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Better late than never
Back in 2023 David Coverdale has appeared on the Rock Of Nations podcast, and the resulting conversation was published in two parts. We have reported the first part, but the second one fell through the cracks. Here it is.
Thanks to Ultimate Guitar for the reminder.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Very brave words mostly. No Botox, digital and AI helpers only sparingly (WS’ live guitar sound is all digitally created, the amps are mock-ups), absolutely no backing tapes, all is live and the band just sings so well (when in truth the best backing vocals WS ever had were the ones provided by Marsden & Moody). It’s all a bit much and saying how “extraordinary” everything is all the time, doesn’t really help his case.
David is always going on about how “passionate” he is about nearly everything, but his interviews offer very little behind a thin veneer of affable grandiosity.
Is it really that hard to say: “Do I use Botox and fillers? I’ve lived in or close to California for the last 40 years and work in showbiz. And when we start a long tour I want to look good.” or “Digital sound creation lets you control the sound in a difficult hall much more reliably than turning up a bunch of Marshalls.” or “Do we occasionally use backing tracks live? Show me a band of our status who doesn’t in this day and age. We want all our shows to meet a certain quality standard, people pay good money for them.”
It amazes me how his interviewers, starstruck 🫠, give zero pushback to what he says. These guys make Tucker Carlson seem inquisitive and fact-searching. Critical rock journalism in the tradition of Sounds, Kerrang, NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, Creem or Hit Parader this certainly isn‘t. I really miss that – social media seems to mainly spawn fanzine states of mind.
May 15th, 2025 at 05:03I’m in agreement Uwe but I’m not sure that the Moody/Marsden backing vocals on Live in the Heart are genuine (I’d need to check the soundboard bootleg. And Syke’s backing on Glasgow ‘84 is pretty good and Galley wasn’t bad either.
May 16th, 2025 at 11:46I don’t rule out that they were doctored even then.
Mel sang well (rhymes) of course, with John Sykes it did take a while I thought, though he did become a proficient lead vocalist in his own right later on. Modern day WS had of course these typically layered gigantic AOR chorus parts, but you newer knew how much of it was really live. The thing bands fake most live are backing vocals and not always from backing recordings either, but triggered by an on- or off-stage keyboarder. That happened as early as the mid-80s with the then arriving Yamaha DX series synths. I knew a proficient keyboarder who earned good money providing backing vocals from his Yamaha for some local acts in Frankfurt who had these bombastic stacked harmony vocals with their hair metal rock. They would mime it on stage and he’d do the real work off-stage. It’s a lot more prevalent (and has been for quite a while) than most people think and not with just dance acts either where you cannot reasonably expect them to really sing accurate harmony with their athletic choreography. (No one expects the Bolshoi Ballet to sing either.)
IIRC, 1984 Whitesnake already used canned backing vocals in the Sykes/Murray/Powell line up. Murray has said in an interview that his mike on stage was dead with him just miming chorus parts and of course they had Richard Bailey behind the curtain who could have triggered the backing vocals as needed. So maybe that is why you thought John Sykes didn’t sound so bad! 😂
May 16th, 2025 at 23:41I have read some time ago that none of the vocals on Live in the Heart of the City are genuine live singing on the day. Now there’s a song for ya. Cheers.
May 17th, 2025 at 02:23I got the bootleg of the entire show that ended up on Live…In the heart of the City and it shows that the vocals have been doctored with.
May 17th, 2025 at 14:08Still, they could have used the original vocals and it would be a great album anyway! But of course there were those heat-of-the-moment flaws, a bit short of breath or late for the mike here and there… and it’s been fixed for the release.
Trust DC to “make something sound better” if he can! 😂 He’d have done wonderfully as a member of the Eagles, those purveyors of immaculate perfection over the fallacies of a live performance.
May 17th, 2025 at 14:48