DAVID COVERDALE of WHITESNAKE: Find The Balance
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
David Coverdale is larger than life.
From the distinctive British accent down to his iconic mane of blonde, the former lead singer of Deep Purple and electrifying frontman of Whitesnake is a bonafide legend. Having provided the world with some of the greatest love songs ever written, he is not only a musician of the highest calibre, but a gentleman in every sense of the word.
Born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Riding of Yorkshire, Coverdale grew up surrounded by both music and art, thanks to a family of creatives; on his mother’s side were the singers, his fathers, the artists.
Discovering he could sing anything and everything from an early age (Coverdale is a self-confessed “gut voice”), it was not long before he received his first guitar, art college still his main passion and focus until the day he heard Sidney Bechet and Leadbelly courtesy of a substitute teacher with a stack of records under his arm.
From then on it was all about the music, dropping out of art college and working as a clothing salesman, Coverdale continued to sing, fate soon crossing his path, an audition opportunity bringing about the true beginning of his career as he joined Deep Purple, their demise in 1976 seeing Coverdale briefly go solo before forming Whitesnake in 1978.
Heading back to New Zealand next month, it will be the first time kiwi fans have had the chance to see David Coverdale/Whitesnake in almost twelve years, but it promises to be a show for the memory banks; Whitesnake not only sounding better than ever on their latest album Flesh & Blood released just a few months ago, but the band set to co-headline with none other than the German luminaries, Scorpions.
Booming down the phone from his studio in Reno, affectionately dubbed ‘Hook City’, I spoke with Coverdale about Whitesnake’s latest album, the upcoming tour, love and more importantly life itself and finding the crucial balance within it…
“I am trying to relax a little bit, I’ve just sleighed all the way to my studio, we’ve had heavy snow and ice, so hopefully I am going to be calm in a moment.”
[mutual laughter]
“How are you? It’s your morning isn’t it? Is it Tuesday morning or…?”
Yes, yes, it’s Tuesday morning, about eight am…
“Oh, well. Good Morning!”
[laughs]
“I hate to tell you Sarah, but you’ve lost a fuckin’ day!” [raucous laughter]
[laughs]
“So, Ambient Light! How sexy is that! Have you meditated yet?”
No, I haven’t I’m afraid, I know you are quite a fan of meditation, but no, I don’t get a lot of time to unfortunately.
“Oh, you have to! You have to make time for yourself my dear; you have to have Sarah time!”
Yes, I keep telling myself that, and eventually I will get there… I think [laughs]
“We’ve [referring to his wife Cindy] always made sure we’ve maintained our relationship as well as being absolutely good parents; we’re there all the time, for every event. You know every night he [Jasper, Coverdale’s son] had a story read to him. But you have make your own time, you really do.”
I will take that to heart…
“You have to listen to yourself when you say; ‘I think I need a bit more time, Sarah time’”
[chuckles] Sarah time … indeed.
“Alright my love, I’m all ears, what would you like?”
Well first of all, congratulations on the latest album, Flesh & Blood!
“Oh! Thank you so much, it’s so bizarre, we’re getting awards and shit everywhere! It’s very sweet, it is very sweet, because when you’re doing an album you don’t anticipate that. I didn’t even expect to be making another album at this time in my career…
But, it’s been great, it has revitalised the band, so cool!”
Yes, I was going to ask, because it’s Whitesnake’s thirteenth album and the album has thirteen tracks, was that a deliberate play on numbers or just a happy coincidence?
“No; no, no, no, no, writing songs about love, nothing is deliberate, that’s just how it turns out. You know I have no idea until somebody tells me, I’ve got amazing, fabulous, social media snake-charmers all over the world, who remind me when it’s an anniversary or this or that…I have no idea. Hopefully lucky thirteen – which it seems to be so far.”
Yes, most definitely!
“But yeah, I’m very happy we made the record, very happy. As are my fellow snakes.”
Yes, well listening to the album and reading some of the latest interviews with you, it does appear that – and many people have actually said this – you are in the happiest place in your life that you ever have been. Would you agree?
“I have a very blessed life, I hate the aging process, in fact I have to be dragged, kicking and screaming every fucking step of the way. The only thing that slowed me down, I had knee surgery for both knees; I am a bionic dude! I have bionic knees now, which is kinda weird, but even that hasn’t stopped me.
My wife said to me ‘Oh my god, you’re jumping around like Justin fucking Bieber’…”
[laughs]
“I don’t know how Justin fucking Bieber jumps around, but apparently I was doing something similar [laughs]. There is life in the old snake yet!”
[chuckles] Excellent! As you just said, you’ve lived a very full and rich life; do you believe that that in many ways has allowed you to explore the aspects of love in a far more in-depth fashion when you were writing songs for the new album?
“Well it’s fascinating, my biggest inspiration of course is my wife Cindy. I’m just working on a couple of projects with my co-producer, of like Whitesnake’s best love songs, best rock songs, you know and I’m going ‘Oh my god, most of these songs – because we’ve been together thirty years – so the last thirty years of songs [are about her].
I think our relationship started when I finished the Slip of the Tongue tour in 1990, and I started writing my first songs about my love for her, about our relationship, on the Coverdale-Page album [1993] when I worked with Jimmy.
So, she is an insane inspirational person in my life, I am still absolutely exacerbated by the entire expression of this love that can elevate you to feel like a superman or a superwoman and then immediately make you feel like dogshit in the gutter you know? It’s such an extraordinary… well it’s not just a human experience, you see animals experience celebrations, sadness and grief you know – but the circumstance is, we’re the ones that articulate it in poetry or art or music.
I’m a huge environmentalist, completely politically involved, but fuck it, I’m not writing about politicians; and I’ll hug trees, but I’m not inspired to write songs about them!”
[laughs] Fair enough…
“It’s still love! Love, love, love; that’s me, and I never Sarah, I never ever sit down at a piano or pick up a guitar with the intentions of writing a perfect love song.
So I gave up going ‘Ugh, not another one’ [laughs] I gave up having that feeling years ago, and I go ‘Well I think this is one of the reasons I’m supposed to’ because it’s such an expression of people in Japan, and Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, America, Europe; everybody can experience and share what I document, which are basically journals about my experiences in my emotional and physical life.”
I have to say that two of my favourites on the album have got to be ‘Always & Forever’ and ‘When I Think of You (Color Me Blue)’ …
“Ah! Well there you go, you’re a romantic. Good lass!”
[laughs]
“I’m in good company! I like those tunes!”
Yeah, I’m an old school hopeless romantic…
“One of the cool things about this album I think, and this is another test from the universe, there were no intentions of doing a new studio album… rock studio album. I sat down separately and then together with my guitarists Reb Beach and Joel Hoekstra, and you know I have worked with Reb for now sixteen years, coming up to seventeen maybe, but we’ve never written together.
Joel’s predecessor [Doug Aldrich] and I, really connected very well in terms of songwriters you know, but once we started cooking, it was really inspirational. Whitesnake has been through a lot of chapters as you probably know – this embraces, pretty much, all the styles I think, that Whitesnake has been through.
The early, nitty-gritty stuff like ‘Good to See You Again’ could have been on Ready an’ Willing [1980] you know what I’m saying?”
Yes, I hear you, most definitely.
“There’s some stuff that could have been on the 87’ album [Whitesnake], I mean ‘Always & Forever’ could have been on the first Whitesnake album [Trouble, 1978] you know, because I’ve always loved strings and guitar harmonies, I was a huge fan of the Allman Brothers; it was orchestral to me and I thought ‘Fuck I want that!’
Then of course I worked with Deep Purple, and you don’t get more fucking orchestral then the amazing Jon Lord – god rest his soul – on keyboards and synths and Richie Blackmore on guitar. I mean we were hitting classical pieces of Bach and all kinds of shit, because of their extraordinary musicality and that rubbed off on me.
So I never ever wanted to be a one trick pony, you know writing heavy riffs and mindless fucking lyrics; I wanted it to tell stories, with melodies that people could sing, whistle or whatever the fuck.
Songs to me are like… if they connect with you, they’re like friends to accompany you on your journey. Stick em in your fucking pocket, it’s always there for you.
The most remarkable thing for me, and an extraordinary compliment, is ‘Here I Go Again’; everybody I meet, has a different Here I Go Again’ story, but it was always something that helped them through a particular crisis, emotional or economic. And that’s just extraordinary, to feel like you are part of the backblock of someone’s life!
People have gotten married to Whitesnake, and unfortunately… people have been farewelled to Whitesnake’s music; it’s incredibly special for me and I can’t think about it too much because it’s overwhelming to imagine the involvement in people’s lives whom I have never met!”
Yes, I can imagine!
“That’s one of the bonuses of social media done in a positive way, I have people from all over the world, they can ask me whatever they fucking want… within reason, of course. So it helps me connect and interact with people who you know, have supported my work, bought my music, t-shirts or fucking tickets, for god knows how many decades, and then I can actually express my gratitude to them. It’s very cool!”
It is very cool, and such a wonderful thing to hear from an artist, especially one of your calibre!
Speaking of connections; the other song that I was going to mention that I think is just stunning, especially as a guitar track is ‘Sands of Time’.
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah!”
I mean, I am a romantic, but that particular track is very much a stand-out on the album.
“Yeah, well we are known and recognised for our epics, but this is just a situation where I’ve put myself in a very good friend’s scenario – I’m not saying his name – but I wrote this song from his perspective and the woman he loves. Because it’s almost tragic that they can’t get together…”
Oh no!
[chuckles] “Every time they come together, something happens, it’s like the sands of time. I have this image of like two CGI characters in my mind, a man and a woman. The wind starts to blow, and they start to blow away, like sand you know? And actually, it’s a star-crossed lovers song, they weren’t supposed to meet in this lifetime, but they knew each other…that’s why it’s got that ancient kind of Egyptian style musical structure.
Yeah, it’s a fascinating song, I wrote that with Reb Beach my band leader, and it’s a really popular song, so thank you. All these songs you’re saying, I’m really digging” [laughs]
[laughs] Well that’s good!
View this post on Instagram
The New Roaring 20’s About To Begin!!! See You On The Road, Beloveds!!!!!!!!!!!
Now obviously, Whitesnake are coming to New Zealand which is very exciting; not only that, but you will be performing a double header show with the fabulous Scorpions!
“Ah, our friends!”
So, when did you first meet Klaus [Meine]?
“Oh god, are you kidding me!? Decades ago! I mean I’m not going to say we’re very old friends, but we are! [laughs] Very old, and great friends. In fact, the guys, I’ve known Rudolf [Schenker], Matthias [Jabs] and Klaus for many, many years, and they honoured me by coming to my dinner in Sao Paulo in South America.
They are actually partially responsible for me coming out of retirement in 2003; it was our 25th anniversary I think of Whitesnake and my record company wanted to do special edition stuff, and suddenly I get a call – as we have a mutual agent – saying ’Can I give Klaus your number?’ and I said ‘Of course, of course’.
So, we talked, and he invited me over; I hadn’t been to America in twelve years at that time, I was very happy being a dad and a husband, and nothing to do with baking bread, sorry Mr Lennon…”
[chuckles]
“We did a co-headline tour of the US, and it was fuckin amazing. My wife actually knew how much – more than I did – I missed performing. So I did it with her blessing; my son was old enough – he was seven – he was old enough to understand that daddy wasn’t vanishing and of course it was the beginning of portable laptops etc, so in those days instead of FaceTime it was iTunes, so I’d chat wherever!
It’s just so weird, it wasn’t that fucking long ago most hotels didn’t have internet, or they had dial-up, it was like Flintstones!”
[laughs]
“But we maintained a great contact and I would write stories and Cindy would read the story to Jasper when she was putting him to bed. And as soon as we felt he was old enough to deal with a rock n roll tour, they came out with me on the road.
It’s just worked out; the huge thing in anybody’s life Sarah – this is what we started out talking about – is balance. That’s what most of us are missing, that balance between work and play, family and self. You’ll be so much more if you give yourself time, even for a walk or five minutes of sitting, closing your eyes and just relaxing, you’ll find you will be more energised.
I just find it invaluable to me.
But balance is the ticket, so I would tour one year, then take the next year off, tour a year, and the next year off, and then I was talked into making a new album! I mean, I’ve sold a lot of records, it wasn’t really a necessity for me, but as an artist, as an expressionist, it was very important.
So you know, I put out the first of this chapter of Whitesnake in 2008 with Good to be Bad, and then an album in 2011, Forevermore; and for the band it showed, that we were still relevant, still writing songs that were strong and potent.
And that’s important to your fans, we’ve just gone over two million views of our last video ‘Shut Up & Kiss Me’ and yeah, it’s so much fucking fun!”
[laughs]
“It’s business, but laced with fun, you know?”
So any last message for your New Zealand fans?
“Thrilled to be coming back! Can’t wait to be with you guys, last time I was there was Wellington [Rock2Wgtn, 2008], fucking Cloudy Bay Oysters, get out of here!”
[laughs] Ah, a big fan of our oysters I see!
“It better be oyster season when I’m there in February, it better be or else I’m going home!” [laughs]
We will make sure it is!
[chuckles] “It’s a great show, it’s a great night of musicians who genuinely care about putting a great show on and who appreciate the fact that you’ve made the effort and spent money to come and see the show.
We’re both extremely aware of how blessed we are and you will see that and hear that in the performance!”
Whitesnake are performing a special one-off concert alongside Scorpions at Auckland’s Spark Arena on the 24th February 2020. Very limited tickets are still available from Ticketmaster but get in quick as they will sell out!
To celebrate this upcoming concert we are giving away two double passes to this epic show! To win, head on over to our Facebook page and answer the skill question on our post advertising this interview. (Competition runs from 07/01/20 – 19/01/20 – terms and conditions in the comments of the Facebook post.)
If you enjoyed this Whitesnake content, please consider donating towards the running of Ambient Light, covering expenses and allowing us to expand the coverage you love by visiting our PressPatron page.
last in NZ 2008
Make sure you go and enter on our Facebook page to be in to win Jacqueline 🙂