By Mitch Lafon

David Coverdale’s WHITESNAKE might be best known for their 1980’s big hair videos, but there’s nothing old or dated about the band’s latest album, Forevermore. Filled with giant choruses, big hooks, huge drums, and a sense of urgency, Coverdale (who turns 60 in September) and his merry men have turned in the band’s most consistent album since their MTV days. The affable frontman sat down with bravewords.com to discuss the band’s new album and set out his long term vision for this version of the ‘Snake, but first and without prompting, he jumps right into the conversation to talk about visiting Montreal in the winter on the SCORPIONS tour (with DOKKEN) in 2003.

David Coverdale: “I’ve had the pleasure of your city in deep winter. I sought out the sun beds to get that little ten-minute charge. It’s a very sensible idea actually. I remember getting off the tour bus and saying something and it froze like in a comic speech bubble… That tour was with the Scorpions. That’s always sensible to go out with Germans and tour in the winter… go as far north as you fucking can.”

BraveWords.com: You also went further north to Quebec City on that tour.

Coverdale: "Absolutely. We should have been on skates and had dog sleds. It was the mush-mush tour.”

BraveWords.com: I quite enjoyed that tour.

Coverdale: "Thank you very much. It was actually interesting. I had told my band that we’d only tour for two or three months, but we had such fun… I went out for two months, but came back nine months later.”

BraveWords.com: But that’s a good thing.

Coverdale: "It’s fantastic and it was with my wife’s blessing. I thought that I was quite happy being the retired rock ‘n roller in my little mountain stately cabin, but my wife knew that I missed the performing. Not the business side, but the performing… the telling of my stories and the interaction with the audience. It was great, so I made a deal with my guys – ‘let’s look at four months a year’. That’s how we started off. I had no intentions of this revamped Whitesnake making any albums. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to go out a couple months a year and feature… Do you know that of all the songs and all the albums I’ve done Mitch that I’ve only played maybe twenty percent of the songs I’ve recorded (if that)? Once you start getting hits (God Bless them) that takes up half the show. I’ve always considered Whitesnake an album band like in the ‘70s, but we’ve had remarkable success with singles. It’s wild… pretty wild. It was our little cherry on top of the Whitesnake cake.”

BraveWords.com: The other day I loaded up all my Whitesnake CDs into iTunes to make a quick greatest hits compilation. It took me nearly fourteen hours.

DC: (Laughs) “Foolish boy!”

BraveWords.com: I had picked out about a hundred songs, but I wanted to get it down to about fifteen.

Coverdale: "I’ll tell you what’s easiest. Now that we’re announcing tour dates, come on our very interactive website Whitesnake.com. My supporters know what they want and they’re not shy about telling me. Everyone is coming out with their ideas for the set list and couple that with my musicians and my tour manager who are threatening to leave if I drop this particular song or don’t do that. It’s pretty funny. What I’ve been doing and enjoying immensely of late is that I’ve put together a playlist with the new album (Forevermore) and Good To Be Bad. I just put it on random and it’s kick ass. It’s very inspiring on the old elliptical trainer.”

BraveWords.com: I enjoy the new album, Forevermore, immensely. I actually bought the Japanese version because I couldn’t wait to hear it and I wanted the bonus track.

Coverdale: "A lot of people did. God bless the Japanese. They’ve looked after me for forty years and it’s heartbreaking this tragedy that has unfolded. I told my Italian record company guys, ‘what the hell are you doing? You’re giving the Japanese the stuff a month before anyone else. You’re nuts. They’re the ‘import’ kings.’ Pretty much everyone on my web site has bought the import.”

BraveWords.com: I’ve always enjoyed Whitesnake and I actually got my import copy from Japan (in my mailbox) weeks before I got a promo copy from the record company.

Coverdale: "Let me tell you, you beat me to it. I’ve had my unlabelled mastered production copy from the L.A. studio, but I only received my actual finished CD yesterday. You beat the artist, mate. Did you get the fourteen tracks?”

BraveWords.com: Yes, I got the version with the Swamp Mix of 'Whipping Boy Blues'.

Coverdale: "The Swamp Mix is a blast. My son (Jasper) is actually on percussion on that.”

BraveWords.com: Is he really?

Coverdale: "Yeah and he sings with me. He’s a special guest. He’s actually doing an interview with me tomorrow on live radio. I think he’ll try to one up his dad. The video ('Love Will Set You Free') is a family affair. My son is doing the neon sign and my wife is the pole-dancer (the mysterious woman who I’m hoping to get lucky with). My son sang with me Steal Your Heart Away on the big Viking breakdown after the solo. He’s favouring the drums, but I’ve told him the singers get the chicks.”

BraveWords.com: He can hang out with Briian Tichy in the back of the tour bus.

Coverdale: "Oh, my God isn’t Tichy something else? He’s the next big name isn’t he? We’ve come out of ten years of no guitar heroes (with a lot of the new music). Right now, the field is wide open for guitar heroes and drum heroes. I think I’m blessed with the best guitar slingers and this new rhythm section I’ve dubbed the wrecking crew’. Tichy was supposed to be in the very first revamped Whitesnake, but I actually didn’t call him personally. Michael, my assistant, was about to call him and say you’re in when Marco Mendoza said to me, ‘Tommy told me to say hi and he’s there for you if you need him’. He’s the only guy I’ve gone back too. Everybody who comes in has brought something amazing to the Whitesnake garden party, but when they start feeling that Whitesnake should be a vehicle for them instead of the other way around is when we come to disagreements. I was looking for a Tommy Aldridge styled drummer so thankfully… Briian and I have talked about this and laughed about it. Of course when I did need a new drummer he was very firmly embedded in FOREIGNER…”

BraveWords.com: and Billy Idol.

Coverdale: "Yeah, he did both. He’s like Cozy (Powell) – God Rest His Soul. Briian’s focus and passion for his instrument astonishes me. I never have a shortage of people wanting to be ‘Snakes, but their passion and commitment is so necessary as much as their ability… it’s about how to take Whitesnake to the next level. When we shot the first video (Love Will Set You Free), and even though we play to soundtrack, we actually perform the song… I can’t just stand there and mime. Briian was deafening. He’s absolutely deafening behind me. I can feel like punches in my back. I can’t wait to do shows with him.”

BraveWords.com: And he can play anything…

Coverdale: "He’s a fantastic rock drummer as you know, but his two favourite songs right now are 'Easier Said Than Done' (because it has that AL GREEN feel to it) and 'Fare Thee Well'. I’m going, ‘not fucking My Evil Ways’ or Dogs In The Street?’ He’s a musician and that’s what I love. He’s not just a thunder and lightning guy and believe me he’s Thor – the God of fucking thunder. He’s a good geezer too… a very good bloke.”

BraveWords.com: Let me ask you a couple of questions. A lot of the bands that came out of your era are happy to be heritage acts. They tour and that’s about it. Not you – you insist on making new music. Why is it important for you to have new product?

Coverdale: "That’s a fine question. For most of my career, I’ve toured every three years and I’m from the old school where a tour is a promotional tool to promote an album. Mick Jagger taught me the other way around – THE STONES ‘we make albums to promote tours’. That’s what Good To Be Bad did. It gave us two very heady years of touring and fifty percent new music to perform. So, once you start in this new environment (which is very different to what I’ve worked within for many many years), it basically encourages you to tour annually. You have to be very discerning because it still has to be somewhat of an event rather than ‘oh, we saw them three months ago’.”

BraveWords.com: That happens with a lot of bands…

Coverdale: "I don’t do that comparison thing. I just do what we do. The circumstance is that once I started touring annually for a couple of months some of my older songs felt really old. So, I thought if that feels that way for me… there was a lot of synchronicity involved in making what became Good To Be Bad. But if I felt that than I knew a percentage of my hardcore supporters felt the same.”

BraveWords.com: Good To Be Bad was a great album…

Coverdale: "It was a cracking album. I love the record – you kidding me? I’m on the record as saying that if it’s the last studio album I ever make – then fine. That’s quite a statement with what I’ve got under my belt. What it brought to us was fifty percent new songs to the shows and the older songs got recharged, reenergized, as did I and the musicians I work with. It was a blessing to do that. Which brings us to now, I had no intentions of making a new album last year. I was going to be mixing the Live At Donington DVD, some greatest hits stuff, some other in concert material, but several companies came out in passionate pursuit of a new Whitesnake album to which I was very comfortable in saying ‘no’, but a fabulous character in today’s industry (Serafino Perugino) refused to let go. He was relentless in his pursuit. I said, ‘well ok. Let’s do this.’ I always write music, Mitch. I follow the east-Indian philosophy of communion with your instrument before you take on the affairs of the day. I always come up with little ideas and I’ll put them down on an electronic recording device for future reference. So, I drove down to Los Angeles and spent a couple of days with Doug Aldrich to see what ideas he had because a lot of our songs are marriages. We sat down and wrote 'One Of These Days' in the first two hours. Then we went into an older song of ours, 'Whipping Boy Blues'. We hadn’t finished it off for Good To Be Bad. We didn’t have the inspiration, but this time it unfolded beautifully. We, then, went straight into 'All Out Of Luck' and I thought, ‘this is more than enough to make a start’. So, I called Frontiers and said, ‘ok, you’ve got a deal’. The bonus here is that with people as passionate as Tichy it’s much more of a band album than Good To Be Bad. Doug and I did most of the stuff on the last record.”

BraveWords.com: Does this mean that this is the last album?

Coverdale: "I have no idea. People keep asking me if that’s the sentiment on 'Fare Thee Well', but basically 'Fare Thee Well' is a continuation of 'We Wish You Well' (from way back when) and it’s a thank you to the audience at the end of a show. It’s like when you’re at school, you can’t wait for summer vacation, but then you go ‘Christ, I’m not going to see all my mates again.’ It’s a joy tinged with sadness. The musical bridge of the song goes, ‘all of the joys and tears we’ve shared’. It’s been a fantastic relationship, but it’s not the end by far. This is a song for you to stick in your pocket for your relationship if it’s gone south or… Who knows if this is the farewell album? I do know that I’m sixty years old in September and if it takes me a year to write new material and mix it comfortably…It’s not working everyday in the studio. We take breaks all the time because I dictate the times that we work. So, if I get tired or we lose focus – we take a break.”

BraveWords.com: Does writing new music still excite you?

Coverdale: "Yeah – absolutely! It’s inflames me. It’s absolutely necessary for me to create new music, but it’s not necessary for me to record it. When I was a young child, I always had the urge to express myself. I would write poetry, but once you turn to your mates and go ‘the moon is like a golden orb’, you’d get your ass kicked. But I would write poems and once I learned to play an instrument; those poems became lyrics.”

BraveWords.com: You just mentioned poetry. A lot of the themes (and titles) in your songs over the years deal with love. You seem to have an affinity for talking about love and relationships. Where does that stem?

Coverdale: "Well, I’m an incurable romantic. The circumstance is that I fought a personal battle trying not to write love songs. I would never sit down with the intentions, and I still don’t, of writing love songs, but that’s what comes out. So, I made a deal with God, years ago, that I wouldn’t fight it anymore.”

BraveWords.com: So, it’s all love from now on…

Coverdale: "Exactly. It really is. I’m politically aware and involved. I’m environmentally aware and involved. As much as I love Barrack Obama, I have no intentions or inspiration to write a love song to him.  I’m surrounded by billions of stunning pine trees and I’ll hug them now and again after a glass of this or that, but writing about it has never fuelled me. However, my experiences with my wife… it’s exploring love on different themes. It’s one of the lyrics of 'Whipping Boy Blues' – ‘over, under, sideways, down’. I didn’t want 'Easier Said Than Done' to be just another re-working of the lyric of 'Is This Love'. It has a uniqueness of its own. If I was just repeating myself – then it would be a problem. What I do try to do is avoid the word ‘love’ in titles.”

BraveWords.com: Did you do it this time? Let me see – 'Love Will Set You Free', 'Love & Treat Me Right'…

Coverdale: "Well no, there’s a couple of there, but next time – believe you me…”

BraveWords.com: The next album will be called Love?

Coverdale: "What we’ll do is write the next love songs in nice Hallmark greeting card font (laughs).”

BraveWords.com: I could see you taking songs like 'Is This Love', with Briian in the band, and turning them up to ten and making them rockers…

Coverdale: "That’s what I’m saying to you. Briian’s two favourite songs right now are the ballad, 'Easier Said Than Done', and 'Fare Thee Well' which is like a mid-tempo. Yes, he’s solid on it, but it’s another backbeat. It’s not the big 'Steal Your Heart Away'. I think he’s breathtaking throughout and I love his work on 'Love Will Set You Free'. I was talking to Glenn Hughes recently and when he heard 'Love Will Set You Free' he said, ‘man, we could have put that on Stormbringer and I told him, ‘wait till you hear 'Tell Me How'’. It’s that fusion of rock, soul and funk. Briian is right there, man and I thank him for bringing Michael Devin into the picture. The rhythm section is hugely important to me and trying to get it right is really… it’s like the mix of two guitarists. Every guitarist I’ve worked with really feels deep down that they want to be the only guitarist, but I want two and I don’t want the same style. I’ve got two great guitar slingers and they’ve been with me for eight years. This time we’ve got Reb singing on the album, which is fucking great. Briian’s a great singer. (Michael) Devin is a great singer and Doug’s getting there. He’s got a good drone going. All the layers are covered now. We’ve got a thick rhythm section with a wall of guitars and voices to be able to make these choruses scream out.”

BraveWords.com: Reb was in WINGER. The band got made fun of back in the ‘80s by Metallica…

Coverdale: "When I worked with JIMMY PAGE, I was so angry that he became the poster boy… KIP WINGER is an extraordinarily talented singer and musician. I mean extraordinarily gifted. I spoke to Page about bringing him in to the Coverdale/Page project. Then I heard from a mutual acquaintance (you know Kip had no idea of this), that they’d signed to do a new WINGER record. So, I didn’t knock on his door. A lot of people don’t even know that I do research on them when I’m looking for musicians. But fuck you – this is a talented guy. It was heartbreaking that that cartoon and all that made him the poster boy of everything wrong. The guy can sing rings around most of these people.”

BraveWords.com: The vibe I got from the internet when Reb joined the band was that fans were disappointed that Whitesnake ‘got the Winger guy’ and that the band was going to suck now…

Coverdale: "Absolutely, but number one I do stuff to please myself and not for some anonymous cretins out there. Everybody has got an opinion, but they’re just like assholes - everyone has one. My feeling is to give somebody a chance and that’s what we do. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Reb Beach will tell you now that it was his destiny, from the first time he heard Whitesnake that he was to be part of the band. Believe me, Reb has his quota of fans (I assure you) that come to see Reb Beach go bat-shit on the guitar. It’s like he becomes possessed.”

BraveWords.com: Before you go, let me ask you about the Donington 1990 live set that will be released in June.

Coverdale: "It’s fantastic. It’s Steve Vai, Adrian Vanderberg, Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge and myself. I know for a fact that there were 90,000 people, but that was over the licensed limit so we had to put on 72,500 people. Once we started mixing this, it made me re-assess that chapter. It was definitely a different Whitesnake. It’s extraordinarily flamboyant and incredibly flamboyant musically, which it’s impossible for it not to be given that cast of characters. I’m absolutely thrilled that this is coming out to showcase what that was. We played to over a million people on that tour. It was amazing and amazingly successful. I finished that thing because I was worn out of four years of non-stop work and a private life that was in absolute chaos. I filed for divorce, but nobody knew. There’s actually behind-the-scenes footage where we walk off-stage and it finishes at the last show (which I think was Budokan in Tokyo). I had my wardrobe girl burn all my clothes and I said to the band, ‘please don’t be calling me and that I’m going to take some time off’. I told them I was getting a divorce. I came home and it a matter of weeks, I met my wife to be and we’ve just celebrated over twenty years together… amazing. And that Christmas, I got a call from Jimmy Page asking if I’d be interested in doing a project. So, my retirement was pretty short lived.”

BraveWords.com: Is there more Whitesnake in the pipeline?

Coverdale: "Yes, there’s a bunch of stuff. People only think Whitesnake is on tour or whatever, but Whitesnake is 24/7 – it really is. It’s bigger than the sum of it's parts.”

(All David Coverdale live photos by Mark Gromen)