David Coverdale is hoping to sweet talk Jimmy Page into collaborating on new music

David Coverdale is hoping he can tempt Jimmy Page into collaborating on new music.

Whitesnake’s frontman and Led Zeppelin’s guitarist released a one-off Coverdale/Page album on Geffen Records in 1993, and Coverdale has long talked up the possibility of releasing an expanded reissue of the album. In 2016 he told Classic Rock, “I’d love to do an expanded, remixed CP album. I have so much material that a lot of people would love to see and hear. All the original demos, pre-production and a ton of home video from the very first day we sat down to write at my house all the way through till the Japanese tour. If it’s meant to be, it will happen.”

Now it appears that the ball is finally rolling on the project… and Coverdale is hoping that he and Page might be able to work upon some brand new material together, in addition to pulling some previously unreleased tracks from the vaults. 

During a February 18 appearance on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk show, Coverdale was asked if there had been any progress on a possible reissue of the Coverdale/Page album. He responded by telling the host that there had “immense progress.”

“I finally reached a very positive agreement with my former record company regarding missing assets,” said Coverdale. “And I got the rights to the Coverdale/Page album. So, of course, my first phone call was to Jimmy, and I said, ‘We've got it. We've got it back, and we can do with it what we want…’ I literally just texted Jimmy two days ago, and I said, ‘Jimmy, I'm so sorry I haven't been in touch.’ But we’re resuming contact starting next week to discuss. I've got a couple of ideas. I wanna see if we can write courtesy of FaceTime or Zoom. I've got a couple of ideas which I think would be good for if indeed we can get back into the studio and plan for a very big, luxurious, complete box set [for] the 30th anniversary in 2023.”

"We've got four unreleased tracks, which just need to be mixed. But since we reconnected, I've been messing around, writing at home. And I have two ideas which could make really fun tracks — just to throw at him and 'see what you can do with this.' The way we did it before — we wrote really very potent music together.”

Revealing that Page is currently “at his country estate”, Coverdale cautions that any possibility of rekindling the duo’s collaboration is a long way off at present.

"At this moment in time, at his country estate, I don't think [Page] has a studio," he said. "And he certainly doesn't wanna drive into London. He and I are target ages for this dreadful virus. So I completely support him in that scenario, 'cause there isn't any rush. Nothing is gonna be going on this year. Even if we have the opportunity of recording, I can record stuff over here, send him the drive for him to do his part, and we can mix it through the technology now, which is something you couldn't do before. But I have a studio at home, and Jimmy doesn't. So I'm hoping we can get some new bits and pieces and ideas and put that into play next year when it will be safer to get around.”

The complete interview with Coverdale is now available on the SiriusXM app.