In a recent interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, singer David Coverdale talked about the collaboration with Jimmy Page, saying the Covid pandemic repealed the plans to release fresh mixes of the album, complete with unreleased tracks.
Regarding this, Coverdale said the following:
“COVID didn’t do us any favors. I’m really lucky, I have a studio within 10 minutes of my primary home. My guy at the time was a cancer survivor, so we were ultra-locked down. Jimmy, of course, where he lived, didn’t have a studio. By the time we came out of COVID, I never had time to do it with that kind of commitment.
You know, I’ve got a very significant agenda, which also, in that time, was a two-year farewell tour after an astonishing 50-year career. There was just no time. It breaks my heart not to do it; it really does. Because it’s a super, super record. But yeah, that was the plan, and I was very excited.
I really don’t know what to do. Within five years, they’re phasing out CDs. Last year, as you well know, vinyl outsold CDs. I don’t know who [to give this project to]. But I pray that Jimmy, I think he has potentially exhausted the Led Zeppelin catalog, that he would take something like this on if he was enthused. There’s a couple of tracks that we never got on there, [including] one called ”Saccharin”, which is to die for.”