David Coverdale interview in Metal Express....

[Scott F.]

David Coverdale sat for a lengthy interview with Metal Express Radio
recently. Here are couple of excerpts regarding his time with Deep
Purple and his thoughts on Jon Lords passing.

MER: You`re a Northeastern lad being born in Saltburn -- not too far
in fact from Paul Rodgers. What were you doing just before you joined
Deep Purple.

DC: I was born in Saltburn but living in Redcar at the time I got the
job in Deep Purple. I didn`t even have a phone in my flat at the
time. As you know the Northern coast can be a cold place during the
winter with those Siberian blasts from the sea. I had a smugglers bag
full of 10p pieces and I was calling the Purple office while all the
glass was broken in the phone box trying to sort stuff out when I`d
been asked to join. I worked in Redcar in a shop during the day but I
played in local bands around the area at night. To join a world
famous band like Purple when I was just a lad from Saltburn was
incredible.

MER: How did you adjust to life in Deep Purple?

DC: It was amazing. Purple were so, so huge around the world
especially up in the North of England. I think my first show with
them up there was at the Odeon in Newcastle. Over in The States we
were playing to 20,000-30,000 a night and at the baseball stadiums
70,000 to 80,000 people. It was incredible. It was a big culture
shock for me but I adapted to it and it became part of my life. I
learned so much from Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore and that`s meant
with no disrespect to the other amazing players I worked with but it
was Ritchie and Jon that prepared me for that transition into Deep
Purple. I was in the very capable hands of Ritchie Blackmore and the
very caring hands of Jon Lord and they were such amazing mentors for
me entering into the world of Rock `n` Roll. They both helped me so
much. I got so many musical ideas from Ritchie and how to be with
people, from Jon.

MER: Jon Lord has been a really big loss to the music world.

DC: The world is a lot worse off for his loss. I was so, so honoured
to have known him and to have worked with him in two big bands. I can
so easily visualise him right now. I remember bumping into him at a
hotel a few years ago when he was on his way to Australia and we just
sat down and had a drink together and the time just flew. It was so
much fun to see him. Jon was extraordinarily articulate, charming and
such a funny man. He was so gifted musically too and I totally miss
him. He was from Leicester so he had a good bloke energy about him so
he was able to sit down and bloke it with the best of them. It`s
weird you know. I have a big 65” TV in my gym to try to distract me
from the pain in my knees and it`s wired into Apple TV so I can access
all my photographs. I have around 20,000 photos on there. I put in
on shuffle and there`s lots of personal photos on there and lots of
music related photos too. When a picture from the Slide It In era of
Whitesnake came up half the band has passed away. Jon Lord, Mel
Galley and Cozy Powell are all now gone and that`s such a shame. It`s
chilling, it just stops you in your tracks. I really miss them all;
they were great musicians and fantastic to play with. Loss is tough
and to find the time to grieve and process that is difficult
particularly in a public scenario. People ask how I feel when I lose
a close friend but how do you think I feel? It`s hard to lose such
people. The only contact I have now is with the daughter from Jon`s
first marriage. On the day he died I had all my family here, it was
the Olympics at the time and I just couldn`t get a flight or a hotel.
We were laughing about that and in times of sadness sometimes it`s
easy to grieve in laughter. Sara, his daughter joked that it was
really inconvenient of her Dad to die at that time. Jon would have
loved that. We talked about everything and anything.

You can read the entire interview at the following link.

http://metalexpressradio.com/menu.php?main=interviews&id=1034