David Coverdale has revealed plans to remix and reissues his later WHITESNAKE albums in a “musically embellished” form. He also confirmed that has been in contact with Jimmy Page about a 30th-anniversary re-release of their eponymous collaboration. Coverdale made the comments while talking to Eonmusic about WHITESNAKE‘s “Love Songs” set, which is due in November via Rhino.
Speaking about the securing the services of keys player David Sherinian and his work bringing 1989’s “Slip Of The Tongue” up to date, Coverdale said: “One of the things that’s very noticeable; it’s all ’80s keyboards, which I can’t stand. They totally date it. Thank god, I found Derek Sherinian, who — and I know he won’t mind me saying this — Derek‘s like the illegitimate son of Jon Lord. And he respects the work he’s doing — which is huge — and the material’s very strong, so he just played his ass off for us, and you can hear it.”
David went on to say that Sherinian, as well as current WHITESNAKE guitarist Joel Hoekstra were utilized for a forthcoming reissue of 1997 album “Restless Heart”, which is expected to hit the racks in 2021.
“When were finishing off David Coverdale‘s solo album [in 1997], the new powers that be at EMI flew to Reno and sat me down and said, ‘We want this to be a WHITESNAKE record.’ And I said, ‘It’s mad! Some tracks are very rocky, but it’s more like, soulful.’ So, we did the best we could in terms of the mix, and then they agreed to do ‘David Coverdale & WHITESNAKE‘. That’s how it started; we turned up Adrian‘s [Vandenberg] guitars, and the drums, and then I was unhappy with the mastering, sadly, so it was a frustrating record for me.”
He continued; “We’ve been tweaking that in the studio, and it’s going to be mastered soon for vinyl. The box set of that’s going to be, I think, May-June next year. It’s fucking kick-ass, and when we rerelease it, it is going to be under ‘WHITESNAKE‘; it’s not going to be that ridiculous ‘David Coverdale & WHITESNAKE.’ We’ve embellished it so much with Joel Hoekstra and with Derek Sherinian, and it’s much tougher; it’s much more WHITESNAKE. I don’t have that confusion of half a David Coverdale album.”
Going on to talk about progress on plans to reissue 1993’s well-received COVERDALE PAGE set, David said: “Well, my time with Jimmy was amazing. We spoke a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I’m probably going to speak to him this weekend. I think we’re probably going to be looking at an anniversary issue in ’23.”
On the content that might go into a COVERDALE PAGE deluxe edition, Coverdale said: “I think you’re in for some nice surprises. Jimmy and I have been talking about it, and we’ll have the original album remastered, and we’ve got a bunch of songs we didn’t release, and I videoed most of the writing and recording scenario, and all the way to the shows in Osaka and stuff, so there’s a shitload of content. But one of the things I suggested to him, I said, ‘Why don’t you do a Jimmy Page mix on the record, and I’ll do a David Coverdale mix, and let the fans just get Jimmy‘s perspective, and mine?'”
Read part one of Eonmusic‘s interview with Coverdale at this location.
