In the late ’80s, Whitesnake became one of the biggest rock bands in the world with a series of hit songs and provocative videos — and those videos could have been even raunchier, according to one former member of the band.
Cuban-American bass player Rudy Sarzo joined Whitesnake in 1987 after successful spells with Ozzy Osbourne and LA band Quiet Riot.
Sarzo was part of a new-look Whitesnake that was put together by lead singer David Coverdale as he aimed to conquer the American market with an album named 1987 but titled simply Whitesnake in the US.
That album had been written by Coverdale with guitarist John Sykes and recorded with bassist Neil Murray and drummer Aynsley Dunbar.
But once the album was completed, Coverdale had dispensed with all three musicians and enlisted a new touring line-up with Sarzo alongside drummer Tommy Aldridge and guitarists Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell.
This was also the line-up that would feature in the videos for the singles from the album — Still Of The Night, Is This Love, Give Me All Your Love and Here I Go Again ’87.
The latter song — a remake of a number from the band’s 1982 album Saints & Sinners — went all the way to No.1 in the US.
As Sarzo tells MusicRadar: “The whole thing about that period of the band was basically keeping up with the times. It’s a business, and the record company made an investment in the group and wanted a return on that investment. The way to get that return is to have a marketable band, and the best marketing tool at that time was MTV.”
It was the era of hair metal, when MTV was ruled by stars such as Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Poison.
“There was a certain look and image,” Sarzo says. “So we went with that.
“In the ’80s, if you wanted to start playing arenas in the United States and become a headliner, then you had to follow a certain musical style and fashion that was popular. I remember when we made all those videos, that’s what was happening.”
Whitesnake’s videos were directed by Marty Callner and co-starred David Coverdale’s then girlfriend and later wife Tawny Kitaen.
“Marty was a real filmmaker who had a cinematic approach to making videos,” Sarzo says. “That’s why he was so popular within our circle.
“If you look at the quality of the videos, which we called ‘films’, you can see that this was somebody who already had credibility and success in other areas outside of music videos. So he wasn’t just some guy who was trying to break into the business, or a guy who was making commercials, and then getting into the world of music videos. No, he already had strong credibility in the field of entertainment-based videos.”
Sarzo says of Tawny Kitaen: “When we did our videos, let’s say maybe we filmed overnight, and then her portions of the video were done separately from the band, at a different time, so I didn’t get to work with her directly there.
“But eventually she got married to David and became part of the Whitesnake family, and she’d travel by bus with us, and that’s when I really got to know her. And she was great. She was fun.
“A lot of times, she’d be auditioning for some TV show or a film, and she’d come to me. I’d be the one on the bus that would do the reading for whatever she was working on from the script. So I really enjoyed that, and she was really cool.”
As for Sarzo, his performances in Whitesnake’s videos will always be remembered for his signature move — licking his bass.
He laughs when he recalls how this happened.
“The videos for Here I Go Again and Is This Love were shot back-to-back,” he says. “Marty used to do these close-ups toward the end of the shoot, and so with five guys in the band it was late by the time it got to my close-up. It was two in the morning, and I knew that I had to be back the next day at nine in the morning for makeup and wardrobe.
"So it’s two in the morning, we’re shooting my close-up, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m tired. Let me just get through this.’ We did the first take of my close-ups, and at the end, Marty goes, ‘I that all you got?’ He knew I was tired, but he said, ‘Please… give me one more take.’
“I needed to go home, so I said, ‘I’m going to give you all that I’ve got!’ And I did stuff that was way worse than the licking the bass thing!
“Marty goes, ‘Okay, we got it. Go home. See you in a few hours.’ And a couple of months later, we gathered to watch the video, and I’d forgotten all about that night.
“I had done a whole bunch of stuff. It wasn’t just me licking the bass — it was me doing a bunch of humping, and stuff like that!
“So the part of my close-up comes, and I see myself licking the bass, and the video ends. I go, ‘Oh, okay, cool.’
“I knew that there was way worse stuff that I had done than just licking the bass. So, I said, ‘Okay, that’s fine!’”
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.