MetalShrine has recently conducted interview with Doug Alrich, Whitesnake guitarist. Few excerpts are follow:
These four new songs on the live album, did you write them with David and how much of an input did you have on them? Was it David´s ideas and you worked on them or...?
DA: It was a mutual thing. We sat down with acoustics...not every song was the same. One song, "Ready to rock" was something where I generated and "All I want is you" is something that David had previously and he asked me to come up with a couple of sections and help him arrange it. "Dog" we did from scratch. "If you want me", he had a basic idea of chords but didn´t really have a riff, so I just did what was needed. And the other songs that we wrote during that period was the same way. There´s some really cool stuff. Stuff that we thought we should waite on. We wanted first some songs that could almost immediately slipped into the set. Yeah, it was a collaboration, banging ideas. I´d go home and do some work on demos and then e-mail it back to him. He´d make changes and I´d redo it. You know, it´s a long process and we´ve been writing since...off and on, we´ve been doing other things to, but I started sending him ideas at the end of 2003. That´s when he said "Hey, come up and let´s write!" and he goes "I´m not guaranteing you that we´re gonna do anything, but I´d like to write with you and see what we get.".
Those other songs that you wrote then, are those the songs that will end up on the new album?
DA: Yeah, some of those will and now...this stuff ( the 4 tracks) was finished in January this year and there were about six or seven other ones. And then...this whole year, everytime I play guitar I get ideas and I know David does, so I´ve got a couple of songs that he hasn´t heard yet that I wanna play him and I´m really excited about. He´s got the same thing and potentially maybe some other songs will show up from the other guys.
What´s it like working with a guy like David Coverdale? You´ve worked with Ronnie Dio as well. Is it similar or is he just another guy writing songs with?
DA: Well, if I sat down with him without knowing him it would be a nerve wrecking thing. He´s a legend! So, it´s an honour for me to have that opportunity, but the way it worked out was just very organic and easy. It wasn´t like anything was forced, so when I´m sitting down with him it´s like sitting with you and playing guitar. It´s a collaboration and it was really easy. At one point in January he came over to my place and we wrote four songs in a week, completed. And then he went home and came back a week later and we wrote another two or three songs and I´ve been up to his house a number of times over the past few years and we had all kinds of stuff. It´s good!
Do you have any idea when the new album will be out?
DA: We´re shooting for June/July. The only thing that could throw a wrench in that, is if we get some tour dates before that and have to get in that mode. That could put us out for a month or something. As of right now, we´re gonna go home the day after tomorrow and have a few days off and I´m gonna go up to David´s some time around Christmas and we´ll start narrowing down the list. At some point you got to put a stop on the writing, even if you have just a verse and a chorus and it´s like "Yeah, we both really love this, so let´s finish this.", but then after that well say "Ok, that´s it! Let´s stop. We´ve got the tunes that we want.". If something comes up and it´s just mindblowing you´re gonna go ahead and cut it and with this type of thing (live album) we only had room to do a few songs. We were gonna start with two songs and the we both were like "You can´t just leave it at two. Let´s just give them some rockers, something that covers everything and then we´ll save the rest for the record. But when you´re in the studio, sometimes someone will play you something...maybe I´ll have a riff or somebody will and you´re just jamming and all of the sudden Tommy starts and it´s like "Let´s just record this for a little bit!" and who knows, man, some of the coolest songs have been written like that, just really quick.
Cool! So what´s next, besides a new studio album with Whitesnake? Any solo projects coming?
DA: Not really. I´ve been so busy. David and I talked and we´ve worked all year on this thing and then we had to take a break to go on the road. The reason why we have credit for remixing stuff is because when we went on the road we left it in the hands of a mix engineer and we were getting sent mp3´s and we weren´t happy enough with it, so when we came home we went back in the studio and remixed it. Sorted out the sonic parts of it that we weren´t happy with and it took awhile, but I was busy doing some other things with David and then we came on this trip. But I´ve got a side band that I have been working on called Burning Rain. I´ve got a record written, but I just don´t have time for it. I can´t be in two places at once and obviously this (Whitesnake) is my priority. But I´ll get to it some day.
Source MetalShrine |
