Michael and [Dutch guitarist] Adrian Vandenberg to join my band. I wrote All Or Nothing from Slide It In for MSG, but once Cozy joined the Snakes we kept it for us.
“But I’m a big fan of Michael’s playing. He would have been a good fit. I knew I needed a Michael Schenker, or an Adrian Vandenberg or ultimately the very gifted John Sykes to help me make Whitesnake a more electrifying, ‘notice me’ band – and the insanely powerful Cozy Powell, of course, to drive the new approach.”
In Sounds magazine, a savage review of Slide It In made a mockery of the music and of you personally. Did that hurt?
“It was disturbing. As an artist, you can’t help but be sensitive. But really, you’ve got to believe in what you do.
“At the same time there was this domino principle. My first marriage was coming apart at the seams, and David Geffen (head of Geffen Records, Whitesnake’s US label) was calling. So fuck it, I sold up everything and moved to Los Angeles. You don’t want me – they do.”
A pivotal moment?
“Yes. Slide It In was fucking huge in the States, the first platinum Whitesnake record. And we scored big with radio, so they were ready for the next album.”
With the 1987 album, Coverdale’s vision of a modern Whitesnake was perfectly realised. The new songs written with collaborator-in-chief John Sykes included the epic Still Of The Night – in essence, Led Zeppelin for the hair metal generation – and the purring ballad Is This Love.
Coverdale also chose to revamp two great old songs from the Saints & Sinners album, Crying In The Rain and Here I Go Again, which turned out to be one of the smartest moves he ever made.
In the making of this monumental album, there was high drama behind the scenes. At one point, Coverdale, struggling with an acute sinus infection, feared that his career as a singer might end. And before the album was completed, Sykes was dismissed after suggesting that if Coverdale lost his voice, Whitesnake should continue with a different singer – a proposition as ridiculous as it was mutinous.
Once Coverdale had made a full recovery, the 1987 album, recorded with Sykes, Neil Murray on bass and Aynsley Dunbar (ex-Journey) on drums, was launched with a new touring line-up featuring guitarists Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell (ex-Dio), and bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Tommy Aldridge, both previously employed by Ozzy Osbourne.
It was this big-haired Whitesnake that starred, alongside Coverdale’s then-squeeze Tawny Kitaen, in the racy videos that became symbolic of the glamour and excess of ’80s rock.
There was more drama with the following album, 1989’s Slip Of The Tongue. Adrian Vandenberg, the sole remaining guitarist following Vivian Campbell’s exit, suffered a freak hand injury that left him unable to play on the songs he had written with Coverdale. As a result, guitarist extraordinaire Steve Vai, formerly of David Lee Roth’s band, added his signature style to what was Whitesnake’s most overblown album.
But when the Slip Of The Tongue tour was done, so, for a time, was the band that Coverdale had led for more than a decade. And in 1993, he enjoyed a new challenge, forming a supergroup with the guitarist he described as an “alchemist” and “sonic architect”, the legendary Jimmy Page.
Going into the 1987 album, did you have a master plan?
“The intentions are always very simple. To try to better the last album musically, lyrically, vocally…”
And then your voice failed. What exactly happened?
“When I started doing the guide vocals in Little Mountain studios in Vancouver, around ’85, my voice was kicking ass. A lot of the guide vocals were probably keepers, to be honest.
“But then I started to get really, really nasal, and I couldn’t sing for shit. I was underneath the key and I could not get above it.
“It turned out that I had a serious sinus infection and also a deviated septum from birth. My septum actually collapsed on me, and it wasn’t drug-related at all. If it was, I’d say so.
“I had to have surgery, and there was a fifty-fifty chance that I’d be able to sing in the same style that I’d worked in for all those years.”
You feared the worst?
“Yes, I was afraid. The idea of being unable to sing and perform was horrifying. All the things you take for granted suddenly taken away from you. It was a very troubling time in my life.”
And adding insult to injury, John Sykes was plotting to kick you out of your own band?
“I heard that. Petty daft, really. It kind of compromised any chance of continuing working together, as you can imagine.”
You were also bankrupt, or close to it, during the making of that album.
“Yes, we were so far behind in delivering the album, and so in debt – almost three million in the hole. But, fortunately, not for long.”
Do you remember an exact moment when you first sensed that this album was going to be a big one?
"When MTV picked Still Of The Night as their fave video and played it every hour, every day for weeks on end. Sales of the album went through the fucking roof!
“I became aware that this was something very, very different to the success I’d experienced with Purple. This was an entirely different level. It was an extraordinary validation for all the bullshit I’d been through, and I grabbed it with both hands and enjoyed the fuck out of the ride.”
The videos for Still Of The Night, Here I Go Again and Is This Love featured Tawny Kitaen, whom you married in 1989.
“We were Rolling Stone’s Couple Of The Year! Go fucking figure. And my car was so recognisable from the videos that we were chased down the Strip. It was Beatles stuff, very strange, and it became extremely uncomfortable for me. That was one of the reasons I moved out of LA to Lake Tahoe, a village of eight hundred people.”
After the success of the 1987 album, the follow-up, Slip Of The Tongue, had some great songs, but it was all a little too over-the-top.
“It was of the time and it was how the band was then. Epic. Huge! All of the players and songs were larger than life, but, at a price.”
When you put the band on ice after the Slip Of The Tongue tour, did you always believe, deep down, that you would revive Whitesnake at some stage?
“No. I was kind of done. I told the band not to call me, but, if they received any interesting offers to do something exciting, to grab it with both hands, as my future was uncertain. It was a serious period of reflection for me.”
And it was also in this period that your marriage to Tawny ended after just two years.
“In that relationship there were flaws that were disturbing to me, and if I feel I’m suffocating in any scenario, I’ll pay whatever it takes to get the fuck out. So I went through a most unpleasant but necessary divorce, and got my life back on track, privately and professionally.
“I met Cindy, who became my third wife, while I was still going through the divorce. I remember distinctly saying to her, ‘I’m the least likely candidate for a relationship. I’m going though a very ugly situation.’ And at the time I started working with Jimmy Page.”
Who made the first approach, you or Jimmy?
“Rod MacSween, my friend and [booking] agent, was the catalyst. He was talking to Jimmy, who was looking to do something. Jimmy called me and we connected immediately on all levels.”
It was a fine album that you made as Coverdale•Page. Should you have done more?
“Perhaps. But that record served its purpose for both of us. It got him up and ready for Page & Plant [the 1994 reunion with Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant], and it made me musically refreshed after the madness that I’d experienced on and off stage. Pagey and I were great chums and still are. I love him to bits. It’s such an honour to call him my friend.”
In all the years since the Coverdale•Page album in 1993, Whitesnake was the focus of the singer’s working life, with one exception. He had intended to make a solo album in the late ’90s, but due to pressure from his record company, this album, Restless Heart, featuring Adrian Vandenberg, was released in 1997 under the name of David Coverdale & Whitesnake.
It was three years later that a solo album proper emerged, his first since Northwinds in 1978, titled Into The Light, a mature work, created with one of David Bowie’s former guitarists, Earl Slick.
Four Whitesnake albums followed: Good To Be Bad, Forevermore, The Purple Album (on which he revisited songs recorded with Deep Purple in the ’70s) and Flesh & Blood.
![Whitesnake - After All [HQ] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/8xVs1tg5ItM/maxresdefault.jpg)
The revolving door continued to turn. The line-up for Flesh & Blood, the final Whitesnake album, featured Coverdale with guitarists Reb Beach and Joel Hoekstra, bassist Michael Devin, keyboard player Michele Luppi and a veteran of the heady days of 1987, the powerhouse drummer Tommy Adridge.
The interview with Outlaw magazine concluded with Coverdale in triumphant mood.
What is the biggest misconception about you?
“That I care what negative people think of me. They are wasting their time and their hate. My joy and happiness is my protection against all haters. And my success is a pretty good shield, too.”
Looking back on your life, do you have any regrets?
“No. I’m the Edith Piaf of rock. Regrets are for pussies!"
None at all?
“If I could go back and change anything I may compromise all the good shit I have in my life now. So, no – no regrets, other than any pain or hurt I caused anyone.”
You’ve been famous for so much of your life.
“It’s funny, my son Jasper recently said the same thing – that I’d been famous longer than not, which had never occurred to me, to be honest. I hardly ever reflect on it. I don’t really look back.
“Occasionally I reflect in my meditations. But I like to learn from the past, as opposed to living in it. And I’m enjoying surfing the waves right now.”
Was the 1987 album your greatest victory?
“Commercially, yes. That album opened more doors for me than Deep Purple ever did. But I don’t have the time or the desire to place just one thing up there out of so many incredible experiences.
“I’m still a big fan of all the chapters of the band. Everyone I’ve worked with brought something to the party.
“But my greatest victory – and I’d prefer the word ‘reward’ – is my marriage to Cindy and my amazing children. I am blessed with daily victories. My life and career is a cornucopia of delights.”
And what was the biggest sacrifice you made for the success of your career?
“Time. It’s an incredibly precious commodity.”
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