![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse8.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/gillan.jpg)
Hard enough to get into jeans
In his recent interview with Planet Rock radio David Coverdale doubles down on his decision to retire after the next tour:
Last year we were supposed to do what was going to be my farewell tour, and it was sold out and it was amazing. Of course, everything was cancelled to Covid. So, God willing, I’ll be able to do it hopefully next year.
With the interviewer expressing some reasonable skepticism, citing other bands’ farewell tours only to come back, DC insisted:
Mine’s going to be the farewell tour because I’m knocking on 70’s door. Are you kidding?! It’s hard enough now to get into my jeans!
I’ll be still involved in music. We’ve got a relatively long-term deal with Warner’s. We have a poop load of projects to do under the Whitesnake banner, it’s just the touring. It’s not the performance so much that is exhausting, it’s the touring and I can’t tour any more comfortably than I do.
There are some more bits and pieces of the interview on the Planet Rock website.
Last year Coverdale had already announced his imminent retirement, only to backtrack a week later.
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I wish David would retire the whole Whitesnake ‘larger than life thing” rather sooner than later and do something age- and voice-appropriate.
Like these guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfv4mlk8Vc8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfYAziNzAX4
Cindy should have a word with him. Dump the bottled blond hair, look your age (you’re already doing that in any case, but not in a good way), sing something meaningful. When you’re not competing against guitar storms and drum avalanches nor screaming your balls off, you still have a voice that can touch people.
Whitesnake has become the millstone – or the giant python if you want to stay in the picture – around the vocalist David Coverdale’s neck. Time to go forward – or go back a long way …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihhRHqiwnEo
June 15th, 2021 at 19:19Uwe Hornung@1
That’s exactly will happen pretty soon after he cashes in on the farewell tour.
June 16th, 2021 at 08:42I am really hoping for a Glenn Hughes / David Coverdale collaboration and it makes sense as they can share the stage live doing bits of DP WS and solo stuff.
I think that will happen as commercially is very lucrative.
Peace
David has previously said that the ‘Purple’ album and tour would probably be the one to bow out on, as it was effectively a full circle for him. Six years on, it’s sounding like the boy who cried wolf again. His live voice has been shot for a long time now, but he can still cut it in the studio.
June 16th, 2021 at 09:41Absolutely agree with you.
June 16th, 2021 at 12:21It’s high time he stops making a fool of himself.
I would like David to return to the “European sound” with the roots of “his roads” fucking hard rock, rock n roll ,ballad and blues, closeness to mix Poul Rodgers and Tom Jones….NO !!! Vince Neil and company…
June 17th, 2021 at 05:51Return the best baritone voice RnR
David is my favouritesinger though I not a fan of WS from “1987” and “Slip go the tongue”, those albums and tours might have damaged his voice, and the problems he’s having now with singing rock. But his singing on Purple and especially the early Whitesnakealbums until “Slide it in” is untouchable. He was a rookie when he joined Purple 1973 and recorded the epic “Burn”-album, he was the main writer together with maestro Ritchie Blackmore on that album, that sais a lot what a faith the nucleus of Purple, Lord, Paice, Blackmore had in David. Everyone´s getting older, our voices changes, our fingers getting stiffer, we lose our beautiful hair…..I really would like Coverdale to make blues albums together with Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and others. Unfortunately Leslie West is no longer with us but he would be a great choice to work with. And the guitarist don’t have to play fast..Not hard rock, just blues, acoustic and electric, when he can sing in a lower key and sing relaxed, like the song “´Til the day I die” from “Good to be bad”. .
June 17th, 2021 at 07:22Northwinds is one of my absolute favourite albums, and I think showcases Coverdale perfectly: a brilliant deep bluesy soulful voice, capable of extraordinary emotion, but also rocking out on Breakdown. Early Whitesnake, yes, good fun, but every time I put Northwinds under the needle a part of me regrets that he couldn’t say to himself: stuff searching for the American dollar, let’s just sing the music I love…. and am REALLY good at.
June 17th, 2021 at 18:06Quite right. 10 seconds of Time & Again have more raw emotion than what he has done in the last 35 years put together.
June 18th, 2021 at 11:59As silly as this may sound, I think MTV ruined more bands/singers than it created. Most bands that took up the visual enhancement needs of MTV’s American audiences suffered musically compared to their earlier catalogue. Coverdale (& Whitesnake) was one of them. Even after 40+ years I find Coverdale sounds better and more comfortable amongst the blues based music of the pre ’84 period. That said, he’s got more $US dollars than me so maybe he’ll tell me that it was worth it after all.
June 19th, 2021 at 03:49Rob ad 7: thanx so much for your sweet talk.. cause NORTHWINDS is the ultimate solo COVERDALE (for his marvelous barytone/tenor vocal rang) record. And his vocal/tone/colour) is absolutely suit for my ears!!! Deep note an´range (as he did for Sail Away, Soldier Of Fortune, Gypsy, Love Dont Mean A Thing)…
June 19th, 2021 at 06:49As for NORTHWINDS… twas my surprised when this LP came out… he absolutelly stood on this own
Uwe, I think likewise time and again! The vocals are so EXPOSED on that song. Michelle, agreed, MTV rewarded the generic rockers, but there were good consequences: I spent more time getting to know jazz and early music! Coverdian, thank you. Good to know I am not completely barking in thinking that NW is the jewel in DC’s crown. If I had that voice would I try to maximise the reward? Yeah, probably, I admit!
June 19th, 2021 at 19:31@ 9 – Excellent comment & I could not agree more with your sentiments. What is that Dire Straits line ‘ I want my mtv’. Ha Ha. My Karma for dissing that era back then was that I had to play the woeful ’87 version of Here I Go Again in a band I was briefly in. I was told the original was too boring etc. Out voted & I reluctantly played it but not for too long thankfully. Always liked the earlier ‘Snake. Cheers.
June 19th, 2021 at 22:06Jon Lord was known and loved for his graciousness. Let’s all be the same, eh?
I saw Coverdale’s Purple tour and . . . he owned the audience from the first bar. I’m sure if he does one last tour, you’ll have missed it if you missed it. God bless them all if they can do it one more time.
Thank you for all the years, here’s to this time around.
June 21st, 2021 at 03:07No one is saying that David isn’t a charming frontman (Gillan can be a lot more aloof) or that he didn’t have the voice to make him deserve his career. I thought he was untouchable in the late 70ies/early 80ies with Whitesnake. And I liked his stage presence with Mk III and IV. He didn’t prance around on stage like many others, he was his own man. The boy from Redcar did well.
But image- and musicwise, David is trapped in a time capsule. He could be an elder statesman of rock, but his look today appears to me like a travesty. His personal choices limit him, not his abilities. It was btw Jon Lord who said that he doesn’t understand why in the late 80ies, David, equipped with one of the most wonderful near-baritone voices in rock, set his sights on emulating Robert Plant’s falsetto etravaganzas.
I always wondered whether John Kalodner had a hand in that as well. To his credit, he certainly didn’t press Cher to sing any higher than her natural range.
Speaking of JK, these days there seems to be little love lost between him and his former protégé …
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/david-coverdale-slams-legendary-ar-executive-john-kalodner-i-dont-have-a-good-word-to-say-about-him-anymore/
June 21st, 2021 at 10:26Well said Dan Russell. Whitesnake is an amazing band and we will miss them when they are no longer touring. I will be there for the farewell tour!
June 21st, 2021 at 13:13@14 Coverdale has also upset poeple from his past, including Neil Murray and Micky Moody. Jon Lord once said that David had walked over a lot of people to get where he is.
June 22nd, 2021 at 07:39People in showbiz can be ruthless, there is a reason why they are where they are after all. I’m not sure whether David is worse than some other members of the illustrious DP family, think of how Ritchie purged poor Elf or how Big Ian dumped Gillan (the band).
And John Kalodner was of course pivotal for a lot of David’s personnel decisions in the 80ies. Except, ironically, for one: He didn’t want Sykes to leave and pleaded with David to accomodate him. But David wanted rather 100% of a smaller thing than 50% of a larger one. There is no doubt in my mind that a Sykes-penned follow-up of the 1987 album would have sustained Whitesnake’s commercial run in the US. And I’m writing this realizing full well that Sykes in the 80ies must have been a pain in the proverbial body part. Yet the Blue Murder debut is full of great song ideas, just imagine if DC had sung this here:
https://youtu.be/GmxK9CS3RV0
Sykes could write. There is no 1987 album without him and David never created another one.
June 22nd, 2021 at 11:19