Interview with Doug Aldrich on KNAC Radio
By DJ WILL

DJ WILL:   So Doug, how you doing? I know you've been back from Australia.  So how are things with you? And let's talk about the new CD.

Doug Aldrich: Hey you guys. I just want to say "hey". I'm happy to be here.  And we're just gearing up for tour. We finished up "Good to be Bad",and we're really excited about it. And I've kinda got a little break a couple days before we get in rehearsal for the real tour to start. So it's a good time to catch up with you.

DJ WILL:   Now this time around since there's been a little hiatus with Whitesnake, you've toured the last couple years or so. Now you've got an opportunity to promote the brand new CD. And you've finally have put your signature mark guitar work on this....now there were 4 new songs on the previous release but this time around it's a full length CD. Talk a little bit about working with Coverdale and putting everything together with the new line-up.

Doug Aldrich: Well actually, everybody put their stamp on it. The whole band did a great job and David's performance on the record is just killer, man. It's just so inspiring to hear him on these new songs. It's been awhile since the last Whitesnake release. But to answer your question, working with David was really natural. It just kind of exploded and we got on a really good roll writing-wise. We started actually right at the end of 2006, right after I went up to this place. We're always banging around ideas backstage and we had written a little bit over the years that  I've been working with him. But this was like a very focused and intense writing that we started. And the first couple of things that  we did demos for were really cool and inspiring and we just went from there.

DJ WILL:   So the writing process has been workable in the sense that you've been able to come up with some good riffs? David's been aproachable in terms of  "hey, this is what I came up with, what do you think?" type thing?

Doug Aldrich: He plays guitar, too. He contributed lots of riffs and music stuff, not just vocals. He's a complete songwriter. He had some ideas that he wanted me to try and develop, and I did work on that stuff and obviously the majority of the stuff that we did together, we did it from scratch, starting at that time at the end of 2006. With me, he's been very generous it's been an inspiring experience working with him and hopefully it's been the same for him with me. Because it seems we've been on the same page musically and the new songs kind of speak for themselves.

DJ WILL:   Let's dive into something more from the new CD "Good To Be Bad".  This is "A Fool In Love". Come back, we'll talk with Doug, if we work out the bug and the kinks. You're listening to brand new Whitesnake here on the loudest dot.com on the planet KNAC.com.

Doug Aldrich: Yeah!

"A Fool In Love" plays ....

DJ WILL:   That is the latest from Whitesnake, "A Fool In Love" and joining me on the phone is the guitarist in the band, Mr. Doug Aldrich.  Sounding good, man. Sounding real good.

Doug Aldrich: Thanks, bro. It was really fun to make that stuff. It was truly rewarding. When you're writing, creating songs and stuff, it doesn't matter what's going on in your life. Once you play back that demo for the first time after you've put all the bits on it and everything, it makes you feel really good. Then you gotta start from scratch on another idea. Like I said, we got on a good flow and it was about 4 months of writing, something like that.

DJ WILL:   All together?

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, off and on. We had little breaks where we'd work on something together. We'd get excited about it. Then we'd start to experiment with different arrangements. And then I'd start to do some work at my place on it, send it to David. He'd do some work on it, send it back to me. And we'd get together and kind of hash out the finished arrangement and then re-do the demos. Some of those songs, well some of 'em were demoed 'em once. And it was "this sounds good".  And then other songs, we had to demo the song 3 or 4 or 5 times.

DJ WILL:   'Til you get it right?

Doug Aldrich: And we experimented with different keys. Like sometimes a song would start in 1 key, and then by the time we actually recorded it was in a totally different key, which mostly worked out great. Because it would force me to find new ways to play the riff in a different key and use different tunings and stuff.

DJ WILL:   Don't you just love the recording process these days, where if you can't be in 1 studio at any given moment, you could sort of Frankenstein it out, where as people could sort of submit their parts and then put it all together.

Doug Aldrich: With technology you can email a track to somebody, have them do their work on it. And then they email you back their parts. If somebody's out of the country or in a different state or whatever. But generally when we're demoing, we would do whatever came up to make the demo sound right. Then we had to record it properly. And in that situation we had to record with the basic tracks with the band to capture the vibe. And then we did some overdubs in various studios.

DJ WILL:   Again, I'm speaking with Doug Aldrich, guitarist  of Whitesnake who have a new CD out. Which of course you're hearing first, pure rockers, on the KNAC.com. Well I'm liking what I'm hearing, so far. I think the beautiful thing is the collaboration you've been able to craft these new songs and obviously with the name recognition of Whitesnake eventually take 'em out on the road and people get to hear them live.  So that is something that is always....you look forward to that. You look forward to the live settings. So  I imagine yet you're looking forward to going back out on the road, too, Doug?

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, we started a few weeks ago. We had a show in New Zealand that was like a festival. It was a great show. It was Kiss, Ozzy, us, Poison, and Alice Cooper. And so we were over there to do that one show, and although the record wasn't out it was something we wanted to do, obviously. And then while we were there we did a few shows in Australia. And we did play 3 of the new songs off the record in the set. So it was really cool to see how those things went over. And even though people hadn't really heard them, except for 1 of the songs they heard on the radio, they really got into it. And I think it's cool to play new stuff sometimes instead of playing the same things that people would expect.

DJ WILL:   Sure. And you want that acceptance for all the hard work you put into the new songs because that's what it's all about. Because a lot of bands, if they have a great volume of back catalog, they could play all their hits. But at the same time you want to mix in the new stuff so people can say "hey, I like this too. Maybe 10-15 years from now, this will be one of their greatest hits also." And learn to appreciate new music because these days, if bands are still gonna go out there and tour and play, it's like you want to eventually hear new material.  That's my opinion.

Doug Aldrich: It keeps it fresh. You can't do the same thing every year. We had been touring for about 5 years and we were changing the set, and we were adding some older songs and we'd do different things. We might revisit some Purple stuff, or something that David had done. And that was all good, but then it got to the point where it was like alright, let's just see what we've got? It was very natural. We didn't try and rush anything. It wasn't like we were forced to make a record or felt that we had to. We just felt that we wanted to. We were ready to try some experimentation and just see what came out. And we're really happy with it.

DJ WILL:   Outstanding. Now I noticed that, well obviously I've been playing them and I've had them for since it came out......the release you did a little while ago, "Live In The Shadow of The Blues", now there were 4 new songs at the time on that release. Are you going to incorporate any of those songs into the set that you're doing on this tour?

Doug Aldrich: Probably we're gonna focus on the stuff off of "Good To Be Bad", I would think. And then I really want to see if we could find some old gems from Whitesnake that haven't been played live, or at least haven't been played live for awhile. That first leg that we did in the Down Under area, we didn't have as much time as we normally do to rehearse for it. So we just kind of worked on the new stuff, and then we did the classic Whitesnake songs...."Still Of The Night", "Here I Go Again". But for South America, Europe and the rest of the world wherever we go, we got a new set that we're working on. And also, we had to work in a new drummer that played on the record, Chris Frazier.  He did an amazing job on the record and then later joined the band as a member. He's kickin' ass, it's great.

DJ WILL:   Outstanding. I'm speaking with Doug Aldrich, guitarist of Whitesnake. "Good To Be Bad", out April 22nd here in America, also the rest of Europe April 18th and 21st, respectively. Of Course Germany, April 18th. Tell you what, let's play another track from "Good To Be Bad", and you want to set this up, Doug? This is "Can You Hear The Wind Blow?" Will you set this up a little bit for me?

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, this is a song that's kind of got a little bit more of....maybe a little more of a modern sound to Whitesnake. And lyrically, it's really cool. It's something that I hadn't really hear David do before, and he sounds amazing on it. And it's a cool tune, "Can You Hear The Wind Blow".

DJ WILL:   You are listening to The Vault, here on KNAC.com. Come back we'll talk with Doug....this is brand new Whitesnake, here on The Vault, KNAC.com.

"Can You Hear The Wind Blow" plays ....

DJ WILL:   On the phone with me is Doug Aldrich, performing the guitar work along with Reb Beach on that track. Sounding good, man. Real, obviously a bluesy feel, it doesn't have to be all in your face. This is Whitesnake, it should have a good groove.

Doug Aldrich: As David says "that's rock 'n roll". It's the roll that is the effect, the groove thing.

DJ WILL:   Absolutely. So the recording process with "Good To Be Bad", talk a little bit about your approach with obviously your technique, but your playing style. Did you do anything differently this time around, outside of having more input with the songs.  But did you do anything different this time around?

Doug Aldrich: Oh yeah. There was a lot of experimentation, as I was saying, with different keys. And through trying different keys I was experimenting with (can't understand) and different tunings. And so we ended coming up with a couple different things that, in fact 1 tuning... it was really cool that I had never really seen before that I used on "Lay Down Your Love", which is the first single, I guess.  With Whitesnake, it's weird because you got the classic "old guard" fans in Europe that love the bluesy Whitesnake, the more rock 'n roll Whitesnake stuff. And then in the States, people are more familiar with the "Slide It In" era and the '87 record. I love both of them and that's kind of how my style is naturally. I tried to incorporate some slide guitar that maybe hasn't been as much on Whitesnake records in recent years, and like I said the tunings. But mostly, guitar-wise, it's Les Paul, Marshall, Strat. And then I picked up a couple special guitars. I picked up a Dan Armstrong, one of those plexi-glass guitars that was great for slide and for overdubs. And a 12 string danelectro that I used on some stuff. But it's pretty much down to just those songs were all written basically on acoustic. David and I would sit down and bang through stuff on acoustic guitars to see if the song was working. And then we'd work on doing our parts and overdubs and that kind of thing.

DJ WILL:   How is it working with some of the newer members? You had mentioned the new drummer, and how was it working with Uriah also? Reb has been with you pretty much from the get-go in this version of Whitesnake. How are the new members working out?

Doug Aldrich: Yeah well, Reb and Timothy the keyboard player....Timothy's especially, well on the record and live, he's a big part of the sound.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, can't forget Timothy, which I think I just did!

Doug Aldrich: Oh, it's cool, man, he's understanding. But anyway, he's a great singer and Reb is also an amazing singer as well as being an amazing guitar player. But Uriah and Chris, new drummer Chris Frazier...well Uriah came in 2005 and he started on a U.S. tour that we did. He's a really talented bass player. He plays a lot of different styles. He's worked with a lot of different artists, like Christina Aguilera. And he's got a band called Lyricsborn that he jams with sometimes.  It's kind of like a heavy rap thing. And so it was interesting to see how he would appoach Whitesnake. And I said to him "with Whitesnake, to me, it's like the bass really drives the band in a lot of sense.  Like on the earlier stuff with Neil Murray playing bass, he was just like slammin' the groove and it was a big part of the sound. And Uriah's fit into that really well and he gets better everytime I hear him play. He's more and more on top of it. So we had him and Tommy, and then when we were working on the record there was a schedule conflict with Tommy, and we just really were so excited about getting recorded.....and we kind of wanted to get the record done so we could potentially do some touring. So the schedule was a little bit conflicted and we were kind of forced to move on with Chris Frazier.  And at that time it was almost like a session. As long as David's there, it's gonna be Whitesnake. So that's what we ended up doing.  Chris did such a great job on the record. He's got like flavors of Ian Paice, and flavors of Cozy Powell. And of course we miss Tommy but Chris brings a totally new different thing to the band. And the groove is really fat with those 2 guys, with Frazier and Uriah.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, holding down the bottom end and of course not replacing legendary drummer Tommy Aldridge, but at the same time Chris has his own flavor as you mentioned. And you have to feed off of that. Obviously with the situation being as it was, moving on, but at the same time you got a guy who can keep a solid meter. And that's what you need.

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, there's no way to replace someone like Tommy. You have to go on a little bit different direction. And the thing that was cool about it was it kinda leans a little more towards the classic Whitesnake, the way that Frazier plays. And the other thing is, if you're that guy that's gotta step into those shoes, you gotta bring something to the party. You can't just coast, so he really stepped up his game and it's cool working with him. He's a great guy, too.

DJ WILL:   I'm speaking with Doug Aldrich. You can go to his website dougaldrich.com as well as whitesnake.com. They'll be heading off to Europe very very very soon, and hopefully hitting the States at the tail end of 2008. You figure, what, around August or September around that time, Doug?

Doug Aldrich: I would say probably like September. Well first it's South America. We got that first. We gotta get those immunization shots for down there just 'cause there's some stuff like yellow fever and whatnot that you've got to get a certificate saying that you've been immunized.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, to even get through customs and also too. It's not like you just do down there, plug in, and rock out to the crowd. It's all about taking care of your own self.

Doug Aldrich: We did. We went down there in October of 2005. We were down there with Judas Priest doing a bunch of shows. And we didn't have to do it at that time. I think the reason is that our first gig is really close to the Amazon, and the mosquitos carry the yellow fever, and there's sometimes hepatitis A and different things. So just to be safe, we're gonna get a bunch of shots, all of us. And mainly you have to have the certificate for yellow fever, 'cause if you get that then the tour shuts down. So South America first, then Europe for the summer. And I know that the powers-that-be are working on dates in the U.S. We definitely want to be in the U.S. since we haven't been here for about almost 3 years.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, that's right.

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, and then we've got some stuff in Japan, I think. And we'll just take it from there.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, it's like a far cry from being a rock band, you have to take care of these important matters, 'cause it's a domino effect, Doug. If you don't have this particular paperwork to have this particular thing done, you have to deal with cancellations, there's a crew, the staging, everything involved. So if one thing doesn't happen, if you don't take care of a, b, and c, then it's a whole domino effect from there.

Doug Aldrich: Absolutely. The Whitesnake crew is instrumental in making the show what it is. If my guitar tech, his name is Kevin, he's a great guy, if he gets sick than that throws me off 'cause I gotta work with somebody new or whatever. But at least we're in the summertime, so those old things of being on the bus and one guy passes it to the next guy, to the next guy, to the next guy, that probably won't happen so much. We've just gotta keep those alien bugs out of our system.

DJ WILL:   I agree. Keep your health up, keep your health up.

Doug Aldrich: It's gonna be cool, man. South America is amazing and the fans down there are just crazy. I'm so blessed to be able to go to some of these places that I would never ever be able to otherwise. So we're really excited about it. You know, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and I think there's Peru and definitely Mexico. I don't know if I forgot anything else....Brazil.

DJ WILL:   Would you say that these are markets that Whitesnake haven't played, well in a long time or played at all?

Doug Aldrich: We were there in 2005.....

DJ WILL:   But prior to that.

Doug Aldrich: It's not like you get to go there every year. Like sometimes in the U.S. you can do a tour for a couple years straight, or in Europe.  But the good thing was, originally we were hoping to have "Good To Be Bad" out in like the fall of last year and that we would be able to do some gigs. But on the record, we had some setbacks during the recording. And so the record didn't get done until around Christmas time. But the good thing is that we took a break, and so hopefully people are excited about seeing the band together. Now we've got a new record under our belts so that's another thing to talk about.

DJ WILL:   I'll tell you what. Let's play something else from "Good To Be Bad". I'll have you select the song.

Doug Aldrich: You can try "Lay Down Your Love". That's gonna be....I'm not sure if they really do singles now but I think they're gonna send that to some radio stations. It's an old kind of blues thing, that old call and response thing that bands like the Stones did and Zeppelin, where the singer sings the line and the band responds to it. It's called call and response. David did it will "Still Of The Night" and that was like the ultimate call and response blues riff. And it was actually almost metal. It was so heavy and cool. And with this song, it was kind of a structure, musically. But I wanted to make it a little more on the bluesy side with slide guitar and stuff. And it's got flavors of kind of Coverdale-Page in some of it, too. It's called "Lay Down Your Love".

DJ WILL:   You heard the man. You're listening to The Vault here on KNAC.com.  Brand new Whitesnake, "Good To Be Bad" is the name of the CD. Out very, very soon. Check this out....KNAC.com.

"Lay Down Your Love" plays ....

DJ WILL:   Pure rock, KNAC.com, the loudest dot.com on the planet...."Lay Down Your Love", brand new pure rock from Whitesnake. Joining me on the phone, Doug Aldrich. Good stuff. Again, solid solid bluesy track there. There's a start, there's a middle and there's a finish, and it's really really solid. Really really solid. So...Doug?

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, are you there?

DJ WILL:   Yeah, I'm here. You're here, I'm here.

Doug Aldrich: I missed that last thing you said. Sorry, bro.

DJ WILL:   It's o.k. I was giving "Lay Down Your Love" some praise. It's a real strong bluesy number that has like a start, a middle and a finish. Obviously very catchy, and it's Coverdale. And obviously another song with the word "love" in it, very consistent with that. Sounding good, man. Sounding good. So we were talking off-air just about the economics of the business and what-have-you. I think it's great that a band like Whitesnake can continue to tour, continue to record and obviously this is a brand new CD, brand new material. But at the same time incorporating the hits and you're gonna have some new material to play for the fans all over. It's a tribute to staying power, being consistent, and saying "hey, we have something new to offer".

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, the thing of it is, what we were talking about so everybody else can hear it, is that the business has changed a lot.  And you really just have to forget about that stuff and make music that you dig. And that's what we tried to do on this. There's no way that you're gonna try and recreate, and we don't want to recreate"'87", or "Slide It In" or whatever. We just tried to write some songs that we liked that made us inspired. And it felt good to us at the time that we worked on them. The reward is actually being around for the creation of the song. You can't do it for money. It's like with Zeppelin. You know, "Zeppelin 4" was just massive and how are they gonna top that? I guess they came out with "Presence" next or something and maybe didn't sell as good. But "Presence" is one of my favorite Zeppelin records of all-time. It just depends, but the bottom line is you gotta do it for the music. You can't really try and plan on making a ton of money or anything like that. It's gotta be about the music.

DJ WILL:   That should always be the forefront when you're laying down these tracks and putting everything together, and putting it out.  It really shouldn't be about the high priced producer or what studio you used.  At the end of the day, it's the songs. It's what's being heard. It's what's gonna draw fans out, new and old, out to the shows. It's just a different climate these days. And also what we talked about, too,
about some of your previous projects. That's how I came to know you and your guitar playing. And I also should say, Doug, I really appreciate the way you approach playing guitar as opposed to what's popular these days. You know, the 7 string, the downtuning. That's seems to be very prevalent these days in a lot of these newer bands. A lot of them have a little something, some nuances, but I personally prefer this traditional rock guitar. And you still kick ass.

Doug Aldrich: Well, thanks man. I'm not against anything. I'm open to anything. I love experimentation. I've never owned a 7 string, so I just haven't had the opportunity to play around with it. But I do like some of those bands and 1 I really dig is...I really like Alterbridge a lot. A friend of mine from Germany kind of.....well we had done some gigs with them, too, in 2005. This friend of mine turned me on to their new record and I really dig it a lot. And it's got great tunes and really great playing. I think he's doing a lot of stuff like that with the guitars. His name's Mark Trevasoni I believe. And then I like Foo Fighters and bands like Nickelback are cool. And then I love bands like the Black Crowes. I actually got an opportunity to go see them a couple weeks ago in Melbourne, Australia. They're amazing, man.  I love that band.

DJ WILL:   Another band that's been at it for some time, doing the bluesy, Rod Stewart/The Faces little sound in there.

Doug Aldrich: I dig that. One of the things you bring up, The Faces....David has the most amazing music collection. And he's got them all on this one huge wall down by his studio. So I just go down there and cherry-pick records that I wanted to listen to. And I found some Faces records that I had never heard before. And it really gave me a huge appreciation for Ronnie Wood to where I'm really kind of discovering him, really. I only knew him from a few of the Faces songs and what he's done with the Stones. But there were some songs like "Summer Rain" was inspired by some of his guitar playing, with some open tunings and melodies. So all that stuff is good with me. And even though times have a changed a little bit, maybe some of the younger fans that listen to music will hear perhaps what we're doing, or Black Crowes or something, and they'll go "wow, that's sounds really new."  That's really a brand new sound, because they haven't really heard it before. So it might end up being fresh again somehow.

DJ WILL:   Very quite possible. And obviously the influences that you have, that's gonna be part of what you do and obviously is part of what you do.

Doug Aldrich: Not to say that Black Crowes or Whitesnake isn't fresh, 'cause David and I feel that this is really a hungry sounding record. We were really excited about it and we had such a great time working on it, especially the writing. I feel that it really kind of comes out in the music a lot. It does sound fresh, and it sound like we've got something to prove. So that's a good thing.

DJ WILL:   Well, Doug, I must say that it's been a pleasure, technical difficulties aside.

Doug Aldrich: That's cool, man. I really appreciate you inviting me. I'm usually the last person that should be talking on the radio because I have such a bizarre voice. Then again, it was like when I first heard Eddie Van Halen talk on the radio. I felt "wow, he kind of sounds different". I don't have that, somebody like David....when he talks, man, he's just got this massive voice that's got this crystal top-end.  I sound like I need to have nasal surgery. I'm glad you invited me, man. Thanks so much for that.

DJ WILL:   Hey, man, you got it. Your cadence is fine, my friend. Your cadence is fine. Like I said, I appreciate your guitar work. I appreciated your work with Bad Moon Rising, Lion of course. Of course I'm gonna slip that in a little later once I let you go. A lot of that stuff is very underrated. And obviously your solo work. And it's just been a pleasure to hear you perform throughout the years. And obviously with Whitesnake, the new version of Whitesnake, this is coming along quite well. And good luck in Brazil. Bring your papers!

Doug Aldrich: Yes. Well I appreciate your support, and Long Paul was always a great guy to us. With Lion, he used to spin our records a lot and it was really helpful. It was cool to hear on the radio for the first time, you know?

DJ WILL:   Well, of course. Damn right! "Dangerous Attraction", "Trouble In Angel City", "Powerlove", all solid tracks with Kal Swan there on vocals. You ever hear from Kal? Is he still around?

Doug Aldrich: I talk to him periodically. He kind of got frustrated with the way the music business was.

DJ WILL:   Yeah, take a number!

Doug Aldrich: Yeah, but he had an opportunity to do something else and he took it. But he was a great guy and the coolest thing was he was a massive Whitesnake fan. He turned me on to a bunch of old Whitesnake records before anybody really knew about them in the States, like "Come An' Get It", "Ready An' Willing", "Lovehunter". And so it was kind of a cool thing to have that background of digging those records. But he was a great singer and we had a good time together. We just had a problem with the business. The record never really got pushed. That first Lion record could have done better at the time. Now it's.....

DJ WILL:   Very sought after.

Doug Aldrich: In fact, I'm sure it's old very sounding, but at the time it was pretty cool.

DJ WILL:   Well again, got some powerful riffs there. Kal's got some great pipes there as well. So hopefully, something becomes of those classic gems down the line. But we shall see. In the meantime, pure rockers, Doug Aldrich. You can find him on tour, for those of you in Europe.  "Good To Be Bad" coming up literally in a week's-plus time. So you want to get that. For more information, whitesnake.com, also Doug's website dougaldrich.com. You can read up about Doug, all his different discographies, what he's played on. And catch him on tour as I mentioned. Doug, thank you for your time. We're gonna close out with a couple more from Whitesnake. This is "Til The End Of Time". Set this up for me and then off and running to the beach.

Doug Aldrich: Alright, man, yeah. "Til The End Of Time" is probably my favorite song on the record. David and I had gotten through writing a bunch of stuff and we were starting to get kind of burned out. And we were really excited about starting the recording process for real. I was driving home from his place and he called and said "you know, maybe he can do one more". And I asked "what do you think about doing something different? You know, something acoustic. And I had this idea that was kind of like inspired from Jimi Hendrix. He had a song that he did live in the studio one time called "Hear My Train A Coming" .  It was a 12 string that he just did with him and a 12 string guitar.  And so that was kind of the inspiration for the song a little bit, and the song just turned out beautifully. I really dig it. And David's voice is massive on the track. It's the last song we wrote and it's a really special tune for me personally. So I kind of dig that one.

DJ WILL: Outstanding. Excellent. Well, thank you Doug. "Til The End Of Time", pure rockers, the latest from Whitesnake. "Good To Be Bad", go get it!

Doug Aldrich: Thanks, you all.

DJ WILL: You got it. You're listening to the loudest dot.com on the planet, KNAC.com

Thanks, DJ WILL.
Special thanks to my friend, Gary!!

"The Vault" with DJ WILL - KNAC Radio
2008年4月13日 - 午後12:00 (PST)




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