WHITESNAKE: ABSENCE OF THE LORD
Detroit has special meaning for singer David Coverdale. "It’s the first place I ever played in America with Deep Purple. A great fucking town! I think I saw a few children of mine out there tonight. And I haven’t seen that Boy Howdy thing in years!”
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WHITESNAKE: ABSENCE OF THE LORD
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Detroit has special meaning for singer David Coverdale. "It’s the first place I ever played in America with Deep Purple. A great fucking town! I think I saw a few children of mine out there tonight. And I haven’t seen that Boy Howdy thing in years!”
We talked to Coverdale after the show, a show that featured sing-a-longs, hello Detroits, state-of-the-art mike stand juggling, the Uzi rattatat drumming of Cozy Powell, a truly ethereal guitar solo by John Sykes—who later said half his effects had gone out in the middle—and a lot of good feeling.
The audience participation?
“It’s so important to me,” says Coverdale. “You see, when I was with Purple I never met any of the people who were actually buying the records. I was wrapped in fucking security blankets...all I met was the heads of record companies and or that particular song meant to somebody. One of the most magnificent things I’ve ever experienced is really sharing a song with 10,000 people.”
the presidents of African nations. I didn’t know who I was touching, I just knew we were going to rock ’em all over the world. However, when I started Whitesnake, it was at much more of a street level, and I found out for the first time just how much this particular song meant to somebody
The members of Whitesnake have all been rock stars most of their adult lives. They’re all tall and have 28 inch waists, and look like they could get away with wearing pointed hats with stars and moons and flowing capes with furburger linings. Quiet Riot, on the other hand, don’t. Headliners in Detroit, the Kevin DuBrow-led “gang” are about the same size as Mary Lou Retton and look like they shower in a car wash—against their will. They’re also working hard at being the band you most want your parents to hate. How were Whitesnake getting on with them?
“With all due respect, they’ve treated us great. Kevin knows more about my fucking history than I do. I know Kevin has got this dreadful fucking horrid reputation—which I’m sure he deserves (laughs)—he’s got a big mouth, but to me he’s got a bigger heart. I’ve got nothing but fucking good to say about Quiet Riot, and I tip my hat in that direction,
“However, there is this paranoia about *the platinum-level, fucking superstars band in America that makes them want to take a turkey act out with them. Nobody would touch Whitesnake, so I say thank you, Kevin. In Europe, when we go out we take out Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Squier, ZZ Top, Meatloaf, Twisted Sister...the kids pay a bloody fortune for the tickets and shouldn’t have to sit through 45 minutes of dross.”
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There's an attitude of hard-edge professionalism about these “older” English bands, a paucity of naughtiness, a dearth of public displays of ignorance, and an attitude that is at the same time elevated (uppity?) and honest (rehearsed?). We asked.
“I’ve instilled in all of my crew...which I think is the best in the world...and the musicians that I work with, that in America, if we have a European attitude, we’ll clean up. If we adopt an American attitude, we’ll fall by the wayside. I can’t, as clever as I fucking think I am, give you an answer...a reason, but I do know there’s a difference between the cultures and mentalities. Most of the bands from Europe that have been successful in your country come from extreme working class backgrounds. Struggling like fuck to get out it.”
Struggling in was a blonde tenderette with a torn t-shirt; cute bunny eyes, half-sloshed with maybe a quarter of a ‘lude under her multiple belt. Oooh, me thinks, here’s when Whitesnake becomes one-eyed trouser snake. But no...
It walks, it talks, it adores, it exclaims:
“In my ninth grade typing class...I gotta tell you something, I gotta, it’s going to crack you up, my last year of junior high, we had to take typing and in order to make us type fast they used to make us type to Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On The Water,’ like only they’d play it real loud and it was great it really was!!”
Coverdale: "That’s wonderful, it really makes it all worthwhile...”
☆ ☆ ☆
Many of Whitesnake’s songs feature a slow intro that allows Coverdale to stretch his chops, to make his unadorned voice heard before the din commences.
“I love the human voice. It’s the most passionate instrument I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s my first instrument. I used to sing along with Eddie Somebody’s ‘Singing the Blues’ when I was four-years-old. I’ve always loved to sing.”
Another love is “keeping it alive,” whatever spirit that nudged the combined world culture out of the paleolithic early ’60s and has since surged and stalled and heaved and whored its way to 1984: the English spirit of good hard rock ’n’ roll.
“That’s it. That’s the whole fucking thing. That, and this Whitesnake is one of the few bands where you see smiles in the audience. If an audience doesn’t react to a piece of music it’s grim for me...
“There are no passengers on H.M.S. Whitesnake. Everybody’s who’s involved with this band—from the crew to the members of the orchestra—are there for one reason and one reason alone: because they can fucking cut the mustard. And because it's such a small and tight unit, we can tell immediately if anybody’s cruising. And that’s when they’re invited to participate in what we call 'a ticket home.’ ”
—Jim Gustafson
