David Coverdale Looks Back On His First Whitesnake

David Coverdale is re-releasing some of his back catalogue!

Three of his solo albums 1977’s WhiteSnake, 78’s NorthWinds, and Into the Light from 2000 are all getting repackaged into a 6 CD Box Set titled Into The Light: The Solo Albums. Available on October 25th, Coverdale is also releasing a double album dubbed Into The Light 2024 Remix as a double vinyl release.

Now to avoid the confusion the 1977 Whitesnake album was a solo album Coverdale released after the collapse of Deep Purple, the Into The Light Remix is the band we all know and love, as Whitesnake.

Into The Light: The Solo Albums is a 6-CD boxed set, packaged in a hardcover box, featuring a 60-page book with rare photos, and an interview with Coverdale. The remixed version of Into The Light comes separately as a double vinyl album. Coverdale released a remixed version of “Midnight Blue” from the original Into The Light album with a video to boot!

Adrian Vandenberg is a Dutch rock guitarist best known for his tenure as the guitarist in Whitesnake during their successful late 80s period and the band Vandenberg, which he started in 1981. After a long hiatus from the music scene, Adrian formed a new band, Vandenberg’s MoonKings, in 2013 and recorded two studio albums with the band before reforming Vandenberg in 2019. Currently, the lineup consists of Vandenberg, vocalist Mats Leven, drummer Koen Herfst, and bassist Sem Christoffel. The band released its latest studio album, “Sin,” in August 2023. I met a cheerful Adrian a couple of weeks ago at the Time to Rock festival in Sweden, and we discussed various things, including the new Vandenberg lineup and album, Manic Eden, Adrian’s past work with Whitesnake, and his passion for art.

That was the “Restless Heart” -tour.

Adrian Vandenberg: Yeah. I think the “Restless Heart” tour was in 1997.

THE RETURN OF VANDENBERG AND THE NEW ALBUM “SIN”

First, I want to congratulate you on the latest Vandenberg album, “Sin.” I think it’s one of the best hard rock albums released in years.

Adrian Vandenberg: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, it was. I worked hard on that one. We all did, so it’s… Yeah, I’m really happy with it. For me, that’s the best thing I’ve done so far. And it got as close as possible to how I hear it in my head when I’m working on the songs. And then when you have musicians like Mats Leven and these other guys do to work with, then it takes a certain shape, and you go, man, I would have bought this record when I wasn’t in the band, but, yeah, I’m really happy with it. I’m very proud of it.

Vandenberg made a comeback in 2020 and released the album ‘2020.’ Ronnie Romero was the vocalist on that album, but I can say with my hand on my heart that this album is much better, and not least because of Mats’s incredible vocals

Adrian Vandenberg: Yeah, Mats is in a different league. The cool thing about Mats… Ronnie is a great singer. The interesting thing with Mats is that he goes really deep into his emotions. He doesn’t just sing it; he digs really deep, so to speak. And that’s what makes a great singer. That’s why people love guys like Coverdale, Plant, Dio, and all those guys; they dig deep into their souls to project what they’re feeling when they sing it. And that’s when it hits you in your heart. There’s quite a number of singers who are technically really, really good. They can hit all the high notes and stuff. And to me, it’s like guitar players who technically really were great, but I’d rather; personally, I’d rather hear a couple of notes that really hit me, like Jeff Beck does, for instance, often. Like Eddie Van Halen, it doesn’t have to do with speed for me; it’s like the soul. If you taste the soul in it or you hear the soul, you feel it, then it’s real music for me.

After Whitesnake disbanded in 1997, you took a long break from music and pursued other interests, such as art. What inspired you to return to music and form MoonKings in 2013?

Adrian Vandenberg: Well, it was a combination of things. In 1992, was it ’92? Yeah. I think it was ’92; my girlfriend I had a baby with, a baby girl. We split up because the relationship went wrong, which is quite logical because I was always on the road. And then, when you’re home for one or two years, you suddenly discover how the relationship is because we had been only together for a month before I joined Whitesnake.

Yeah, I had known her for a month before joining Whitesnake. We would see each other three or four times a year, and everything seemed fine. It’s common knowledge that living together is a whole different experience, and unfortunately, our relationship didn’t work out. For me, the situation was particularly difficult because of my daughter. I attempted to end the relationship several times but kept returning for my daughter’s sake. She was just a little girl, and the thought of leaving her was incredibly hard.

And at some point, I thought, well, I had to stick to the decision that the relationship doesn’t work. So then, I thought, I don’t want to be one of those daddies who is always away because my daughter didn’t live with me anymore. She lived with her mom. And I saw her, of course, as often as I could. But I thought, if I go on the road now, I’ll probably see her twice a year, and I couldn’t really do that. I didn’t want to do that, so I wanted to be a part of her life. So, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to stop making, touring and all this stuff until she’s old enough so I can explain to her what I actually do.” So, when she was about 12, that’s when we put together MoonKings, actually. And she thought it was pretty cool because, for her, it was normal that I made music. However, when the boys at her school said, ‘Oh, Adrian Vandenberg is your dad, how cool,’ she realized it wasn’t as ordinary as she thought. It was wonderful. She started coming to the shows with me, and she still does. She’s 25 now, and being there for her was the most important thing.

I also wanted to catch up on painting. It was also important, but my daughter was the most important thing. Then I thought, “Okay, I’m going to stop for her and pick it up again later.” You know, at some point, you have to have priorities in your life where you decide which is more important than that. You know, to me, that was. I missed that, too, because I was always able to combine it during the Vandenberg days. With Vandenberg, we usually played on the weekends unless we were on tour in the States or in Japan. But then, you get home, and then in Holland, you play two or three or four times a week. But the rest of Holland is so small, so you’re home every night. So, I could combine it, but as soon as I joined Whitesnake, I couldn’t combine it anymore because we were always on the road. So, I started missing the two. So, I decided to take a break for my daughter, which also gave me the chance to catch up with my painting.