Interviews

 

Whitesnake

 

Words: Rod Yates

 

If there’s been one constant in Whitesnake’s 30-year career other than the presence of founder David Coverdale, it’s sex. From album titles such as Slide It In to those iconic late-’80s MTV videos featuring Coverdale’s then-wife Tawny Kitaen writhing around on the hood of a Jaguar, for three decades the vocalist has dealt in the ever-so-slightly Spinal Tap-ish language of the loin, perhaps more convincingly than any of his peroxided peers. Now, however, at the age of 56, and with his being a proud grandparent, you can’t help but wonder whether he approached the lyric writing of Whitesnake’s soon-to-be-released new album, Bad To Be Good, and thought to err on the side of respectability.

 

“No, I’m still driven by lust!” he booms, offering a warm, throaty cackle. “You don’t stop getting horny because you become a grandfather, I’m still an old horndog. The songs are about love and loss and attitude, a little bit of a search for direction, but pretty much I know where I’ve been and I know where I’m going now. It’s got all the recognisable themes you would expect from a Whitesnake album, but the love songs now are not so much about a sense of loss but a celebration.”

 

That David Coverdale is even addressing the topic of his band’s new album is, in 2008, something of a minor miracle. Having semi-retired from the music business in the wake of punk and grunge to pursue an idyllic lifestyle in Lake Tahoe, he was completely at peace with the idea of leaving behind a music industry he’d come to equate with misery.

 

“I was discouraged and disenchanted by the miserable negative energy that most musical corporations seemed to be drowning in,” he reflects. “I’m just not comfortable in those murky waters, so it was very easy for me to semi-retire and go and live in Lake Tahoe while everyone else fights amongst themselves or runs a hot bath and cuts their wrists. I don’t subscribe to that kind of energy, that if everyone else is having a hard time that I’m supposed to too. It’s just not interesting to me. You can create your own positive energy and I prefer to do that. I’ll go out when I’ve got something to sing about or something to say.”

 

The band’s 25th anniversary in 2003 provided such an occasion, and, buoyed by demand, a proposed two-month tour turned into a successful nine-month sojourn that re-energised Coverdale’s enthusiasm for Whitesnake. It also saw him establish a bond with former Dio guitarist Doug Aldrich, the latest in a long-line of accomplished six-stringers to pass through Whitesnake’s ranks that’s included the likes of Bernie Marsden, John Sykes, Steve Vai and Adrian Vandenberg. Coverdale credits the guitarist with helping reignite his creative fires, and for a year the duo worked away on Good To Be Bad, penning an album that recalls the spirit of classic Whitesnake releases such as Ready An’ Willing, Slide It In and 1987.

 

“This album contains all the elements that I’ve enjoyed about Whitesnake and more,” says Coverdale. “It’s got more intense with my guitarist’s attitude, it’s got a kind of contemporary edge with the guitars, but it’s totally recognisable as Whitesnake with my voice and the style of songs. This is possibly going to be the last studio record, and I wanted to make sure things felt right. The two things I’ll say about it is, if this is the last studio album from Whitesnake then I’m very proud of it, and if I was starting out fresh and this was the first Whitesnake album, I’d just be dying to get out there and play every bloody song.”

 

Do you regret not recording a new album sooner given how much you’ve enjoyed the experience?

 

“No no no,” he fires. “I’m one of the few people you know who doesn’t have any regrets. Edith Piaf had a big hit called No Regrets, and I’m the Edith Piaf of rock, I have no regrets. The universe unfolds as it’s supposed to and right now I’m experience a heady synchronicity.”

 

Coverdale’s contentment with his current situation is addressed on the album’s opening track, Best Years.

 

“It’s a total balls-out, in-your-face Whitesnake track, and it starts out with that blues element, somebody help me, I’m feeling low,” he enthuses. “And then it just transforms into these are the best years of my life, and it’s done with incredible intensity and fire and passion, because quite simply, these are the best years of my life. I have no desire to be 20 again, or 30 or 40, the energy would be different now. I don’t dwell in the past.”

 

Others, however, seem unable to completely let go of the Whitesnake of old. Having teamed up with record label SPV to release Good To Be Bad, Coverdale has been asked by the powers-that-be to revive the concept-style videos of the band’s late-’80s heyday that made songs such as Here I Go Again and Is This Love MTV staples and helped propel the 1987 album to sales in excess of 10 million copies worldwide.

 

“They say, ‘We all remember those fantastic videos with your ex-wife running around’, and I said, ‘I’m not getting her out of mothballs, you can forget that’,” chuckles Coverdale. “You know, I’m 56, it’s widely reported that I’m a happy grandfather, so I don’t want to be rolling around a hot tub with some hot 20-year-old.”

He pauses.

“Well, actually I wouldn’t mind, but my wife would kick my ass! I don’t want to look ridiculous.”

 

With advance reviews of the album bursting with accolades and the band kicking off their world tour with dates in Australia this month, the day that Coverdale sat despondently in a hotel room more than 20 years ago and, with the master tapes of his then-latest album 1987 in his hands, wondered if his career in music was over, must seem like a lifetime ago.

 

“I was three million dollars in debt,” he recalls. “I sat in my hotel room in Los Angeles and listened to the finished record and I was morally depleted by all the external circumstances. I couldn’t even listen to the record with focus. And then the universe went, ‘Okay, let’s validate all the years, all the effort, all the time, the emotion, the blood sweat and tears that you put into it, and let’s sell 20-odd million records for you very quickly.’ And I went, oh, thank you so very much! I trust the universe to take care of me, and so far it has.”

 

 

 

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