Sail Away: Whitesnake's Fantastic Voyage (28 page)

Opening
Slip Of The Tongue
, this
third Frankenstein of a record in a row for Whitesnake, is the
album’s title track, a brisk heavy metal rocker with Zeppelin-esque vocal
phrasing, occasional double bass, John Paul Jones-esque keyboards and the
howling high histrionics one expects from Steve Vai.

Agreeing, but not agreeing, with me that
Steve Vai just never sounded right on a heavy metal album, Olsen says, “Steve’s
strange but very cool. What is really best is when he just walks up on stage
all by himself and he picks up the guitar and he plugs in with a couple of pedals
and starts playing. And then you see Steve Vai for what Steve Vai really is —
he’s a soloist. He’s just a talented guy, but he’s best when he’s by himself
doing Steve Vai.”

Adds Kalodner, “I love Steve Vai. I
thought he was a great person, I thought he was a stupendous musician. And you
know, I put him in, but I thought he was totally wrong for Whitesnake. But it
was something I had to do.”

And indeed, come solo time, there
he is: Steve and his unmistakable sound, all sing-songy, periodically into the
hammer-ons, a bit of shred, but yes, also somewhat... silly?

“It’s very dynamic,” defends Vai, not
that he needs to defend being one of a hallowed dozen or so metal guitarists
with a pointedly and pronounced signature sound. “I try to use the
dynamics of the instrument. You know, it’s funny. David Lee Roth put it very
well. He said ‘Steve’s guitar playing is sort of like, if you see a guy sitting
on a tree branch, and he’s cutting the branch. You know what I mean? It’s like
whoa!’ Roth was really good at those kinds of analogies.”

“Obviously you hit a wall with the
speed and the technique thing,” continues Vai. “I can sit and focus on trying
to play faster and faster but it’s boring. The thing that is really pushing my
buttons these days is phrasing. Phrasing is the most important thing you do
with an instrument, because it’s what makes the instrument speak. It’s like the
inflections in our voice when we’re discussing something. It’s the
periods and commas, the things that make what you’re saying, make sense. The
dynamics and articulation and phrasing are really the most important thing. If
you ever watch Jeff Beck play, he’s a master craftsman of phrasing; he’s the
best. Because he’ll take three notes and do things with those three notes in a
period of five seconds, you couldn’t even... you see, most guitar players don’t
even get what he does because he’s so absolutely amazing, the
nuances of what he does. But the thing you hear in his playing also, is not
just all those amazing phrasing techniques. What you hear is something that is
speaking to you. So that’s what I focus on. Not the way Beck is doing it; I
wouldn’t do that, for the same reason I wouldn’t do Yngwie Malmsteen’s solos.
It’s like Jimi Hendrix doing Jimmy Page riffs. You know, you don’t want to hear
that. You want to hear guys that are capable of doing unique things, doing
unique things. So I try to imagine within myself, how I can expand upon and
evolve the way that I approach the guitar, in the way of phrasing.”

And what of the concept of shred? It’s
not out of the realm of possibility that Vai was right in there
inventing the concept, along, perhaps with Eddie, Randy and Joe Satriani.

“No, I think what happened is that it’s
like an onomatopoeia. It just works. I mean, Yngwie shreds. I had some students
that shredded, when I used to teach. One time I was in Mexico, doing a big
guitar class type thing, and there was this little Mexican kid that shredded!
Do I shred? Not really. I mean, occasionally I’ve been known to shred, but not
like the people that I know that can really shred. But you know, it’s a style
of playing that if it doesn’t have all the elements, it’s just boring for most
people.”

But these Whitesnake songs are not
exactly stuffed with Steve’s riffs. “No, when I joined Whitesnake, all the
songs were recorded and they basically had guide guitars on them,
ya know? My job was to kinda go in there and be respectful to what the
song was and to what the band was, but kinda add my slant to it. And that’s
basically what I did. But Adrian... you know, he was a formidable talent — he’s
really a wonderful player.”

In terms of percussion performance, “Slip
Of The Tongue” is one of the flashier tracks, amidst a collection of songs for
which Aldridge plays it relatively straight.

 “Mike Clink probably had the
most overall input on things, as far as the parts that were played, than anyone
else in the band,” says Aldridge.  “A lot of times, he would think that I was
over-playing quite a bit. That’s one reason the drums are so straightforward on
this record. He thought I should play things much simpler. I have to be able to
look at the big picture. I could go in there with a very self-indulgent
attitude and tell them to put it where the sun don’t shine, and play it exactly
how I wanted to play it. But, first off, I wouldn’t be very successful in this
business, and I certainly wouldn’t have been here as long as I’ve been in the
business, or in Whitesnake. I don’t think the songs would’ve been that good as
far as the big picture. I think that’s the healthiest attitude I can have. It
wasn’t an instrumental album, and I don’t always know what’s too busy and
what’s not too busy. That’s what producers are for — to add a little
objectivity.”

“On the other hand, David wanted me to be
happy,” continues Aldridge. “When we finished the tracks, everyone sat down
with everyone else and asked, ‘Are you happy with everything that you’ve done?’
And with a few exceptions, everyone said, ‘Yeah!’ Life is a compromise and when
you get five people together to record an album that everyone’s going to be
happy with — not only the musicians, but also the record company and the
record buyers — there’s so many considerations you have to make when you’re in the
studio. But a lot of times your individual desires get pushed back and your
principles become rearranged. And that’s all for the sake of recording the
best record you could possibly do.”

Moving forward, “Cheap An’ Nasty” is hair
metal all the way, right from Aldridge’s cowbell and stripper beat, to the
typical Whitesnake lyric from Coverdale, down to the stacked party metal
riffing. As was the tenor of the times, the band’s poor vocalist was sent in to
sing high and hard, as he does elsewhere on the album, notably on the title
track. It’s a favourite of Olsen’s on the album, Keith simply calling it
“kick-butt,” and, as was evidenced on the
Whitesnake
album, the
band distinguish themselves despite the ordinary writing here, by loading up the
song with guitars, electricity, bottom end, everything, including a near
hilarious over-the-top noise solo out of Vai, a parody of the out-of-control heavy metal guitarist as it were.

“I mean, the demos of the
Slip Of The Tongue
album kick ass, the ones that I worked with Adrian
on,” says Coverdale, realizing the 1980s excess of the song as well as the
album at large. “And then of course, it just got over-decorated. The way
Slip
Of The Tongue
was, it was Tommy Aldridge wanting to get all his licks in,
Rudy Sarzo was trying to get all his licks in, Adrian Vandenberg was trying to
get all his licks in, Steve Vai was... there was no foundation. Everyone was
just being overtly flamboyant. And there’s a picture I have at home just to
remind me to never go there again, where I’m standing in the middle of this
utter chaos. And you know, I can hear what it was like. The look on my face was
like, ‘Where the hell am I supposed to sing in here?!’ So not the
fondest memories. Also, I was coming into a period of great fatigue after
working nonstop for three years on that remarkable successful rollercoaster
that we experienced and I just lost perspective. And my private life was just the
distraction from hell. And of course normally, I would be able to seek solace
within my professional life, but it was not to be this time! But like I say,
I’m the Edith Piaf of rock so I have no regrets. Everything that’s ever
happened to me has been necessary for learning this or learning that.”

Notes Coverdale, “There are guitar songs
on this album — ‘Cheap An’ Nasty’ and ‘Kittens Got Claws’ — that guitarists would
die for, but they would have used it as a way to show off their
technical expertise. Steve looked at the structure of the song, the
lyrics, and painted pictures around them. He made them a signature.”

Cheap ploy time, next up was a new
version of “Fool For Your Loving,” which served as a microcosm for all that was
overworked and bloated about
Slip Of The Tongue
. Last record back, the
band played like a nuclear superpower when it came time to reinvigorate “Here I
Go Again” and “Crying In The Rain,” both originally from
Saints &
Sinners
. Now, however, the quiet class of the
Ready An’ Willing
version of “Fool For Your Loving” wins out over 1980s excess. The contemplative
letter to love gone bitter in the hands of this band thumps and stumbles, with
the solo licks from its flash guitarist not doing this regal yet sombre anthem
any favours. There are a few nice new harmonies at the close of the piece, but
all told, this was not an inspired undertaking.

“I thought it was okay,” says Kalodner.
“I like that version, but it’s not a hit song. I mean, it’s very interesting
you ask that, because there’s a lot of things I forget about. Because by that
time, the pressure on me, from everyone, was so extreme, between this now huge
band and then the company, who was depending on the tens of millions of dollars
in billing, but along with the pressure they would get from EMI or Sony Japan.
And the pressure was like wilting, for me to finish this record.”

And it’s not like
Slip Of The Tongue
was costing any less to birth than
Whitesnake
. “No, well, only because
it was so lavishly lived, yeah. The previous record, all the money was in like
sessions and various... I mean, I tried to record his vocal like ten times.
Until Keith Olsen finally got it out of him.”

Next up was “Now You’re Gone,” a
shameless power ballad, but nonetheless an up-tempo one. It was issued as a
single but only crept into the bottom of the charts, at No. 96, although it the
UK it fared better, reaching No. 31. A Wayne Isham-directed video was shot for the
track, anchored by the band playing live on the afternoon of a show at The
Spectrum in Philadelphia.

“Yeah, they’re all the ones I was
championing,” says Kalodner, concerning “Now You’re Gone” and the
other ones chosen to be his cash cow babies mainly “The Deeper The Love,” and
“Fool For Your Loving.” And none of them really developed that well, because they
didn’t put that much time into them. And it’s the same thing as anything else.
Like with Aerosmith, I made them go back and do
Get A Grip
. The entire
record, I threw out. Well, I would’ve done that with the Whitesnake record, but
at the time I didn’t have the option to do that. Either from the
band, plus there was no manager that would back me up, such as Howard Kaufman or
Trudy Green. And the label still was really growing to be a superpower, and they
still needed that income. By the time I decided to throw out the
first
Get A Grip
, I learned from the Whitesnake record to do that. This
is why I wanted to talk you, because, you know, I think I’m the
greatest A&R person that ever lived, in terms of rock music, but that shows
a gigantic mistake in my career, that I let the
Slip Of The Tongue
record come out.”

Sounds like there were extenuating
circumstances though, including roadblocks up and down the command chain as
well as the pressures of dealing with this band out of control...

“There was, there was. That’s why I had
to start to see a psychologist from working with him, David Coverdale and
Steven Tyler at the same time. And Cher. And then the stress of the
job. But I don’t consider that an excuse for what I should’ve done. Because I
knew the record. You see, most lead singers don’t know a hit song — any of them.
So, you have to kind of work with them and tell them that’s the
hit song. In fact, most great musicians don’t know. When they write a hit, it’s
usually not one of their favourite songs. But anyway, I worked with Coverdale a
lot on the songwriting, but I just ran into a wall and I didn’t have enough
energy to fight. I didn’t have anyone helping me to, you know, fight him.”

And yet technically, you’d have to call
both “Now You’re Gone” and “The Deeper The Love” hit songs. “Yeah, they
were successful because they were well played and well sung, and the
band was well loved, but they’re not hit songs, no. There was no hit song on
that record. And you know, that is my fault.”