When Whitesnake’s album Slip Of The Tongue was released in 1989, singer David Coverdale made an extraordinary claim about the band’s newest recruit Steve Vai — comparing him to the greatest guitarist of them all.
Referring to a masterpiece by The Jimi Hendrix Experience from 1967, Coverdale declared: “Steve Vai has woven the finest tapestries since Axis: Bold As Love.”
It was hyperbole, of course — but there was no doubt that Vai completely revolutionised Whitesnake's guitar sound on Slip Of The Tongue with high-energy shred and death-defying six-string antics. It's not that the guys who played in Whitesnake before him weren't awesome — it's that Vai, Ibanez in hand, sounded like he’d arrived from outer space.
For bassist Rudy Sarzo, who played alongside Vai on Slip Of The Tongue, it was an experience never to be forgotten.
“I love playing with musicians that challenge me,” Sarzo tells MusicRadar. “I want to play with people way better than me, just so they kick the shit out of me, and make me kick back.
“I’m not gonna just stand there — I’m gonna rise to the challenge and let it make me a better musician. And while playing with Steve, I definitely learned something.”
The funny thing is, Steve Vai wasn’t even supposed to be on Slip Of The Tongue.
The guitar scaffolding for that album was built by Adrian Vandenberg, who had taken over guitar duties in the band following the departure of John Sykes.
But after Vandenberg had written the bulk of the album’s songs with Coverdale, he sustained an injury to his wrist — to the point where he could barely play. It was at this crisis point that Coverdale decided to bring Vai into the band.
According to Sarzo, the demos for Slip Of The Tongue harkened back to Whitesnake’s roots as a blues-based hard rock band in the late ’70s and early ’80s. But with Vai onboard, things changed.
“Steve brought in more of a progressive direction with the guitars,” Sarzo explains. “And at the end of the day, I think it works. There are still some roots of blues rock in the rhythm section, but Steve just adds some modern layers on top of that.”
Recalling the drama of the period when Vandenberg suffered his injury and Vai saved the day, Sarzo insists: “It wasn’t a crazy time. It was a situation where there was a sense of maturity within the camp.
“Nobody was going to freak out. We said, ‘This is going to get done. We just need to find the right person to join the family.’ And we got Steve Vai, thank God.
“I loved spending those years with Steve in that band. It was a wonderful experience.”
Prior to joining Whitesnake, Sarzo had played alongside Randy Rhoads — first in Quiet Riot and then in Ozzy Osbourne’s band. Sarzo sees a similarity between Rhoads and Vai.
“With Randy I was working with a musician who had such incredible integrity,” he says. “And Steve was a very educated musician coming from the Frank Zappa family, and I loved that.”
As for Vai’s impact on Slip Of The Tongue, Sarzo says: “At the core of it, Whitesnake was a blues-rock band. The roots of that band go back to Deep Purple, because David was in that band before forming Whitesnake. And then, Whitesnake became its own musical entity, and eventually it was a hit.
“Slip Of The Tongue would have sounded very different if Adrian had not gotten injured — if he had done most of the guitar work on the album. But with Steve Vai on that record, he brought more of that modern edge to it, and I don’t think the average Whitesnake fan was ready for that.
“I grew up listening to prog rock and fusion, so I loved what Steve was playing. But Adrian had laid down the basic tracks, and then Steve came in and painted a whole different picture on the guitar. I definitely would have played differently if I had started pre-production with Steve.”
Slip Of The Tongue was a top 10 hit in the US and the UK and all across the world. It was also arguably the last truly successful album of the hair metal era.
The tour in support of the album included a headlining appearance at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park in 1990.
Coverdale would subsequently put Whitesnake on ice to record an album with Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page.
“We knew that the band was ending,” Sarzo says now. "David had given notice that it was going to be the end of Whitesnake — or that version of Whitesnake. He announced that two or three days before the tour began in January of 1990.
“So every show was basically part of a countdown toward the end of that era. And at Donington, in my mind it was like, 'Am I ever going to experience this feeling of playing with such great musicians, and headlining a show like this again?’
“With Donington, there was a lot of emotion going into that show," Sarzo recalls. "But this was not something that you carried onstage — because once you get on the stage, it’s all about what we do as a band.
“So there was no time for reminiscing. When we were onstage, it was all about what we were creating that night.”
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