With the release of Vandenberg’s new album ‘Sin’ set for August 25, Adrian Vandenberg recently discussed its content during an interview with TotalRock. The conversation touched on the influence of Whitesnake’s sound on Vandenberg’s music, leading the guitarist to recall some remarks made by David Coverdale.
When the interviewer asked Adrian if he thought Whitesnake fans would appreciate the upcoming album, he answered:
“I sure hope so because, you know, I’ve been a fan of Whitesnake way before I joined Whitesnake, and we made quite some cool music together over the years. It’s interesting that you mentioned it because when the ‘2020’ album came out, quite a number of people said, ‘Well, it sounds at least just as much like Whitesnake as Vandenberg.’ Yeah, it’s called Vandenberg, but they forget I was in Whitesnake for almost thirty years, and early Vandenberg days was just four years, you know. It would be very weird if it wouldn’t have any influence on it.”
The guitarist went on to explain Coverdale’s wishes about his band’s music as follows:
“Also, when I joined Whitesnake at the time, David said, ‘Vandenberg has a couple of songs on them Vandenberg albums that I wish we could have done for Whitesnake.’ Like ‘Burning Heart,’ ‘Your Love Is In Vain,’ ‘Wait.’ All Vandenberg songs could be Whitesnake songs. That’s why David and I always […] connection in writing songs together.”
On the other hand, there have been times the two musicians disagreed about Whitesnake’s sound and music. A year after the band reissued ‘Restless Heart’ in 2021, Vandenberg talked about the conflict in an interview with EonMusic.
To explain whether he was pleased with the new edition, he said:
“Yeah, a little bit. The thing was, we ended up in a disagreement about the direction of it. So Joel [Hoekstra] doubled the rhythms that I did on the album to beef it up a little bit.”
Adrian Vandenberg co-wrote all the songs on ‘Slip of the Tongue‘ and ‘Restless Heart’ albums with Coverdale after he joined the band in 1987. Currently, Whitesnake is waiting to continue its farewell tour, which was canceled in 2022 due to health-related issues.