Playing Catch-Up: Whitesnake turns Purple

Shades of Purple. "It's the house of Deep Purple," Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale says of The Purple Album, the band's set of Deep Purple covers out Tuesday. "We've put a different coat of paint on there and got a snakeskin rug in front of the fireplace." The Purple Album pays homage to the years a twenty-something Coverdale fronted Deep Purple, drawing its material from three mid-'70s albums: Burn, Stormbringer and Come Taste the Band.

Key inspiration. Though Coverdale, 63, says the death of founding Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord in 2012 was the catalyst for what became The Purple Album, the most immediate difference in the original versions and Whitesnake's arrangement is the absence of Lord's distinctive organ style. "Lord's sound was so unique and insanely powerful, I didn't want to even attempt to recreate it," Coverdale says. "My whole vibe was to focus on the twin-guitar attack of Whitesnake and have keyboards more as a layer."

No reunion. Initially, Coverdale and Ritchie Blackmore, Deep Purple's original guitarist, discussed reuniting a version of the group but couldn't agree on members or musical direction. While Coverdale says, "I couldn't share the vision he had, so I respectfully withdrew," he adds that the conversations helped renew a friendship which had been on the outs since a physical confrontation some 30 years before.

The last time around? The Purple Album "may be my last big arena-rockstar album," says Coverdale, who lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. "While I was mixing the album, I had the feeling of coming full circle, a feeling of completion." That doesn't mean he's planning his retirement. "I want to do a blues album," he says. "I want to do an unplugged greatest hits but not be tied down to a Whitesnake album."

Deep catalog. Many Whitesnake fans, especially in the U.S., never associated Coverdale with Deep Purple, since the band's biggest stateside hits, Hush and Smoke on the Water, came before he joined the band. When Whitesnake inserted the title track from Deep Purple's 1974 album Burn into its set a decade ago, some concertgoers believed they were hearing unreleased material. "For elements of the Whitesnake audience, I think some of these songs are going to be new rock songs," he says.

Threads of purple, threads of white. The set list for Whitesnake's upcoming tour, which begins May 28 in Airway Heights, Wash., may draw primarily from the Purple songs. "It's going to be a Whitesnake tour, so you'll still have your Here I Go Again, Still of the Night and Is This Love," Coverdale says. "That's when it's going to be great, putting these songs together, to see the musical thread."