There has always been some controversy around Whitesnake’s self-titled 1987 studio album. It seems also the recording of the album and the events that happened around that time is still creating animosity between two former bandmates. Former Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes launched an incredible verbal attack on David Coverdale in the latest issue of Rock Candy Magazine, claiming the singer “used every excuse possible to explain why he didn’t want to record his vocals” for the multi-platinum “1987” album. “He blamed the weather. He wasn’t happy with the studio. He even went so far as to say the microphones weren’t good enough,” says Sykes. “I honestly think David suffered from nerves.”
Sykes, who co-wrote nine of the album’s tracks, including mega-hits “Still Of The Night” and “Is This Love?”, found himself thrown out of Whitesnake even before the album had been released, alongside bassist Neil Murray and drummer Aynsley Dunbar. Coverdale then assembled an entirely different, MTV-friendly group to tour the record. Sykes admits that he’s still “very bitter” about how Coverdale treated him. “David said nothing to any of us about having decided to kick us out of the band,” he told Rock Candy, claiming he only found out he was no longer a member of Whitesnake when he asked the band’s A&R man John Kalodner what was going on. “I was furious and wasn’t about to accept this,” said Sykes. “So I went down to the studio where David was still recording his vocals, prepared to confront him. Honest to God, he ran away, got in his car and hid from me!”
Sykes claims Coverdale blamed record company Geffen for forcing him to change band members. “I knew he was fucking lying,” says Sykes. And he insists Coverdale’s claims to have written 95 per cent of the album’s guitar parts are also false. “When I knew him, David could barely play the guitar,” he says. With 2017 being the 30th anniversary of the classic ‘1987’ album, fans are hopeful that Coverdale and Whitesnake will do something special to mark the event. If it happens, it most certainly won’t be with John Syke, and he makes that very clear. “I know David has been saying recently that he and I have been talking about working together on a project outside of Whitesnake,” says Sykes. “That’s completely false. I really have no interest in ever talking to him again.”
Read the entire incendiary article in Issue #2 of Rock Candy Magazine
