During a conversation with Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon, Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra talked about playing with Cher and how the rock fans are reacting to this.
When the interviewer said, “Do you get any flack from any fans questioning your legitimacy? Saying, ‘Oh, he loves Dio and he plays in Whitesnake, but he’s playing that pu*sy music – Cher! It’s not rock ‘n’ roll, that’s not metal!’ Do fans give you sh*t for that?”, Hoekstra replied (transcribed by UG):
“I’ve seen a couple of them but it doesn’t matter to me, man. One of the best things that ever happened to me was when I got out of GIT in 1991 or whatever, back when the shred scene was alive and well until Nirvana hit. It was 1992, I guess, and it was like – boom!”I built up my shots as a kid that all just became pointless, and so it launched this career for me of having to do anything and everything to be valuable as a guitar player.”That made me a better musician so, at the end of the day, people can say whatever they want. It’s about being a good musician and being about the music, and that does involve playing different styles as far as I’m concerned.”
He continued:
“Well, as I said, life can surprise you with these things. There are times where you’re like, ‘Wow, really? OK, cool, I’m going to do this!’ For me, I actually really enjoyed playing the Cher set.”
When asked about the press release, saying: ‘Joel Hoekstra – Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Whitesnake.’ Cher is not mentioned at all. Is that something that you don’t want rock fans to know?
He said:
“I debated about that a little bit. I put that together – they had me put it together and they didn’t say anything to me about it, and I kind of just thought it gets a little obnoxious sometimes when you see these people like eight bands after their name.
“And it was like, ‘Maybe I should just kind of limit what it is. Will Cher fans gonna buy this album? Probably not. It’s mainly gonna be like Whitesnake fans that buy this album most likely, and TSO fans too.’ TSO fans are hard rock fans so there you go, there’s the thinking. I try to avoid having eight bands and here are my 97 credits after my name.”