Legendary Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden will release his new solo album, Shine, on August 18th in Europe via Provogue/Mascot Records as a double-LP, CD and digital download. The album will be released in North America on September 30th.

A new lyric video for the album's lead track, “Linin' Track”, can be seen below:

Looking towards the release of Shine, the Buckinghamshire-born guitarist shares, “To me, it’s a classic rock album with a modern feel. When I asked the bosses at Provogue what type of album they wanted from me, they simply replied: ‘Make a Bernie Marsden album’. And that’s what I did.”

The light, airy commercial feel of Shine is largely attributable to producer Rob Cass, who pieced together its contents in Studio 3 of the legendary Abbey Road facility, though the backing tracks for three of its selections were cut at Riverside Studios in Somerset. During the 1980's Cass had actually spent six months as the lead singer of Marsden’s group Alaska before carving a career as a successful producer with a wide range of rock, pop and classical artists. It was Cass who sought out Marsden, emailing him to suggest they catch up over a reunion lunch at the home of his production company, located at Abbey Road Studios.

Marsden offers, “Rob wanted to thank me for having sent him an air ticket to come to London from Ireland [to join Alaska] and helping to get his career underway. Coincidentally, I was looking for a producer because I’ve been writing, playing and producing for too long. I really liked the sounds that Rob gets, and that’s how the whole thing came together. If people think I was recording at Abbey Road because Whitesnake’s "Here I Go Again" made 18 gazillion quid then they’re quite wrong… though it did make 17 gazillion quid!”

Marsden believes that the famous facility has an atmosphere that permeates the sounds created within its walls – hence the album’s final instrumental song is titled NW8, after the studio’s postcode. He reflects, “The Beatles recorded Revolver, my favorite album of theirs in Studio 3, so it has that sense of history. I honestly believe Abbey Road to be the best studio in the world.”

Although Marsden was wary of flooding the credits with too many special guests, Sine does feature some extremely well-known names, from Joe Bonamassa to Whitesnake singer David Coverdale, and the Deep Purple duo of Ian Paice (drums) and Don Airey (keyboards). Jimmy Copley of Jeff Beck fame behind the kit and Mark Feltham of Nine Below Zero also supplies some breathtaking harmonica playing. Marsden states, “I can’t help it, I’ve got a lot of mates – and quite a few of them are guitar players."

Shine tracklisting:

“Linin' Track”
“Wedding Day”
“Walk Away”
“Kinda Wish She Would”
“Ladyfriend”
“Trouble”
“Who Do We Think We Are?”
“Bad Blood”
“Shine”
“Dragonfly”
“You Better Run”
“Hoxie Rollin' Time”
“NW8”

Trailer:

As for the style of the album, Bernie told BraveWords recently: “There’s quite a bit of Ready An’ Willing in there. And you know, we’ve got David (Coverdale) singing on it, which is fantastic. You know, and getting him involved was really, really good for me. That felt really... I don’t know, what’s the word? It felt right. To do that track. To say, ‘Mate, do you want to sing on this?’ ‘Yeah, of course.’ So it was great. We didn’t have to ring up managers and stuff in order to do this. It was just two guys talking together. He did it and it was great. And then JOE BONAMASSA got involved... well, Joe was involved really from the beginning, and it was through him that I got to meet these people from his record label. I’ve been playing with Joe off and on for about two years, invited out to his gigs and stuff and then finally the guys came out and said, ‘Hey, we’d like you to make an album for us.’ And it was great. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll make an album for you but I want Joe to play on a track’ (laughs). Joe’s great; he’s a really good guy but you know about him anyway.”

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