![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/glover2.jpg)
Grinding to a halt with comedy
A couple of Whitesnake related historical anecdotes.
Simon Phillips tells a story how a cup of tea and biscuits with Roger Glover led to a gig with larger than life David Coverdale on the latter’s solo album WhiteSnake:
Rudy Sarzo recalls how he was a part of the MTV-friendly era of Whitesnake, when hairspray, makeup, and spandex suddenly became important.
Thanks to Uwe on both counts.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Simon Phillips, bless him. Wonderful stories there and yes he was a busy lad at that time. A superb drummer indeed, one of my favourites. Thanks for that little trip down memory lane. The Rudy Sarzo interview was a good one too. I want my MTV……………. money for nothing and the chicks for free…………… Cheers
October 18th, 2025 at 23:33You could say that the whole Sin After Sin album is a Simon Phillips drum clinic with Judas Priest playing in the background 😆:
https://youtu.be/YmD4qZj0lNY
https://youtu.be/TddtYPOBdOg
(Also Rob’s gay coming out song which however no one at the time got – probably because practices in NYC gay bars were not yet in common awareness; even Rob hadn’t been to one, just read about them, Priest didn’t tour the US for the first time until after Sin After Sin was released.)
When I first heard those songs in the spring of 1977,
[I bought Sin After Sin immediately after NME had given both it (“aimless guitar interplay”) and the single release Diamonds & Rust (“come back Deep Purple, if all can certainly never be forgiven, it is by now at least forgotten …”) scathing, but hilarious reviews, they piqued my interest.]
my first thought was, oh wow, here is a new Ian Paice – if not even better. The drumming really stood out and the Judas Priest guys were in awe too (making young Simon a job offer, but he had already signed up with Jack Bruce).
October 19th, 2025 at 14:14Judas Priest first thing in the morning, steady on there Uwe. At least my coffee didn’t curdle, he he he. If that was Ian Gillan screaming like a banshee, my coffee was done for. As I have said before, Priest back then had such a good sound to their oeuvre, everything in check, no unnecessary distortion and over the top compression, not trying to sound bigger than they were, for want of a better description. Thanks for that. I probably didn’t hear Simon Phillips drumming until a little later than that. Pete Townshend’s Empty Glass album or even the 801 live album. Cheers.
October 19th, 2025 at 20:59The Glover production of Sin After Sin is really good,
https://youtu.be/ZT1k2jw4Nbw
(Great eloquent lyrics btw, who says I can’t be whimsical, poetic and, yes, deeply romantic?!)
especially as it was miraculously all done in very short time as he was first forced on JP by CBS, JP then revealed that they really didn’t want a producer and he graciously stepped back only to get a few weeks later a cry for help from Halford and Tipton that they were failing in the attempt to produce themselves and could he please return to save them? 😂 And Roger, being the decent human being he is, didn’t scoff or gloat, but knuckled down to it and did the salvage job for them in record time (no pun intended!). Without even getting paid as he likes to remind members of JP to this day whenever he meets them! 🤣
Ian Hill who admired Roger as a bassist was likely chuffed by his return – he was certainly never again more audible on a Judas Priest record than on Sin After Sin. Call it professional courtesy from bassist to bassist! 🤗
I think my early falling for Priest had a lot to do with Roger’s production – Martin Birch-inspired as it was, it simply sounded familiar to me, you could hear everything neatly separated and clearly. At the same time it had a commercial sheen, but not too
much, Sin After Sin’s sound is very reminiscent of how the Nazareth albums sounded Roger had produced a few years earlier.
https://youtu.be/RYsjB4_1deM
Or also his great production of a Quo single which miraculously and lamentably did not lead to him producing a full album with them:
https://youtu.be/82_jIzWHPUY
(The bass you hear on that song is played by Roger emulating Alan Lancaster’s style – Alan was in Australia when the recording was made in England so Roger stepped in uncredited.)
I really liked that “Glover production sound”.
https://youtu.be/ED9wkABemBo
October 20th, 2025 at 14:43(That Barbi’s album with Roger has still not seen a CD release is a gaping and profusely bleeding wound in the flesh of my otherwise very comprehensive DP Kölleckshün, it drives me mad not to have it.)