David Coverdale Says The ‘Saints & Sinners’ Album Was Designed For Cozy Powell

Whitesnake’s David Coverdale recently appeared on the band’s official YouTube channel and revealed that they designed their ‘Saints & Sinners’ album for Cozy Powell.

Whitesnake released its fifth studio album, ‘Saints & Sinners,’ on November 20, 1982. The record included the original versions of the band’s hit songs like ‘Here I Go Again’ and ‘Crying in the Rain.’ The band re-recorded these two songs for their self-titled 1987 album. ‘Saints & Sinners’ production process was a bit troublesome, though.

The previous albums were a complete disappointment for the band. They wouldn’t find commercial success until their 1984 album, ‘Slide It In.’ Thus, ‘Saints & Sinners’ didn’t come at the band’s best time. They were having some financial troubles due to the lack of expected success, which also increased the tensions within the band. Whitesnake went through a significant lineup change during the recording of the album.

The band welcomed three new members, including Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell. The drummer took part in the band’s upcoming tour dates and continued playing with them until 1985. During a recent appearance, David Coverdale was asked about the re-recording decision of ‘Here I Go Again.’

The singer explained that when the record label Geffen wanted to re-record the song, he decided also redoing ‘Crying in the Rain.’ Then, Coverdale referred to Cozy Powell and said they actually designed the whole album for him. He did an impressive job with the drum parts, especially during the shows.

David Coverdale speaking on re-recording ‘Here I Go Again’:

“Well, first off, it was Geffen’s idea. I never re-recorded things other than a song called ‘Blindman,’ which was on my original solo album, ‘White Snake.’ Then we put it on the ‘Ready An’ Willing’ album because then that’s when I felt we really had the solid idea of the early Whitesnake, with Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Neil Murray, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice, and they did a masterly job on it.

But I’ve never been one for re-recording. And John and I had written enough for an album of original material. But he wanted to do, and this has served us incredibly well, redo ‘Here I Go Again.’ John was not pleased, but history speaks for itself. And I said, ‘Well, if we’re gonna do that, I wanna redo ‘Crying In The Rain,‘ which I was never really happy with the original recording of it.

He continued:

And we had arranged, John, Neil Murray, and I had arranged a special centerpiece, which was a great solo for John, a solo feature. But also, the whole album was pretty much designed for Cozy Powell; God rest his soul. And when we featured it in concert, it went from John’s amazing, electrifying solo into Cozy’s extraordinarily earth-shattering, thunderous drum solo.

We had a great relationship with radio for the ‘Slide It In’ album, and they were actually waiting for a new Whitesnake album, rock radio. So we delivered this thing. And, of course, at that time, MTV was a huge element globally. So Whitesnake, from being successful in a couple of territories, became a global entity, which was super validation, as you can imagine.”

You can watch the video below.