Whitesnake’s David Coverdale talked to UK’s Eonmusic where he mentioned that he didn’t want ‘Restless Heart’ (1997) album to be branded as a Whitesnake one.
About this album, Coverdale said:
“It was supposed to be a David Coverdale solo album after I’d worked with Coverdale Page, and the guys at EMI promoted the idea of this working under my own name, which I’ve got to say, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about. I like being in a band, I like being in Whitesnake! Obviously, there’s going to be elements of Whitesnake because I’m the principle writer for the band, but the circumstances, the new executives came in from EMI and at least showed me the respect of flying over to Reno and sitting down to listen to the album.
”I bought a case of Puligny-Montrachet so we’re all quaffing that, and then they asked if they could have a word with me, and I thought; “aye-aye, what’s this?!” They said; “we want this to be a Whitesnake album”, and I’m going; “but it isn’t – not as it is!”, and they said; “well, contractually, we can demand that, and we’d rather you were in agreement”. So I said; “fine”.
He added:
“I felt the songs were really strong, but if it was a Whitesnake album I wouldn’t have used girls on it [female backing singers], I wouldn’t have done ‘Stay With Me Baby’ [Lorraine Ellison cover], and ‘Don’t Fade Away’ very likely would not [have appeared on it]. I sat with Adrian and Michael going; “well, we can turn the guitars up a bit, we can turn the drums up a bit”, but I always felt it wasn’t doing it good service.
”And then the mastering was tough, and even more, different executives came in, and it was just a really challenging record, so revisiting it was just an utter pleasure for me.”