Metal Sludge Gossip Board

What do you hardcore Whitesnakers think was the real reason Coverdale got rid of him? Eddie Trunk said there's a lot of stories and didn't get into specifics. Did you know Sykes was a close friend of his? Anyway, post your theories (or maybe you have good evidence like first hand accounts) here.

Either the blowup over getting tired of waiting for Coverdale's vocals to heal or Kalodner wanting a more MTV-friendly lineup. Those are the only two I know of.

The 1987 record was held up because Coverdale was having problems with his voice, so the instrumental record was finished outside of some leads but was sitting around unfinished with no work being done.

The real reason Sykes was fired, according to the guy who fired him, is that Sykes went to Geffen and asked about replacing Coverdale on the record.

Word got back to David, and he decided to fire Sykes.

Management told Sykes, who quickly went back into the studio and track his remaining leads (outside of Here I Go Again). Later flew to LA to have a confrontation with Coverdale while Vandenberg was tracking his solo.

FreddyFender wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:29 am
Management told Sykes, who quickly went back into the studio and track his remaining leads (outside of Here I Go Again). Later flew to LA to have a confrontation with Coverdale while Vandenberg was tracking his solo.

Neil Murray claims Sykes quit on his own after meeting Coverdale. He also thinks it was a bad idea. He wasn't in LA in person though so either Cov or Sykes must have told him.

I don't buy the Kalodner/appearances story at all. Campbell and Sarzo are trolls.

Love_Industry wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:51 am

FreddyFender wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:29 am
Management told Sykes, who quickly went back into the studio and track his remaining leads (outside of Here I Go Again). Later flew to LA to have a confrontation with Coverdale while Vandenberg was tracking his solo.

Neil Murray claims Sykes quit on his own after meeting Coverdale. He also thinks it was a bad idea. He wasn't in LA in person though so either Cov or Sykes must have told him.

It’s a matter of semantics - Management had told Sykes it appeared he had been fired, so he went to go see Coverdale. Some from of a “you can’t fire me because I quit!” situation.

HoldenSSV wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:59 am I don't buy the Kalodner/appearances story at all. Campbell and Sarzo are trolls.

Why slag Campbell and Sarzo when Tommy Aldridge is sitting right there?

HoldenSSV wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:59 am I don't buy the Kalodner/appearances story at all. Campbell and Sarzo are trolls.

I do because I remember how girls reacted to that version of Whitesnake in the late 80s. One by one they weren't Jon Bon Jovi or Vince Neil but they had the right 80s rock star look and looked good as a band. Even if all except Csmpbell were 35-40ish then.

dmbrocker wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 7:36 am Either the blowup over getting tired of waiting for Coverdale's vocals to heal or Kalodner wanting a more MTV-friendly lineup. Those are the only two I know of.

Sykes was better Mtv looking than Vandenberg and at least equal with Vai.
Plus there was a major push on Blue Murder.

Regardless, it was detrimental to both Coverdale & Sykes

The record company had a deal with Coverdale. Whitesnake was his band, period.

Not sure why Sykes went behind Coverdales back to try and get him fired...from his own project! LOL but that's the story that's been told.

Just what do you think was going to happen? You could throw a rock and hit 100 blond guitar players that could fit the bill in the mid-80's, espcially when you take the US and Europe into consideration. Sykes was expendable because other than the vocals, the album was finished. All the guitars were already recorded and done. Sorry man, but you have ZERO leverage when that's the case. To say that Sykes failed to read the room or overplayed his hand is a severe understatement.

Coverdale, on the other hand wasn't expendable. The album still needed vocals and the deal the record label had was with Coverdale, Whitesnake was HIS band.

I loved Sykes as a guitarist, he was awesome. But there's a reason that nothing he's ever done went anywhere when he had a major say in its direction.

So if Sykes went rogue on his own then Murray and Dunbar were fired because??

Venus Flytrap wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 3:23 pm So if Sykes went rogue on his own then Murray and Dunbar were fired because??

Murray did one of those extensive Rolling Stone interviews and here's what he said:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... t-1211886/
Why did Cozy Powell leave?

The deal that we were offered was not to Cozy’s liking, so he left. And so there’s three of us in the band at this point. And John and David started writing together and I was involved in that to some extent and doing demos or whatever, and we were searching for a drummer all throughout the summer of ’85. We finally got Aynsley Dunbar. All the backing tracks were done within six weeks in the fall of ’85. After that, I’m on a different continent and David and John take an absolute eon to do the vocals and all the guitar tracks and they use all kinds of different studios. It ends up costing an absolute fortune.

What happened is we’d be on a wage in virtually all these situations. There wouldn’t be any royalties being paid. None of us, at that point, were earning anything from back albums. When our wages suddenly got stopped in April ’86, Aynsley immediately left. I had to find a way to survive when David and John were working away for months and months in the States and I’m back in London.

Where did things go from there?

It’s really difficult to explain the whole situation, but by the end of the year, because John wanted to be so equal with David, because he pretty much was in terms of the songwriting and his contribution to the whole musical style of the album, it was very much down to John. But when it came to the mixing, Geffen didn’t want him there and David didn’t want him there. But he turned up at the studio and was told to go away. He said, “OK, that’s it. I’m off. I’m leaving.”

And now you’ve just got me and David. It was like, “Am I in or am I out?” I didn’t know.

And in early 1987, when he started getting a band together to shoot a video, he was like, “Let’s just get a bunch of guys from the L.A. scene.” And after the previous chapter of opening for Quiet Riot on tour in the fall of 1984, David and John were very impressed by Rudy Sarzo and how he was onstage. I didn’t feel like I was totally on secure ground as far as my job went, but I wasn’t being treated like I was out of the band.


From my perspective, I was still a member of Whitesnake in January 1987. But then I started hearing, “David has a whole new bunch of people.” Amusingly, the power struggle between David and John was such that John had been angling for Tommy Aldridge to be the Whitesnake drummer in the summer of 1985. They had a meeting and David was so offhand with Tommy that I think he got up and walked out. David just didn’t want to do what John was ordering him to do. He wanted to be the boss and not have the guitarist tell him who he’s supposed to have in the band.

You can go right back to when [drummer] Dave Dowle was out of Whitesnake in 1979. We were asking Cozy to join at that point. He turned us down. I suggested Tommy Aldridge then. People hadn’t heard of him. That’s when Ian Paice came in. But that’s another matter.

It’s interesting. I could see that Rudy was fairly obvious to get in. At that point, you don’t really know know who is in the band. If you watch the first video for “Still of the Night,” you can’t tell that that’s not John Sykes. You know later on when that becomes the band. It’s just amusing that Tommy joined when David was not happy about it when it was first proposed.


How did you feel when these singles explode and the videos are all over MTV and other people are pretending to play your parts?

Fairly unhappy. On the one hand, compared to the sound on the early Whitesnake albums, where the bass is very up front and I have a lot of freedom to play melodic, moving lines with a sort of Jack Bruce or Andy Fraser influence, on 1987 I’m right in the background. It was out of necessity for what the songs require, but also in the mix. I’m way in the background. I was more annoyed about that. And even though my name is on the back of the album sleeve, people still thought that Rudy played on the album because he’s in the videos. And I can’t hear the bass anyway, so it’s not important.

It’s a double-edged thing. And then I had to fight, along with Aynsley, to get a not-very-huge percentage compared to what some people would think was fair from the 1987 album royalties. That was after millions of costs had been taken off, which I didn’t contribute to. It was all incurred by John and David.

It was kind of … I’m part of something successful, but I’m not. It’s financially galling that they went on to tour very, very successfully, and obviously made a lot of money out of that, individually.

But from that point on, there’s been so many lineup changes and ways where it’s became much more David plus backing band, that in some ways I don’t mind particularly. It’s great to be part of something really great and successful, just like it’s great to be play in front of enormous audiences, but you lose something else.

https://destroyerofharmony.com/2013/12/ ... hitesnake/

FROM JOHN HIMSELF
https://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/foru ... p?p=246985

Kid-Wicked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 9:42 pm https://destroyerofharmony.com/2013/12/ ... hitesnake/

FROM JOHN HIMSELF
https://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/foru ... p?p=246985

I read that dinosaurerockguitar interview the other night. John talks about the rumor that he asked Geffen to have Coverdale replaced:

"Now I want to correct a rumour that I know has been out there for a long time. It’s been said that when David was having his troubles, I went to Geffen and urged them to bring in another singer to replace him in Whitesnake. That’s rubbish. How on earth could you ever have anyone fronting Whitesnake apart from David Coverdale? We did have a problem with “#IsThisLove”though. Or rather I did. I’d already got all my solo work for the track down before David and Keith began in the vocals. But Keith wiped all the guitar parts off the tape to gain some extra space for David. I’d spent ages getting the right sound and style and then everything was gone. I had no choice but to go to #TownhouseStudios in #London to redo the guitars. I wasn’t impressed and I can tell you that Mike Stone, who’d worked so closely with me on this, was also very unhappy."

He also addresses Coverdale's vocal issues at the time:

"We hit problems right after we’d done the basic tracks. Everything was going smoothly, but David was hardly anywhere to be seen. He rarely came to the studio and was holed up in his hotel room. We had to send cassettes up to him so he could hear how things were progressing. But when it was time for him to do his vocals, that’s when we really began to hit big trouble. He used every excuse possible to explain why he didn’t want to record his vocals. He blamed the weather. He wasn’t happy with the studio. He even went so far as to say the microphones Little Mountain had weren’t good enough. Can you believe we flew in replacement mics from other studios? But still he wasn’t satisfied. I honestly think David suffered from nerves. His voice was fine until the red light came on and it was time for him to record. Everybody, including #JohnKalodner, was getting increasingly annoyed with David. Mike Stone was tearing his hair out because it was impossible to get anything done and the album was getting more and more delayed. To try to get over this issue someone suggested maybe we should go to #CompassPointStudios in Nassau, where a change in the environment might help David overcome his problems. So we all moved out to the Bahamas, and you know what? It was an utter waste of time and money. Yes, we had a great time there. But from the work point of view we achieved precisely nothing! So we went back to the Little Mountain and tried again, but still David wouldn’t get over his nerves. In the end I went to John Kalodner and said maybe we should try to get #KeithOlsen in to produce the vocals. Keith had already worked with Whitesnake when we recorded the US version of “Slide It In” and I thought we should at least see if getting him back made any difference. Mike Stone was fed up with the situation as it was. But with Keith onboard we finally get things done. Keith and David went to LA and finally we had the vocals down. I know that since then there have been stories that David was suffering from a sinus condition and that’s why he struggled with his vocals. But that not how I remember it."

JizzySynatra wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 12:58 pm

Kid-Wicked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 9:42 pm https://destroyerofharmony.com/2013/12/ ... hitesnake/

FROM JOHN HIMSELF
https://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/foru ... p?p=246985

I read that dinosaurerockguitar interview the other night. John talks about the rumor that he asked Geffen to have Coverdale replaced:

"Now I want to correct a rumour that I know has been out there for a long time. It’s been said that when David was having his troubles, I went to Geffen and urged them to bring in another singer to replace him in Whitesnake. That’s rubbish. How on earth could you ever have anyone fronting Whitesnake apart from David Coverdale? We did have a problem with “#IsThisLove”though. Or rather I did. I’d already got all my solo work for the track down before David and Keith began in the vocals. But Keith wiped all the guitar parts off the tape to gain some extra space for David. I’d spent ages getting the right sound and style and then everything was gone. I had no choice but to go to #TownhouseStudios in #London to redo the guitars. I wasn’t impressed and I can tell you that Mike Stone, who’d worked so closely with me on this, was also very unhappy."

He also addresses Coverdale's vocal issues at the time:

"We hit problems right after we’d done the basic tracks. Everything was going smoothly, but David was hardly anywhere to be seen. He rarely came to the studio and was holed up in his hotel room. We had to send cassettes up to him so he could hear how things were progressing. But when it was time for him to do his vocals, that’s when we really began to hit big trouble. He used every excuse possible to explain why he didn’t want to record his vocals. He blamed the weather. He wasn’t happy with the studio. He even went so far as to say the microphones Little Mountain had weren’t good enough. Can you believe we flew in replacement mics from other studios? But still he wasn’t satisfied. I honestly think David suffered from nerves. His voice was fine until the red light came on and it was time for him to record. Everybody, including #JohnKalodner, was getting increasingly annoyed with David. Mike Stone was tearing his hair out because it was impossible to get anything done and the album was getting more and more delayed. To try to get over this issue someone suggested maybe we should go to #CompassPointStudios in Nassau, where a change in the environment might help David overcome his problems. So we all moved out to the Bahamas, and you know what? It was an utter waste of time and money. Yes, we had a great time there. But from the work point of view we achieved precisely nothing! So we went back to the Little Mountain and tried again, but still David wouldn’t get over his nerves. In the end I went to John Kalodner and said maybe we should try to get #KeithOlsen in to produce the vocals. Keith had already worked with Whitesnake when we recorded the US version of “Slide It In” and I thought we should at least see if getting him back made any difference. Mike Stone was fed up with the situation as it was. But with Keith onboard we finally get things done. Keith and David went to LA and finally we had the vocals down. I know that since then there have been stories that David was suffering from a sinus condition and that’s why he struggled with his vocals. But that not how I remember it."

Coverdale had a collapsed nasal cavity and had to have an operation to repair it. I had same issue and surgery that Coverdale describes below twice in my early twenties and it's just as he describes. You don't realize it, but you're breathing out of one nostril. Eventually the nasal cavity collapses and it makes your voice sound like you're holding your nose when you talk. You can't breath out of your nose at all. The whole "may never sing again" bit is overly dramatic, it's one day in the hospital and about a month recovery. If Skyes didn't know, wasn't told, misremembers, etc I won't speculate, but his version of the story doesn't really add up.

Coverdale refused to track his vocals and delayed the album a year... for no reason? Come on. Those delays risk the plug being pulled at any time. He wasn't sitting on that record for a year for no reason.

https://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/re ... 6094,46104

There is a radio interview with Coverdale on the Whitensake 87 album where he talks about this...only for you, my lads, I've transcribved a little bit of it.

Basically, the recordings were going fine, and one day in his words, "I developed an appalling sinus infection which not only prevented me from singing in tune, but without any range at all. I started to sound very nasal, like I had a cold but I didn't. I didn't have the symtpoms of a cold, but I sounded like it. The first song I went in for was 'Is This Love'. I thought, 'I won't overdo it. Let's see'. And I sang the song from beginning to end, out of tune. And I couldn't tell. And at the end of it, I was dripping with sweat. I was exhausted, and that is not really an exhausting song to perform". They all take a break for a few weeks, but he keeps sounding more and more nasal. So he saw a doctor, who said it was the worse sinus infection he had ever seen and said he was surprised Coverdale could even talk.

So, he takes this really potent antibiotic for 6 weeks (Keflex or something like that)

He heads back to the studio after getting his clean bill of helath, flies down with Sykes and Mike Stone to the Bahamas. And a week later, the infection had flooded back in. So he asked Kalodner to temporarily pull the plug in the project. And they had to operate him for this sinus infection and collapsed septum with a 50/50 chance he'd never sing again.

HoldenSSV wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:59 am I don't buy the Kalodner/appearances story at all. Campbell and Sarzo are trolls.

John Kalodner : John Kalodner has confirmed in interviews that the big delay caused Sykes to see the opportunity slipping away, and he did inquire about replacing Coverdale. Coverdale learned of this and feared for his "baby" so instead had Sykes removed. It was stated correctly a few posts above. The overwhelming success of 1987 caused Geffen to take an option on a Sykes album, and thus started the difficult birth of "Blue Murder," which I think is BETTER than 1987. But it's not perfect.

They tried to replicate the success of a longer/harder/more-prog type of first single with Valley of the Kings, but it wasn't as good a tune as Still of the Night. And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll, which I remember not getting much run on MTV but getting a huge run on our local rock station in summer 1989. It seemed like a near-hit.

First single should have been Billy (which would have lent itself to video) or Sex Child but with different lyrics. Title track was also excellent. And Out of Love was well-positioned to be 3rd single/ballad kind of hit, but they didn't have the momentum, management or payola to do so.

I don't mind the big, reverb-y drums at all. That Fraser/Rock combination of big drums sounds was all the rage then. The album was set up to make them a stadium act, but they didn't play stadiums. Riot has a killer groove in the solo sections, and they could do it just as well live.

I agree with an earlier post that the "love will break your heart" section of Jelly Roll was almost too commercial/conventional. It had a nice melody, but it kind of worked against the momentum of the super-cool acoustic groove and riff that starts he song. And I don't mind the "She said" part at all. That's a huge hook.

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm

HoldenSSV wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:59 am I don't buy the Kalodner/appearances story at all. Campbell and Sarzo are trolls.

John Kalodner : John Kalodner has confirmed in interviews that the big delay caused Sykes to see the opportunity slipping away, and he did inquire about replacing Coverdale. Coverdale learned of this and feared for his "baby" so instead had Sykes removed. It was stated correctly a few posts above. The overwhelming success of 1987 caused Geffen to take an option on a Sykes album, and thus started the difficult birth of "Blue Murder," which I think is BETTER than 1987. But it's not perfect.

They tried to replicate the success of a longer/harder/more-prog type of first single with Valley of the Kings, but it wasn't as good a tune as Still of the Night.

This all day. The only thing those songs had in common were that they were both 7 minutes long... there was no hook, no groove, no chorus. Like you said, Billy should've been it.

“ of "Blue Murder," which I think is BETTER than 1987. But it's not perfect.”

No, not even close to as good as 87.

Bono Nettencourt wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 6:23 am The only thing those songs had in common were that they were both 7 minutes long... there was no hook, no groove, no chorus. Like you said, Billy should've been it.

It had a hook, but the problem is that the biggest hook in the song was the big keyboard stabs that come in the chorus. You have to wait a while. In concert, it wasn't one of the best-received songs. Riot, Billy, and Blue Murder (the title track) plus Jelly Roll were. They did Still of the Night, too, and that got a big ovation. I was surprised that Sykes could to a pretty reasonable vocal on Still of the Night. His in September 1989 was better than Coverdale's live attempt in May 1989.

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll,

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:53 pm

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll,

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

Yeah, Cov was out of money when the vids were shot... Tawny was in them because she was his girlfriend.

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:53 pm

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll,

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

Watch them both. Quality difference is pretty obvious. But also, and this was probably a much bigger reason - Blue Murder didn't have management and the record company really working the payola machine, which is what they needed.

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 9:51 pm

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:53 pm

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll,

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

Watch them both. Quality difference is pretty obvious. But also, and this was probably a much bigger reason - Blue Murder didn't have management and the record company really working the payola machine, which is what they needed.

Jelly roll is in no way a Still of the Night, a pour some sugar on me or hell, even a let’s put the x in sex. All the payola in the world wouldn’t have gotten that off the ground with the masses.

I agree that it's ludicrous that more promotion would've magically catapulted BM to WS'87 levels, but that said, Sykes has claimed that Geffen pulled support on Blue Murder at Cov's request because SOTT was tanking.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 4:32 am Yeah people with albums that bomb always say that shit. Pete Best accused Epstein of somehow killing his albums. Nah, no one bought them.

1000%.

Every fucker that ever released an album that flopped has some version of "it would have been huge IF...."

Blue Murder would have sold if enough people thought it was good.

It was a big-budget hard rock album on a major label that was played on MTV and radio. Featuring the guitar hero from one of the biggest albums of the year two years prior. In the 80s. You cannot possibly asked to be put in a better position.

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 9:55 pm
Jelly roll is in no way a Still of the Night, a pour some sugar on me or hell, even a let’s put the x in sex. All the payola in the world wouldn’t have gotten that off the ground with the masses.

The Still of the Night reference was concerning Valley of the Kings, which is the one they clearly intended to be "that type" of tune.

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 2:10 pm

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 9:55 pm
Jelly roll is in no way a Still of the Night, a pour some sugar on me or hell, even a let’s put the x in sex. All the payola in the world wouldn’t have gotten that off the ground with the masses.

The Still of the Night reference was concerning Valley of the Kings, which is the one they clearly intended to be "that type" of tune.

Okay, let me rephrase that. Valley of the Kings is in no way a Still of the Night, a pour some sugar on me or hell, even a let’s put the x in sex. All the payola in the world wouldn’t have gotten that off the ground with the masses.

Bono Nettencourt wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 1:56 pm

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:53 pm

Van Ailin' wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:15 pm And then they didn't have the budget for a Tawny Kitaen type of video for Jelly Roll,

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

Yeah, Cov was out of money when the vids were shot... Tawny was in them because she was his girlfriend.

I forget the guy's name who fronted the money for the the videos. Though I remember him later on saying after the success of '87 David came to his house and gave him a wrapped present. He thought he may be getting paid back but when he opened it it was a framed picture of David and Tawny.

Venus Flytrap wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 4:49 pm

Bono Nettencourt wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 1:56 pm

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:53 pm

How much does it cost to rent a jaguar and have a hottie fuck it for an afternoon? If I remember, Jelly Roll has some blond with Sykes in a cornfield or something. How is that any different in cost?

Yeah, Cov was out of money when the vids were shot... Tawny was in them because she was his girlfriend.

I forget the guy's name who fronted the money for the the videos. Though I remember him later on saying after the success of '87 David came to his house and gave him a wrapped present. He thought he may be getting paid back but when he opened it it was a framed picture of David and Tawny.

Marty Callner was the director and I think he basically did them on spec.