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An early interview with David Coverdale...


Fantasy fairy tale come true...


...or how Dave Coverdale left that boutique back in Redcar, the cabaret circuit with the Fabuloso Brothers, to join the headly top flight rock elite with Deep Purple. Pete Makowski talks to vocalist Dave and reviews the band's new album, Stormbringer.
 
 Now that Purple are well establisbed into their third phase, things seem to be well on the move again. Their music has taken a new direction and a great deal of the credit can be taken by the two new additions - Glenn Hughes and Dave Coverdale.
 Dave is a very down to earth character who hails from Redcar. Considering the speed of success he's very level headed and can in no way be described as an egomaniac. At only 23 Dave is at an important stage of his career and is still aware of his responsibilities.
 To the mass audiences that Purple draw, Coverdale was an unknown quantity and stepped into the shoes of Ian Gillan at a crucial point for the band, considering all, it's worked out well wouldn't you say?

Boutique
  It's hard to imagine that barely over a year ago Dave was working in a semi pro band and in a boutique, and where once he played to small audience on the cabaret circuit he now commands respect from the crowds that fill large halls all over the world, almost a fantasy fairy tale come true.
  Coverdale began his singing career when he was fourteen: "I was singing through a Dynatron tape recorder complete with more feedback than we have now," he recalled in a broad Northern accent, "those were really heady days, it was terrific. There were no depth, if you know what I mean, nothing to be explored.
  "We were all very limited. I don't think my voice had broken. And that's when I first learnt how to sing with my stomach, which sounds silly, but it's totally different from a normal voice.
"I remember we did 'Gimme Some Lovin' and 'That in D'. I started singing it high without really thinking. That was before my throat had been bastardised with cigarettes and whisky. The band just stopped and said 'you sound like Stevie Winwood' which was just the stomach thing, using your mouth like a box, it was just amazing.

Emphasise
  "From then on I started working on that voice and one day I was listening to Alan Freeman's 'Pick of the Pops' which was a Sunday religion and he played a version of 'Yesterday' by Ray Charles which had me in tears, I was on my own and I just went apeshit. I'd heard the Beatles version but this had the hairs standing on my neck. I thought it must be good to have a voice like that and that sort of feel.
  "I started thinking 'I'm a person, I can feel and I can be hurt why can't I emphasise it in what I'm doing'. That's when I started borrowing records and started listening to more than the Pretty Things, if you know what I mean. Going beyond the R&B thing."
 Coverdale's career followed a steady path, his interest in soul developed and in turn so did his voice. Before joining Purple Dave was in the Fabuloso Brothers. "That was a lovely time, a lovely bunch of guys, they've unfortunately split up. When I left the band, they all just sat around.
  "We were really together socially and the drag was that I had been told to keep the Purple auditions to myself, I felt such a bastard because we were always being very open to each other. I've always been with the same nucleus of musicians, I was also restricted because there were a lot of people I would have liked to have worked with but I couldn't because I couldn't afford a PA system or a mike.
 "I was reminiscing with a friend the other day, cause when I bought a stereo he said 'oh, honestly you make me sick, you've got a great voice but you won't go out and buy a mike'. D'you know I still don't own a microphone, our PA system is hired."
 The Brother's success was very limited to the small time. "With equipment and somebody steering us it could have been as fine as the Average White Band, it was very much that way. It was difficult then because when you're a semi pro musician you have to play what the audiences want. But we got away with so much because we took established standards and twisted them about a bit.
  "Some of the ideas we had were terrific, but there were so many restrictions as far as employment was concerned. Members of the band had businesses and I'm not going to turn around to anybody and say stop what you're doing and go on the road because I know it can be a heartbreaking experience and a financially breaking on at that."
  "But I'll be eternally indebted to the people I worked with because they were on the tape which made me sound better than I was … I was drunk."
 That event comes later, in the buildup that led to Coverdale joining Purple: "I was reading the papers and I saw that Purple were still looking for a vocalist. I didn't think about it, every week somebody's looking for a musician. The chick who worked at the boutique I was at was a Purple nut.
  "I remember playing on the bill to them a few years before just after the second chapter of the band. I remember being complimented a lot by Ritchie, Jon and Roger, I was reminding Roger about it yesterday.
 "Anyway back to the boutique, the chick there took out a copy of 'Machine head' and put it on, and half a dozen guys came into the shop, one of them came up to me and said 'are you still singing', like you'd say 'are you still brushing your teeth', or something like that. I said 'Yeh' and he asked ' why don't you go for a job with Purple' and laughed.
  "I got really depressed and then I really got violent and thought 'I don't want to be regarded as a joke', it means a lot to me.' And then I remembered I knew this chick who knew Purple and I tried to get in contact with them."
 This didn't work and Dave tried to keep cool. The next move was to reach some of the influential friends he'd make when he supported bands in Redcar and get them to put in a good word with Purple for him. This didn't work either, Dave couldn't even obtain their adresses from the record company.
  "Then I got a friend of mine, Roger Barker, who used to be manager of the Redcar Jazz Club, to take over for me, I rang him up and I said: 'I'm going after the job with Purple' and there was a deadly silence. Everyone I told had faith in me but that was like aiming my sights a little too high. I think they thought I should have started a little lower down the scale.
 "I've heard so many rumours in my career from when I was seventeen onwards. Alan Bown was interrested in me but when I was approached, it was done in such a lax way I thought they were kidding me, but it was serious. I would have loved to have worked with the Grease Band when Cocker left, that was my idea of a perfect band.

Last edited by MrEd45, 26/5/2008, 15:48


---
" Those who can - do. Those who can't do - teach. Those who can't do or teach - administrate."
- Anon.

" One that will not reason is a bigot. One that cannot reason is an ignoramus. One that dares not reason is a slave." - Anon
26/5/2008, 15:47 Link to this post Send Email to MrEd45   Send PM to MrEd45 Blog
 
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Re: An early interview with David Coverdale...(pt. 2)


Dreadful
  "So Roger Barker said leave it and I was left sitting around. After a couple of weeks we got a phone call from one of the secretaries at Purple's office who asked me to send a tape and photographs around. I thought I might as well forget it, because I didn't have any photographs, and the tapes I did at Strawberry Studios sounded great on the night but they were so bad in the cold light of day that when I mixed them it was dreadful.
  "The band sounded great but I just turned round and said 'forget it', because it was so bad. There were a lot of good parts but with me being so drunk is sounded terrible. So I sat there thinking 'dreadful' and then I had a brainwave when I was recording a copy tape.
  "I turned down the volume on the bad bits to make it look as if there was a fault and it worked, the band (Purple) were attracted to the tone. We did a couple of old rock things (at the audition) which was embarassing because I didn't know the words, I wasn't around at the time. I learnt 'Smoke On the Water' and 'Strange Kinda Woman' and they didn't play either of those.
 "It was supposed to be a two hour show audition but we played for hours just blowing like hell. The was the first time I met them so I was meeting people I had just been reading about - stars mate. They were great, very natural people."
  This was the first time Dave met the other new boy, Glenn. "He was ace, he was late to the audition because he got lost in the traffic coming down and he came in, his hair all over the place. He has amazing hair, and these Easy Rider Polaroids and he strolled in with this big shoulder bag and guitar case and I was getting nervous and I sat there waiting.
 "They all wandered through for a blow and I heard this funky sound and thought ' what's that!', it was the same kind of stuff I had been playing the night before with The Fab Brothers.

Butterflies
   "l joined them and I began to shout to get rid of all the butterflies, like when I go on stage now and shout 'alright?', it's to get rid of me nerves cause the audience scream back. Audiences are the best dope in the world.
  "Anyway, we went through a few rock numbers and then we stopped and Jon Lord went out to listen to it because it was being recorded. He came back and said that it sounded good. Then Ritchie tumed to me and said, 'look you can sing rock, let's see what you can do with melody', and we had a go at 'Yesterday' and it came out really nice."
 The band rehearsed at Clearwell Castle, recorded the Burn album and went on the road in Europe. The final test for the band's newly acquired vocalist.
  "The first gig was in Copenhagen and the band thought that I had !@#$ out y'know, they thought that I had got so nervous that I'd pissed off because there was loads of Press around and the usual backstage hassle and before I had always been on my own with the band.
  But this was so new y'know all the !@#$ that goes with it and I could see that everybody was as nervous as I was. I went upstairs to a room on my own and I sat there and had a little discussion with myself, either I would go out there and fall flat on my face or I'd go out there and do it.

Reputation
  "Then I came down and I saw so many doubtful faces looking at me thinking ' what's he gonna do, he's nowt special' and I thought 'that does it I'll show the bastards!'. And that was the whole thing I went on with the intention of showing them and it worked."
  Ian Gillan had quite a stronghold on his audiences and l asked Dave how it felt to step into his shoes. "To be quite honest I never considered it. I never considered myself as a replacement, it was a new thing. As far as they were concerned it was a new band. They just had a reputation to live up to and an excellent one at that.
 "There's three tracks on the new album that are definite Purple, because they have a definite sound because there's always been the nucleus of lan, Jon and Ritchie. We don't write songs to suit a Purple audience, we wite songs that we like and it happens that the audience get off on them.
  "There's no contrivance there. You can't change the Deep Purple, you can put a different vocal on top of it and you can use diffrent approaches to material.

Progression
  "It's the new blood scene they were turning round and asking our opinions on because they needed a refreshing course, they wanted to know what our ideas were and we told them. It took Glenn and I a while to get used to the idea of telling people of their musical stature what to do.
  "It was difficult on Burn to get the gumption together but now like the new album for me is such a mature logical progression. On Burn we didn't know each other. I'm not ashamed of the album by any means but we were still getting to know each other."
 The new album that Dave is referring to is Stormbringer and it certainly does reveal a new side to the band. Dave is satisfied with the album, overjoyed with it: "I can see other artists covering material on this album while there are not many other Purple songs that you can imagine being covered. There are several people that have expressed interest at certain tunes on the album ... Bowie wants to do one.
  "It sounds typical recording artist bullshit, but I'm just looking forward to the next one ... y'know the progression thing". - David Coverdale to Pete Makowski for Sounds magazine, November 2, 1974


---
" Those who can - do. Those who can't do - teach. Those who can't do or teach - administrate."
- Anon.

" One that will not reason is a bigot. One that cannot reason is an ignoramus. One that dares not reason is a slave." - Anon
26/5/2008, 15:48 Link to this post Send Email to MrEd45   Send PM to MrEd45 Blog
 


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