WHITESNAKE Frontman: 'This Is An Incredibly Special Time To Be A Classic Rock Musician'

NRK Hordaland's rock journalist Bård Ose recently conducted an interview with WHITESNAKE/ex-DEEP PURPLE singer David Coverdale. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

NRK Hordaland: What's the biggest challenge for you in rock and roll today? You've pretty much done it all, you've been all over the world and you've been having great success.

Coverdale: Well, I don't look upon it as challenges, I look at things as opportunities. For instance, the opportunity to make a new record so many years later, when I never really planned on that, and then to see the album do so very well — and continue to do well... That was a great opportunity for me. Many years ago, i would only tour every three years, so all the songs stayed fresh. Whereas now, we pretty much tour every year. So some of the songs get a bit old, you know, to perform. So to have new songs, to inject fresh energy, has been a fantastic opportunity. If I ever use the expression "challenge," it will be to maintain a level of performance, be able to sing and perform up to people's expectations.

NRK Hordaland: Did it surprise you that this new album was such a success?

Coverdale: Yeah. It was a very welcome surprise. All you can do in anything is do your very best at any given time or situation you're in, which has always been my life's philosophy. And it just worked. My partner Doug Aldrich [guitar] and I, I feel wrote songs that were a great mix of the character and identity of WHITESNAKE — without trying to. It was the way it developed. I think God and the angels were very helpful to us. And the viking spirit!!

NRK Hordaland: When you look out at the audience,.. 30 years ago, there was a lot of young people in the audience. And now there is a lot of young people in the audience. There's a new generation out there. What do you think about it?

Coverdale: It's interesting. I first noticed this interesting fact several years ago in Scandinavia, actually it was in Sweden. I was looking at the audience, and going, "Wow, these people look like 14, 15, 16 years old. And it was easily a third of the audience. I had an opportunity to talk to some of these people, and they said that they don't get the kind of fullfilment from more recent or modern rock than they do from what people call classic rock. So they are very, very welcome to come to WHITESNAKE shows. I was having lunch the other day with Paul Stanley from KISS, and both of us agreed that this is an incredibly special time to be a classic rock musician. And neither of us would be thrilled at the idea of being a young band, trying to start out now in these unusual times. We're all very grateful that we still have this opportunity to perform to enthusiastic crowds.

NRK Hordaland: It seems like you were at a crossroads when you were making the album "Northwinds".

Coverdale: Yes. When I left DEEP PURPLE, there wasn't a great deal of support from the PURPLE management. It was still a kind of feeling that I was the new boy, even though I'd been responsible for a lot of the songs in the three years I'd been with DEEP PURPLE. I was the last horse that they would be willing to put money on in a race. So when I made my first solo record, it was like all these different kinds of music that I enjoyed. With DEEP PURPLE, it was easy for me to write in that direction of hard rock. But I loved soul, I loved funk, I loved the blues, you know. "Northwinds" is much more of a blueprint of what WHITESNAKE became.

NRK Hordaland: You're also very personal in most of your songs, and they are very easy to relate to.

Coverdale: I just don't name names, but most of my songs – even some of the sexy ones — are mostly diaries. They have to come from some inspiration. Now we have a song like "Here I Go Again", which is this huge power-rock anthem around the world, but it was written about the breakdown of my first marriage. But every time I hear somebody's "Here I Go Again" story, it's always very personal to them. When people ask me what is this or that song about, I say, "It's whatever you want it to be about." I am more interested in hearing their story, because I know my story for that song.

Read the entire interview from NRK Hordaland.

Fan-filmed video footage of WHITESNAKE performing live in Stockholm, Sweden in December 2008 can be viewed below.