David Coverdale - Whitesnake - Interview - 2005

My Life Story

[Before we’ve even started David is in with a bullet]

“Well I was born at an early age, and I’ve been trying to get back in ever since… [laughs]”

When and where were you born?

“I was born September the 22nd 1951, Saltburn-By-The-Sea North Yorkshire.”

What’s you first childhood memory?

“Probably being with my Nana. I spent the first four years of my life with my grandmother because my mother and father were on the premises [of a pub] working. I don’t think my dad had the tools to deal with me.”

Because you were naughty?

“No, I think it was that my parents had had seven idyllic years together and then suddenly I was thrown into the picture. So basically I spent most of my childhood walking a fine line between impressing me mam and trying not to piss my father off.”

Was he an angry guy or was it just that the publican life-style didn’t suit having a child in it?

“It was definitely an imposition having me in his life. But I’ve come to terms with that, I’m sure he did the best he could. Being born into that situation prepared me for the fuckin’ music business.”

What were you like as a kid?

“I was very artistic. I was drawing pictures out of the womb, and I was drawn to singing as well. When I was four the teacher at infant school put me on the table and said, ‘David knows all the songs to the top ten’, so I had to sing them. I think number one at the time was ‘Singing The Blues’ by Guy Mitchell or Tommy fuckin’ Steele. So I’ve been singing the blues from a very early age.”

Wasn’t your first musical performance at the age of twelve?

“Yeah that’s right. My mother had made me a caftan – I must have been a sight - and I’m in a working men’s club in Yorkshire singing ‘If you go to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair’ to a bunch of northern working class men. I’m surprised they didn’t kick my arse out of there – most of the geezers were bald. Madison Square Gardens is a walk in the park after playing working men’s clubs in the north.”  

How did you join Deep Purple?

“I was in the boutique I worked in one day and I was reading Melody Maker. This guy comes in and he’s got a bit of an attitude about him - we have that in the north. I said ‘can I help you?’ and he was non-committal and he said ‘hey, don’t I know you? You sing don’t you?’ in this very dismissive way and I said ‘yeah I do’ and he said ‘why don’t you go after the job in Deep Purple ha ha’ and walked out. That was quite demoralising but I decided to send them a demo. Unfortunately the only demo I’d done was one when I was rat-arsed – which was plain to hear – and I didn’t have any pictures, so I sent the drunk demo and a picture of me when I was a boy scout. I was just taking the piss really. But Ian Paice heard my demo and played it to Ritchie Blackmore who said, ‘sounds cool. What does he look like?, and Paice says, ‘He’s a fuckin’ boy scout!’ So I took a bottle of Bells whiskey to the audition and I was in.”   

What are you best memories of that period?

“Are you serious? It was like a twenty four seven fuckin’ circus. You’re talking about someone who’d only played in working men’s clubs before. Suddenly I was in front of 20,000/30,000 people. It was mind blowing.

“I was with Purple for three years and it was just non-stop. It was unbelievably courageous for a band that size to offer a totally untried, untested singer that opportunity. I’m eternally grateful to them.”

What was the original idea behind Whitesnake?

“I’ve always loved hard rockin’ rhythm and blues and I loved soul too. I wasn’t exactly banging my head dude. I wanted Whitesnake to be an umbrella under which I could incorporate all of these styles.”

I have to ask, is Whitesnake a euphemism for penis?

“Totally. Probably if I was from Asia it would be a different colour. But being a Yorkshire lad n’all…”

To what extent did you indulge in the 80’s excess that was rife in the scene?

“I did everything, of course. You’d be daft not to. If you give the kids the keys to the toy store what do you think is going to happen?”

How much of the lyrical content of Whitesnake songs like ‘Slip Of The Tongue’, ‘Cheap An’ Nasty’, ‘Slow Poke Music’ and ‘Ready And Willing’ was being reflected in your life?

“Everything I’ve ever written about is related to something I’ve experienced. The biggest of the early ones songs like ‘Fool For Your Loving’ and ‘Here I Go Again were all about my first marriage.”

What was it like to be in the biggest band in America?

“It was great. I don’t know how to answer that. When you stand there and bask in an audience applauding you, it’s an extraordinary feeling. I’m supposed to be a poet but I just don’t have words for that feeling. My wife would love me to get loads of Grammys and stuff, but the rewards I receive directly from an audience more than compensate for not getting that kind of recognition. I’ve done champion thank you.”  

Did you ever let fame go to your head?

“Of course you get daft. But I’ve been through all of that. You have to get over yourself. I go into a zone when I’m on stage: I’m not the same guy who’s talking to you now. I’m the rock star on stage. When I come off I’m certainly not.”

When you look back at those 80’s, do you ever cringe at the cliché?

“Only when I’m on MTV and my son says ‘who’s that?!’ It was just another chapter in an interesting story. I’m a huge fan of The Stones and I don’t think ill of them for their Jumping Jack Flash, hermaphrodite, transsexual stage. I hated Bowie’s Ziggie Stardust image but it didn’t stop me from enjoying ‘Spiders From Mars’.”

“I have no regrets. Even the embarrassing stuff, even the shitty stuff, even the funny stuff. Everyone does stuff in their lives that puts them up for ridicule, we’ve all been there. I happen to have done it in a public forum.”

What was it like having hard rock fall from grace as grunge took over?

“I retired in 1990 before we all fell from grace. I wanted a divorce, not only from my second wife - the girl from the videos [actress Tawny Kitaen] – but from Whitesnake. After our Olympic Pool show in Tokyo I said to the band, ‘if you see other opportunities, please take them because I don’t know if I want to work again’.”

Do you have any advice regarding celebrity marriages?

“They’re to be avoided at all costs. Most of the celebrities I know - and I’ve dallied with a few – are unbelievably insecure about their popularity. Fame is far more addictive than chemicals. It’s a huge dependency for some people.”

[a phone rings in the background]

Do you want to get that?

“Darling I’ve got 26 phones at home and five lines so there’s always something ringing.”

You’ve witnessed a bit of a revival of late.

“When I went back out on tour in the States in 2003, I hadn’t played there for 12 years. And the only reason I played then was because it was the 25th anniversary of Whitesnake I still sell about 3-5,000 records a week in America so there’s still a good audience. The shows in 2004 went really well and I’ve been offered some for 2006. I’ll only play for as long as people want me to. When they don’t, I’ll just go and do something else.”

What are you most proud of?

“Just the fact that I’m still alive.”

Really? Have you ever come close to death? You’re not known for your self-destructive excess.

“Not that you know of [laughs]. No, I’ve not come close. I have a small amount of radical common sense that you get if you’re from Yorkshire ‘no I want have that extra drink, no I won’t have that extra toot…’ That’s how you stay alive”

Whitesnake’s ‘Live In The Still Of The Night’ DVD featuring 2004’s Hammersmith Apollo show is out now.