WHITESNAKE Guitarist: 'You Won't Be Able To Survive If You Are Just Going For The Quick Dollar'

Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited recently conducted an interview with WHITESNAKE guitarist Doug Aldrich. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Classic Rock Revisited: You have been with a lot of different bands. How do you write in the style of Whitesnake?

Doug: This is similar to where I started off. My first recording band was back in the '80s called LION. We were not real well known. Our singer was a huge David Coverdale fan and he turned me onto a bunch of the early WHITESNAKE albums that had not been released in the United States at the time. It really turned out to be inspiration for LION because we were like a junior WHITESNAKE. When I worked with DIO, I wasn't able to bring in the bluesy elements as much because he is more metal and that is the way it should be. When I got the call to work with David then I knew this was a really good opportunity and that I could bring something to the party.

Classic Rock Revisited: Coverdale has even said that this album has a lot of elements of early WHITESNAKE. I think this lineup of the band has you on one guitar for the blues and hard rock and Reb Beach there for the '80s flair.

Doug: Reb can play anything; he is a master. He went to the Berklee College of Music. If I don't know what chord I am playing all I have to do is ask Reb. Our styles complement each other. My roots are in the British blues and bands like ZEPPELIN and CREAM. Later on I got into southern rock. When David got out of PURPLE, then I thought WHITESNAKE had a southern rock vibe that I thought was really cool. I love early WHITESNAKE. There is a record that I know you know called "Come & Get It" that has a bunch of great tunes on it. We are going to cherry pick a couple of those tunes to play live. We dabbled with "Love Hunter" when we did it in a medley and that was fun. We have played "Take Me with You" which is a fun song to play live. I send David emails all the time and say, "Here is some food for thought. Let's play 'Child of Babylon'." He says, "Slow down. We can't take 'Here I Go Again' out of the set. If we can fit something in, then we will."

Classic Rock Revisited: You co-produced the album. Had you produced an album before?

Doug: I had not. When the whole home recording thing came on then everybody started to do stuff at home and that kind of puts you in the production chair because you are making decisions on how the song is going to go and how it is going to sound. We kind of slipped into that production thing. The Brutal Brothers produced this WHITESNAKE CD and they are David, Michael McIntyre and myself. I would do one part of the production and if I got stuck then Michael would do it. David is the governor and he would come in and say that he liked this or that, or that we needed to do something different. It was like having three different producers. It took us a little longer to get done. We knew what we wanted it to sound like, I am not going to say that we got it 100%, but we got close.

Classic Rock Revisited: How difficult is David to work with when it comes to not compromising?

Doug: He doesn't compromise and that is what makes him who he is. I love that about him. The worst thing is when you have something and you work really hard on it and then someone just goes, "Oh, it will be find. Don't worry about it." He is all for making sure that everything is right. We were hard on each other on whatever we happened to be working on, whether it was a drum program or something we were writing. We really pushed each other. David is not difficult at all; he just wants it to be the best it can be. He has WHITESNAKE's best interest at heart and that is good enough for me.

Classic Rock Revisited: Where did [drummer] Tommy Aldridge go?

Doug: The short story is that there was a scheduling conflict. Originally we wanted to write and record the record by the end of last summer. The record took longer than expected. We needed to get into the studio to properly record the songs with the band and Tommy couldn't make it. Unfortunately, we had to move forward. We had written a lot of the drum parts with him in mind and we had to restructure that for the new drummer, Chris Frazier. We knew were going to miss Tommy but when we got in the studio with Chris then we knew we were going to be okay. Chris brings a groove like Ian Paice used to bring to WHITESNAKE. You can't replace Tommy as he is a legend but Chris brings something different. We did a couple of weeks in Australia last month and Chris was amazing. He can play this stuff with one hand tied behind his back. He is a great guy to hang with on the road as well.

Classic Rock Revisited: How did Coverdale get you away from DIO? Was it just money?

Doug: Everyone thinks that it is all about money but you don't do the music for the money. You won't be able to survive if you are just going for the quick dollar. I was wrapping up a tour with Ronnie and David called and told me that he was reforming WHITESNAKE for a 25th anniversary tour. He told me that it was going to be a couple of months long. I was free and I told him that I would do it. I have been a fan of David since he was in DEEP PURPLE and I really wanted to do it. Ronnie was cool with it. The tour went on and it was going really well and David and I hit it off. Eventually, David asked me to join permanently. It was very innocent on David's part. He wanted to put together a cool band for the tour and that is all his intentions were. He wanted a guitar player that he could envision in WHITESNAKE and I was that guy.

Read the entire interview at Classic Rock Revisited.

WHITESNAKE live in Sydney, Australia March 2008: