Interview: Whitesnake (and ex-Deep Purple) Frontman David Coverdale Is a Charming Badass

Whitesnake, photo by Ash Newell

David Coverdale of Whitesnake and Deep Purple fame is not a tight-lipped gentleman when it comes to discussing his life, his passions, and even his missteps. The name "Whitesnake" alone is enough to immediately conjure up the image of Coverdale driving a Jaguar while a scandalously dressed Tawny Kitaen distracts him from focusing on the road as driving safety was the obvious core theme of “Here I Go Again (On My Own)." While the track and accompanying video were more than enough to establish Whitesnake as one of rock and roll’s most memorable acts, Coverdale’s history goes back much further than automobile distractions and colossal radio hits. For the quintessential frontman, the story began with an unlikely role as the replacement for Ian Gillan as vocalist for one of heavy metal’s most influential acts, Deep Purple.

In both bands, Coverdale’s persona and stage presence commanded attention and awe from audience members, an innate gift the sixty-three-year old is able to tap into even today. This year saw the release of Whitesnake’s twelfth album, The Purple Album, a collection of songs unique in the fact that it’s a reimagined-by-way-of-Whitesnake collection of Deep Purple deep cuts (rimshot) written during Coverdale’s tenure with the band. I recently spoke with Coverdale, whose charisma was infectious enough to inspire a personal Whitesnake binge incomplete if only for the fact that I don’t own a Camaro IROC-Z.

Noisey: This album was a bit of a new direction for Whitesnake given the fact that it’s a collection of Deep Purple covers. How did the idea of making the record initially start?
Coverdale: Well, it was a project that was birthed from the tragedy of losing Jon Lord. I had absolutely nothing on my radar or my agenda whatsoever to do this project as delighted as I am now that I’ve done it. But in 2012 I received a call from Jon Lord’s representative who informed me that Jon had been diagnosed with cancer, which was horrifying to somebody who I loved and honored and revered, but he told me that Jon had asked if I would be there for him to do something Purple related. I said, “You fucking tell him ‘Absolutely. I’m there for you.’”

Of course, everyone knows we lost Jon Lord, which was awful, and at the same time my wife lost her brother Daniel, and I lost a treasured, precious aunt who’d introduced me back when I was six or seven-years-old to Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley records. It was this enormous pall over my home and family, and my wife and I were discussing what we could possibly learn from all of this. Mine was a modest sort of epiphany where I just thought to myself: “I’m too old to carry around this anger, this bitterness, and this resentment. It’s excessive emotional baggage that I don’t wanna have.” So I started to reach out to people in my private and professional life to make amends for any hurt or pain, and thankfully 99.9% of the people totally accepted the olive branch or the handshake and let bygones be bygones.

When I had, it was really necessary for me to reach out to Ritchie Blackmore, and I had two reasons for that. One was to share and commiserate the grief of losing Jon, and the other was to thank Ritchie personally, as I’d been able to do with Jon Lord, Ian Paice, and Glenn Hughes, for the incredibly brave and courageous decision in giving an unknown singer such a golden opportunity to be the lead singer for one of the biggest bands in the world. I’d never even made a fucking record, Jonathan! Yet here I was as the frontman and lead singer for Deep Purple. That was my sole agenda, and fortunately Ritchie was open to receive it, because we hadn’t really communicated on any kind of positive level for over thirty years. That’s one thing I said when I was revisiting these songs and going, “Fuck. It’s over forty years ago?” I’m not a nostalgia guy, you know? I’m from the past as opposed to living in it.

But Ritchie and I communicated through the end of 2012 and going into 2013 when he asked me if I’d speak to his manager, and I said “Sure.” It was very funny, Jonathan, because his first words to me were, “Can you keep a secret?” And I said, “No! I’m a fucking singer! We don’t fucking name names, but we’re the biggest gossips on the planet.” We started talking about stuff and how I might fancy doing a project with Ritchie again, and I was like “Well, what kind of project are you thinking? I’m pretty tied up.” I was on tour with Whitesnake at this time during the "Year of the Snake" tour in 2013. We talked about personnel and what we would do, like maybe cover the songs of Purple, Rainbow, and Whitesnake, and how that might be an interesting thing. The more I talked to his manager, though, the more I started to think, "I can’t share this vision."

I wanted very much to speak to Ritchie, but I did it in a very lengthy, respectful email. Fortunately we’re still communicating, but I withdrew from that project, but at the time when Ritchie and I had been communicating, I’d dug out the old Purple studio albums Burn, Stormbringer, and Come Taste the Band, and I thought well, he’s not gonna want to do any of the Come Taste the Band stuff because that was with Tommy Bolin, God rest his soul. But there’s ample material from Burn and Stormbringer, and I thought, "My God, I’m so fucking naïve on some of this stuff," and I was! I was 21, 22-fucking-years-old, so I just started messing around which is very much what I do.

I started to do an unplugged version of “Sail Away,” and I was getting all of these little benefits from my experience after all of these years of liking music and arranging music and being my own boss. I had all these ideas, and it was unfolding really cool. I was having dinner with my wife, and I said, “You know what, it’s sad. All this work I’ve done is really cool, but it’s never gonna see the light of day,” and it was my wife who suggested I consider it as a Whitesnake project, and that was the beginning. That was like the end of 2013, and that was when the actual seed of doing this tribute album was planted.

Did you see yourself approaching these songs differently now as opposed to when you were that guy in your early twenties?
Yes. I was looking at how can I redecorate them but at the same time maintain the integrity of the songs, and apparently I’m pretty good at it, according to my record label. [Laughs] Remember, though, that my lessons were primarily learned from Ritchie and Jon, who were the colossi of worlds to me. Jon taught me so much. I was this rough diamond out of North England, and Jon introduced me to elegant wines and charm and classical music that I hadn’t been exposed to. He was just a beautiful mentor, a Renaissance man and raconteur. Ritchie was more internalized but an insanely capable musician, and of course my muse was Jimi Hendrix and still is. For me to sit next to Ritchie, who was just this astonishingly good guitar player and very complete musician writing music, was just a gift from God. The whole experience changed my life and my perspective and started me on the voyage that I’m still on. I’ve always been like a sponge, just learning stuff.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels. I’m always challenging myself to be better at singing, better at writing a story, better at writing a more poetic lyric. All of these things still apply to me. If you stuck a plug up my ass I could still light up a decent size city to do what I do. [Laughs] God forbid that diminishes, but I only have positive and inspiring things in my life. Anything that isn’t doesn’t last very long, and I bring all of that to dinner. I bring all that to shows. Being able to devour Muddy Waters and then switch over to Frank Sinatra, then comfortably switch over to Otis Redding and then over to Luciano Pavarotti – all of this stuff goes into the Coverdale blender. I’m not just inspired by a couple of rock singers from the 60s or the 70s. My history goes as far back as music itself.

You’ve maintained your own creative vision for over four decades now, and it doesn’t look like you’ll be slowing down anytime soon. What’s behind the wheel for you creatively speaking?
Passion. I’m passionate about what I do. I’ve never looked upon it as a legacy or my place in posterity or like I deserve a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s just laughable to me. My scenario is challenging myself to write better songs, to sing better, to perform better. Of course as I’m getting older, although you have people like the Stones who are going out at 72 which is mind boggling, but I’m going out at 63. I’ve survived. I’ve been through a lot of peaks and valleys and survived simply by stepping aside and waxing my surfboard in between the waves.

I’ve never tried to force Whitesnake down anybody’s throat, and I’ve never gone to parties uninvited. My work ethic is not to just fart music but to really look at the structure of it and get the best out of my musicians, and hopefully they get the best out of me at the same time. Suddenly you turn around and realize, “Oh my god! I’ve been doing this for over 40 years!” It’s an epiphany I had while working on The Purple Album, where I was just like, “How did this happen? How did we get here?” You get to my age, and every fucking week there’s an anniversary of an album or something else band-related to celebrate. [Laughs] It’s astonishing.

But it wasn’t this grandiose plan. It’s learning as you go and then applying it to the philosophy of what you do. I don’t wanna do anything I can’t stand behind. It’s why I stepped away from the project with Ritchie. I would have fucking loved to do it, and even earlier this year his manager had called me and asked if I’d do a song for Ritchie, and I said, “Yeah, but not an old one that we’ve done. He must be sitting there jamming on some riffs. Tell him to send me some riffs, and I’ll make a fucking song out of it.” It’s what I do. So far I haven’t had any new Ritchie riffs to mess with, but it would be fantastic for me as it would be in fulfilling one of Jon Lord’s ambitions to have all surviving members of Deep Purple do a fucking big show as a “Thank you” to the insanely loyal fanbase that Purple has, and not only Deep Purple, but all the splinter groups. I’m totally down for that.

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