WHITESNAKE are playing the prestigious Download Festival this Sunday, June 14th at Donington Park, UK. Metro.co.uk spoke to mainman David Coverdale about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metro.co.uk: Is it true you have a four-octave range?

Coverdale: "I have no idea. I practise rock n’ roll ventriloquism: I throw the voice and hopefully it gets there. It’s going very well, seeing that dogs can hear it. I am delighted that I go from a whisper to a scream. Ritchie Blackmore said it is a man’s voice and that’s a big compliment. I like having a man’s voice."

Metro.co.uk: Any idea how many people have popped their cherry to Slide It In?

Coverdale: "Certainly a lot of people in the media – reluctantly at times – tell me they did. It’s also very good for pole dancing. All these things do not figure when one’s putting these songs together. I am 58 this September, so I have got a couple of good years left and I got a gold record for a new album in days when you’re not supposed to be able to sell records. Somebody out there seems to support The Snake."

Metro.co.uk: Where did that name come from?

Coverdale: "From my penis. If I had been from Africa it would have been Blacksnake. But, no, it was actually a song I wrote in the dying embers of Deep Purple."

Metro.co.uk: Didn’t the model on the Slide It In cover faint because of the snake?

Coverdale: "There were actually two girls. The first one was 17 years old and she fainted dead away. We had to get another model in to do the back cover. Basically the press dictated the sexist response from Whitesnake. The more the press jumped on that, the more I pushed back with the sexist aspect. Regardless, we had a very high percentage of fine young ladies at our shows. They were the loudest singing along to Slide It In, to be perfectly honest. A lot of other songs were tongue-in-cheek stuff. And fortunately I had the substance of other songs to forge a soon-to-be 40-year career."

Metro.co.uk: What has been your most rock n’ roll moment?

Coverdale: "When we were in California we jammed with DEEP PURPLE and we had this beautiful private plane called the Starship and we had Warner Brothers sending movies that hadn’t been released. We kept getting this message that somebody called Miss Lovelace wanted to see us but we ignored it. We actually got on the plane and took off and put on Deep Throat and only then found out who Linda Lovelace was. That was a sad moment, but there you go."

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