David Coverdale has explained how plans for a reunion with Deep Purple colleague Ritchie Blackmore led to the creation of Whitesnake’s upcoming Purple Album.
Coverdale exclusively told Classic Rock how late Purple keyboardist Jon Lord had wanted the Mark III version of the band to reunite, and discussions took place after his death.
Now he says in the video below: “A lot of the ideas weren’t appealing to me, unfortunately. But I was already doing preparatory work on these songs, hoping Ritchie would be open to bringing them up to date and reappraising some of them.”
When he told his wife it was a shame that his work had been wasted, she asked, “Why don’t you do it under the Whitesnake banner?”
Coverdale continues: “I took a little time to think about it, I spoke to my musicians and everybody was incredibly positive, so it was all systems go.”
Guitarist Reb Beach says of The Purple Album: “It was the most exciting thing David’s ever said to me – and David’s said some pretty exciting things.”
