DAVID COVERDALE: 'I Will Be Eternally Grateful To DEEP PURPLE'

David Yonke of the Toledo Blade recently conducted an interview with WHITESNAKE frontman David Coverdale. Several excerpts from the chat follow:

On wanting to help people get away from the doom and gloom of the day's headlines and escape for a few hours into a rock-and-roll fantasy:

"I just find that there are a lot of miserable people out there. Wherever I've gone, people come up and say they miss the fun.

"I'm not saying that everything I did was a fun-filled, three-ring circus, but it's uplifting. It's a tough time. There are two wars going on in this country. The economy isn't great. But you've got to keep your chin up. I think the emotional and physical relief of a good rock show has untold healing qualities. It's great therapy."

On quitting DEEP PURPLE in 1977 to form WHITESNAKE:

"I will be eternally grateful to DEEP PURPLE for the incredibly brave decision they made to give such an extraordinary opportunity to an unknown singer.

"Ritchie [Blackmore] was the pivotal, driving force and creative leader and once he left, there was like a collective sigh of relief, but it didn't have the drive.

"After my sojourn with DEEP PURPLE, where we'd do like four songs in three hours with a lot of extrapolation, I wanted to do something that was more involving of the crowd. That was the basis of WHITESNAKE. We played short songs, which of course you can stretch out a bit in concert but not to the point of overdoing it."

On a highly amplified sound being an integral part of a WHITESNAKE concert:

"This is a loud band. A very, very loud band. It takes a lot out of me, physically, to compete with these gods of electricity that I'm working with. But none of it is a disguise for lack of talent.

"Jimmy [Page] was the loudest guitarist I ever worked with. When I stood in front of his amplifiers, it took all the curls out of my hair."