Bernie Marsden
WHITESNAKE
Whitesnake are an English hard rock band established in 1977 by David Coverdale and was initially compared by critics to Deep Purple, the previous band of David Coverdale The band was initially influenced by blues-rock heavy metal but by the midlle of the 80’s they had changed their style to commercial hard rock. Whitesnake were recently listed as the 85th ‘Greatest Hard Rock Band Of All Time’ by VHI. The initial line up of the band included David Coverdale, Micky Moody, Bernie Marsden, Neil Murray, David ‘Duck’ Dowle and Brian Johnston.
Their first EP, “Snakebite” was released in 1977 and contained a cover of a Bobby Blue Band song, “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” and became the first hit for the band. Their first full album, “Trouble”, was released in 1978 and reached No. 50 in the UK, they then toured Europe to promote the album and then recorded their first live album “Live at Hammersmith” whilst on tour. Their next album “Lovehunter”, released in 1979, was controversial due to the risqué album cover featuring a naked woman straddling a coiled snake and reached No. 30 in the UK charts.
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In 1980 David Dowle was replaced by Ian Paice resulting in three ex-Deep Purple members now being in the band. The new line up released “Ready an’ Willing” which went Top 10 in the UK and made the US Billboard 100. They toured the same year and headlined Reading Festival. 1981 saw the release of “Come an’ Get It” which reached No. 2 in the charts and yielded the hits “Don’t Break My Heart Again” and “Would I Lie To You”. 1982 saw Coverdale taking time out to nurse his sick daughter before restarting the band in 1983 with 3 new members, they recorded the album, “Saints An” Sinners” which was another Top 10 hit and included perhaps their best known single, “Here I Go Again”.
1984 saw another line-up change and a major record deal with Geffen. A remixed version of “Slide It In” was released in the US and despite misgivings from Coverdale went double platinum. Their tour of 1984 saw yet more line-up changes and the tour ended with the band playing to a 100,000 strong audience at the Rock in Rio festival, Brazil. In 1987 the band changed its line-up (surprise, surprise!!) again and recorded the album, “Whitesnake”, which was called, “1987” in Europe and “Serpens Albus” in Japan. This album sold over 8 million copies in the US and included 2 huge hits, “Is This Love” and re-recording of “Here I Go Again” which went to No.1. The 1989 album, “Slip of the Tongue” saw MORE line-up changes (yawn!) and was a Top 10 hit in both the UK and the US. After a hiatus until 1994 the band reformed with more new members and released their “Greatest Hits” and went on a short European tour.
The band is still active today (although probably with another different line-up…) and toured in 2008 with Def Leppard and are due to be touring with Judas Priest in the summer of 2009.
This information is provided as a brief overview and not as a definitive guide, there are other sources on the net for that. If however you have a story or information that is not generally known we would love to hear from you. Content@rokpool.com
