During a conversation on the Artists On Lockdown YouTube channel, the successful guitarist Doug Aldrich recently stated that he refused David Coverdale’s offer to work full-time because he wanted to spend more time with his four-year-old son.
Aldrich has worked with several bands and names throughout his career and didn’t really commit to one band for a long time. He was involved with Dio, Lion, Hurricane, House of Lords, Bad Moon Rising, and Revolution Saints. He also contributed to Whitesnake when he joined them on tours around 2006.
Doug Aldrich stated during his recent conversation that the Whitesnake vocalist David Coverdale asked him to join them for a show in Vegas in 2014. He accepted the offer and brought his four-year-old son and then-girlfriend with him so they could still spend time together. He performed with the band and had a blast because his boy was with him.
However, he was then offered a full-time role on a Deep Purple record, which Coverdale was involved in. He was okay with committing a few days a week, but because it was full-time, he didn’t think it was a good idea for his relationship with his son since a four-year-old boy needs his father to be around all the time.
Here is what he stated about bringing his son to his shows:
“We had done a bunch of work, and I was really proud of it, and I had a blast playing with David. He was like my big bro, and I was really proud of what we did. But we were kind of taking a break, and it’s funny, John Payne called me around Christmas time after a tour had wound up, and I just wanted to be with my boy.
I’ve been away for basically the whole year with Whitesnake, and he goes, ‘Hey, I got this show in Vegas, it’s really a kickback thing, we could take your Whitesnake live rig, and you bring it, and you could play anytime you want, then we’d do a two-hour show, and you basically just stay in the hotel.’
Basically, I went there with my boy, and then eventually my girlfriend came – she’s now my wife – and we had a blast. I was still playing, but I was with my son all the time. He would come to the show every night, I’ll show you, he would go on stage, and he would kind of jam out with me. It was going great.“
He continued to talk about why he rejected Coverdale’s offer:
“And then David said, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this Deep Purple record,’ and I was like, ‘Cool, I can come out like three or four days a week or something like that.’ And he goes, ‘No, no, I really want you to move here because I need you here full-time to do this…’
I wanted to do it, but I knew if I was going to do it, then I’d be behind the computer and playing guitar all day. We would work seven days a week, so I was like, ‘David, I love you man, I just need time with my boy…’ That’s it. He needed me, he was four years old, and as you guys know, boys need their dad.“
Aldrich would rather commit to his relationship with his son than a band, and that is why he rejected Deep Purple’s offer. There were no hard feelings between Aldrich and Coverdale, but the vocalist pursued his project with Deep Purple and released the album ‘Infinite’ three years later.
You can watch the full conversation below.
