Snake bites back with a vengeance

"David Coverdale is the ultimate heavy blues rock singer."

So says Doug Aldrich, the American guitarist with whom the legendary singer has written the first new Whitesnake album in a decade . . . and the best Whitesnake album in two decades.

Good To Be Bad is a testosterone-soaked, 11-track monster of a CD, which ticks all the right boxes, harking back to the band's career-defining '1987' album.

Save for the lack of a song quite as monumental as Still Of The Night, it boasts eight scorching rockers filled with high energy guitars, three rock ballads with the unmistakable Whitesnake sound, and Coverdale's voice, THAT voice, one minute "as deep as mollasses", as Aldrich has it, at other times a banshee wail.

Oh, and the lyrics, one part soft porn, mixed with one part 'Carry On' and a little romance too. They're all delivered with a nudge and a wink from a man who is old enough to know better . . . but thank goodness he doesn't!

"I'm really proud of this album," says Aldrich, on the phone from his LA home, and only slightly distracted by his new puppy trying to get in on the conversation.

"We had an amazing and creative time writing and developing ideas. It's hard to pick out any favourites because I'm so close to them, but I am very proud of Till The End Of Time."

That is the album's closing song, and it marks a departure for Whitesnake, with it rootsy feel, yet somehow helps complete the circle back to the likes of We Wish You Well with the band's original bluesy line-up featuring the twin guitars of Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden.

"It's very difficult to make a Whitesnake record that will please everybody," Doug concedes. "There's the 'old guard' that love the early, bluesy Moody/Marsden line-up, while in the States they're more familiar with Slide It In and onwards.

"I wanted to incorporate more of the bluesness of the original Whitesnake, although I come from the 80s guitar style, with a lot of fireworks going on.."

"I wanted to meld those two eras together, bluesy but still heavy and melodic. I wanted this record to be deep and varied. There's some acoustic stuff and some ultra heavy."

Whitesnake have already begun a world tour which stops off at Birmingham NEC Arena on June 18, in a touring roadshow alongside fellow legends Def Leppard and Black Stone Cherry.

Aldrich says the new songs have been getting a great reaction alongside the mega hits like Here I Go Again, Fool For Your Loving and Is This Love.

"We've just played some dates in Australia and New Zealand where the song 'Lay Down Your Love' had been getting some radio airplay, so people knew that," he says.

"We started the shows with Best Years, the opening track on the new album, which was a ballsy move because no-one had heard it, but it's a really catchy riff and by the end of the tour people knew that's what we were opening with."

Aldrich has been with Whitesnake since 2006, along with current fellow guitarist Reb Beach, helping to carry on the Whitesnake torch previously held by the likes of Marsden, Moody, Cannock's Mel Galley, Steve Vai, John Sykes, Vivian Campbell and Adrian Vandenberg.

Quite a roundabout of six-string talent, but Aldrich is convinced that after six years with Whitesnake, there is still more to come from the present line-up, despite some hints that it might be the band's swansong.

Coverdale said recently: "If this is indeed the last Whitesnake studio record then I'm happy to finish like this. It was a labour of love making this record, a joy, and I'm still enjoying listening to it. Can't be bad!"

Aldrich, for his part, says: "I've been a huge fan of David since Deep Purple and he's really got the goods to carry on. We haven't really talked about that. It's going to be purely up to David. But there are other sides to David that I'd love to hear recorded."

"David Coverdale is Whitesnake. He's the boss . . I call him the guv'nor."

It's clear that it's a musical and personal relationship Aldrich hopes will continue.

"Our wives are really good friends, we enjoy having nights out, watching old westerns. He's like the older brother I never had, and so very inspirational," he says.

Aldrich was playing guitar with Dio in 2002 when Coverdale made contact and asked him to join Whitesnake's 25th Anniversary tour which would "just last a couple of months".

Six years later and Doug is still there, part of the Whitesnake revival which has seen an award-winning live DVD come off the back of two world tours playing to packed houses.

One of those concerts was the infamous "stomach bug" gig at Birmingham's NIA in 2006, which saw a clearly poorly Coverdale have to call off proceedings after just 45 minutes, although it was more than made up for when the concert was rescheduled for the end of the tour.

"I felt so sorry for David," says Aldrich, recalling that night, "because he always give 110%, he goes way beyond the call of duty."

Aldrich is looking forward to the British leg of the tour and says "mini touring festivals" with a three or four-band line-up are the way forward when fans are watching their wallets.

"It's a really great way to get together and put on a show that's good value for the fans, because money is tight these days," he says.

"Def Leppard and Whitesnake is the perfect package. Although David's got a load of Yanks with him now, Whitesnake is still a British band to me."

As well as Dio and Whitesnake, Doug Aldrich also came mighty close to working with rock legends Kiss, when he was invited into the studio to audition with the band when he was just 18.

"I played a couple of times and it was a really out-of-body experience, I was thinking 'Am I really doing this?' he laughs.

"I respect Kiss but my background was more Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck and The Who, so it's probably worked out for the best.

"The funny thing was that I'd got Gene Simmons' phone number and I was telling my friends 'We are so in with Kiss. Next time they tour it'll be backstage, the parties.'

"So I called Gene. I said 'Hi Gene, it's Doug', and he said 'Doug . . . lose this number'.

Aldrich bumped into the blood-spitting Kiss frontman again recently.

"We saw Kiss when we played with them in New Zealand.

"Gene said: 'Hi Doug. Tell me . . . who's singing with you these days?'!"

* Whitesnake, Def Leppard and Black Stone Cherry play at Birmingham NEC Arena on Wednesday June 18. Tickets, at £37.50 each, are available from www.livenation.co.uk and www.theticketfactory.com

By Ian Harvey