Here I Go Again: The History of Whitesnake

<v Speaker 1>This is a podcast from Minute Media.
<v Speaker 2>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious podcasts, Ladies and Gentlemen. Last episode, Jason and
<v Speaker 2>I talked about what we were doing summer of eighty six. Jason,
<v Speaker 2>do you know what David Coverdale was doing? Summer of
<v Speaker 2>eighty six?
<v Speaker 3>David Coverdale was pushing his broken down white Jaguar out
<v Speaker 3>of the middle of an intersection in Los Angeles. He
<v Speaker 3>had five dollars to his name and a condiment his wallet,
<v Speaker 3>and that's it.
<v Speaker 2>He was on his first date with a lady he
<v Speaker 2>would later marry, who at the time had no idea
<v Speaker 2>who he was or who White Snake was.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the lovely iconic Tanny Katana.
<v Speaker 1>Time.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, everybody, we are here for the beginning of our
<v Speaker 2>Summer of eighty seven series.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we're gonna spend about, I don't know, six or
<v Speaker 3>seven weeks in the summer of nineteen eighty seven.
<v Speaker 2>I love the summer of nineteen eighty seven. I can
<v Speaker 2>remember MTV and going down into the pool and checking
<v Speaker 2>out the girls whose clothes seem to fit a lot
<v Speaker 2>better to me at that age.
<v Speaker 3>All right, Di, I know you're a golfer. Sure, when
<v Speaker 3>you hit the ball and it goes in the rough,
<v Speaker 3>it's hard to see.
<v Speaker 2>It is so hard to find.
<v Speaker 3>It's not cool when it's in the rough.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody wants a bunch of rough around there.
<v Speaker 3>You want it in the fair way and you want
<v Speaker 3>it cleaned up so you can see the ball at
<v Speaker 3>all times.
<v Speaker 2>Right, the smoother it is, the easier it is to see.
<v Speaker 3>That reminds me of our sponsor, Manscape dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, manscape dot com. They have got incredibly good products.
<v Speaker 2>They've sent us some and we're both totally amazed by
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<v Speaker 3>on all the products.
<v Speaker 2>Guys. Don't forget it's easier to see a giraffe on
<v Speaker 2>the plane than it is in the forest.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, that's good. Summer of nineteen eighty seven was thirty
<v Speaker 3>five years ago. De It's hard to believe it's been
<v Speaker 3>that long. So man, here's what we've got on the
<v Speaker 3>docket coming up. Okay, so we've got a history of
<v Speaker 3>White Snake. Then we're going to go track my track
<v Speaker 3>through White Snake's nineteen eighty seven album, probably their best
<v Speaker 3>known album. Then we're gonna do Motley Cruez Girls, Girls Girls.
<v Speaker 3>These two bands toured together on the same bill. I
<v Speaker 3>was not allowed to go that was Shucker. Yeah, parents
<v Speaker 3>said no to that one. And then after that, we're
<v Speaker 3>going to do RoboCop versus Predator. Okay, two awesome Summer Blockbusters,
<v Speaker 3>and then we're gonna get together with the guys from
<v Speaker 3>the Film by podcast and we are going to break
<v Speaker 3>down Superman four versus Jaws The Revenge. Both came out
<v Speaker 3>the summer of eighty seven.
<v Speaker 2>They were the highlight of the summer.
<v Speaker 3>Some of the worst movies of the eighties.
<v Speaker 2>Yeap. So before we get going on the second episode,
<v Speaker 2>speaking of guests hosts, we have a new executive producer,
<v Speaker 2>mister David Wright, who you will listener remember from our
<v Speaker 2>Raising Hell versus Licensed to Ill Combo.
<v Speaker 3>It was an incredible four partor with Dave's help, Maan.
<v Speaker 3>Dave was like Professor easy Rock right there.
<v Speaker 2>I wonder how he's gonna feel about being the executive
<v Speaker 2>producer on a hair metal album.
<v Speaker 3>Dave, thank you very much. Dave's a good friend of ours. Dave,
<v Speaker 3>We appreciate it. He texted us this week and said, oh, no,
<v Speaker 3>I've done a thing.
<v Speaker 2>Guys, if you would like to be an executive producer
<v Speaker 2>of our episodes, be sure and check out our Patreon page.
<v Speaker 2>It's patreon dot com. Slash Shirley podcast that's s U
<v Speaker 2>R E L Y Shirley podcast and for as little
<v Speaker 2>as five dollars, a month. You can be an executive
<v Speaker 2>producer and it goes up from there and we start
<v Speaker 2>giving out gifts when you've given large donations, So please
<v Speaker 2>check that out. If you don't have time for that,
<v Speaker 2>be sure and leave us a five star rating. And
<v Speaker 2>if you give us a review that has something like
<v Speaker 2>here I Go Again.
<v Speaker 3>Or Still the Night or is this Love?
<v Speaker 2>Or Black and White Jaguar, then you will be entered
<v Speaker 2>into a contest to win an awesome engraved ozarka tumbler.
<v Speaker 3>By the way, Patreons now receive bonus episodes. We're going
<v Speaker 3>to do these many episodes once a month covering one
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<v Speaker 3>a little added bonus for all the Patreons out there.
<v Speaker 3>It's gonna be awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, guy, let's jump into the history of White Snake.
<v Speaker 3>History of White Snake.
<v Speaker 2>Well, as you might imagine, we've got to start with
<v Speaker 2>David Coverdale.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know where I'm going, but us sum of yes,
<v Speaker 3>he's the only constant in White Snake over the years.
<v Speaker 2>He is now. He was born in fifty one. He
<v Speaker 2>was with a few bands when he became a teenager.
<v Speaker 2>He was with a band called Vinted sixty seven in
<v Speaker 2>sixty six and sixty eight. He was in the government
<v Speaker 2>through seventy two, and then he was with a band
<v Speaker 2>called the Fabulos of Brothers in seventy two and seventy three.
<v Speaker 2>And then in nineteen seventy three he's reading his Melody
<v Speaker 2>Maker magazine and he sees an article that says Deep
<v Speaker 2>Purple is auditioning singers because Ian Gillian has left the band.
<v Speaker 3>That's incredible.
<v Speaker 2>So when he was with the government, they and Deep
<v Speaker 2>Purple had shared the same bill, and so he was like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I know those guys, and I would love to sing
<v Speaker 2>for that band. So he sends in a tape and
<v Speaker 2>a little later on they audition him, and in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy three he becomes the lead singer of Deep Purple.
<v Speaker 3>No I heard he was selling shoes. He goes from
<v Speaker 3>shoe salesman to lead singer of Deep Purple at twenty
<v Speaker 3>two years old.
<v Speaker 2>That's pretty impressive.
<v Speaker 3>Pretty good step up right there.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, And if you don't know Deep Purple, you
<v Speaker 2>probably know My Woman from Tokyo or the infamous famous
<v Speaker 2>Smoke on the water on the water. Sure, yeah, but
<v Speaker 2>David Coverdale came along after those songs, but he was
<v Speaker 2>still a good singer for the band. In seventy four,
<v Speaker 2>they came out with Burn, which went gold.
<v Speaker 3>YEP.
<v Speaker 2>They played at the California Jam in front of two
<v Speaker 2>hundred thousand fans. They had another album that year called
<v Speaker 2>Stormbringer that also was gold. And then in seventy five,
<v Speaker 2>Richie Blackmore, the guitarist, leaves you've got your original lead
<v Speaker 2>singer gone and your lead guitarist. You probably have lost
<v Speaker 2>what would most would consider the heart of the band.
<v Speaker 2>But David Coverdale pleads with the other members of the
<v Speaker 2>band and he's like, I know this American guitarist named
<v Speaker 2>Tommy Bolan. I think he can bring us back to
<v Speaker 2>where we need to be. And so with Tommy Bolan
<v Speaker 2>they came out with Come Taste the Band in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy five.
<v Speaker 3>There is no sexual connotation with that, I'm quite sure,
<v Speaker 3>oh my goodness.
<v Speaker 2>And in nineteen seventy six they had kind of a
<v Speaker 2>lackluster tour because of that, that album was not well
<v Speaker 2>received and by the end of seventy six, end of
<v Speaker 2>the tour, Coverdale walks off the stage in tears and
<v Speaker 2>resigns from the band, but he was told there was
<v Speaker 2>no band to resign from.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it was over at that point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. The other band members had decided, well before, we're
<v Speaker 2>not going to be banned after this. They just didn't
<v Speaker 2>tell David.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So what he did in nineteen seventy seven is he
<v Speaker 2>released a solo album and that solo album was called
<v Speaker 2>White Snake. Now, I wonder why he called it white Snake.
<v Speaker 2>Do you happen to know this joke? I do know
<v Speaker 2>this hit me hip. Okay, you don't know why it's caught? No,
<v Speaker 2>I have no idea. Tell me.
<v Speaker 3>Well, here's what he has said. Okay, okay, this band
<v Speaker 3>name is named after his own penis.
<v Speaker 2>I expect that that was what the answer was. Like
<v Speaker 2>I've always assumed that that's what the answer was, but
<v Speaker 2>thank you for confirming. I appreciate that. So in seventy
<v Speaker 2>eight he had another solo album called North Winds, and
<v Speaker 2>then shortly after that he puts together the band that
<v Speaker 2>would be White Snake. Now other than unlike the album,
<v Speaker 2>white Snake is combined to be one word, and he
<v Speaker 2>puts together this band with Mickey Moody and Bernie Marston. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>Bernie Marston is important. You know why.
<v Speaker 3>Bernie Marston is the guy who helps him rite the
<v Speaker 3>song Here I Go Again.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, and also ful for Your Loving. So several hits
<v Speaker 2>for White Snake in their early days are Bernie Marston influenced,
<v Speaker 2>and their first album is an EP called the Snake
<v Speaker 2>Bite EP. So I wonder what snake bite would mean
<v Speaker 2>in that scenario. I'm sure. No, all right, And at
<v Speaker 2>this point I got to pass it to my friend.
<v Speaker 2>I'm fading back. I'm doing the long pass. Can you
<v Speaker 2>tell me the discography of White Snake from then on?
<v Speaker 3>Okay? Yes I can, and following with me the chart
<v Speaker 3>history for these okay, okay, you can watch the success
<v Speaker 3>start to happen. So in nineteen seventy eight, like you said,
<v Speaker 3>they have their first album come out as White Snake,
<v Speaker 3>and it's called Trouble. It goes to number fifty in
<v Speaker 3>the UK. Okay, not bad didn't chart in the US?
<v Speaker 3>No it did not. Okay, No it did not. Then
<v Speaker 3>in nineteen seventy nine, you have the album that comes
<v Speaker 3>out it's called love Hunter, that goes to number twenty
<v Speaker 3>nine in the UK chart in the US, no it
<v Speaker 3>did not.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Then in nineteen eight you have a album called Ready
<v Speaker 3>and Willing. This goes to number six in the UK.
<v Speaker 3>Couldn't chart, It did all right, number ninety in the US.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, ninety.
<v Speaker 3>Now this one is a little bit of note because
<v Speaker 3>it has the song full for Your Lover for your
<v Speaker 3>no More. That song was re released the fall of
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty nine.
<v Speaker 4>It was a big hit for them on the slip
<v Speaker 4>of the Tongue album.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, trying to kind of rea do the success of
<v Speaker 3>eighty seven, all right. Then in nineteen eighty one they
<v Speaker 3>have an album called Come and Get It. It goes
<v Speaker 3>to number two in the UK. It does not chart
<v Speaker 3>in the US.
<v Speaker 2>No, you've anticipated my question there.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, And at this point they're financially in debt. They're
<v Speaker 3>selling albums, huh, but they are going lower and lower
<v Speaker 3>into debt. Okay, Albums cost money, they do, they do,
<v Speaker 3>and tours cost money, all right, now, then stay with me.
<v Speaker 3>In nineteen eighty two they released the album called Saints
<v Speaker 3>and Sinners. On this album you have the song here
<v Speaker 3>I Go Again and Crying in the Rain. Okay, they
<v Speaker 3>sound bluesier and not as tight definitely. And we're going
<v Speaker 3>to talk about what John Klaudner thought about these but
<v Speaker 3>this goes to number nine in the UK, does not
<v Speaker 3>chart in the US. Okay, And at this point now
<v Speaker 3>we need to segue into the story of John Klaudner.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So John Kalodner started as a photographer and a writer.
<v Speaker 2>He was doing he was going to concerts and taking
<v Speaker 2>pictures and writing music articles for different magazines, and then
<v Speaker 2>he gets hired for Atlantic Records to do the same thing. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>And one day they're having a big meeting and the
<v Speaker 2>president of Atlantic Records says, Okay, I need an A
<v Speaker 2>and R guy, and Kallaudner's like, I would like to
<v Speaker 2>be the A N R guy.
<v Speaker 3>Penis they do that job?
<v Speaker 2>So John Kladner says, well, I'm actually really good at
<v Speaker 2>figuring out what's going to be a hit song and
<v Speaker 2>what's not going to be a hit song. Right. The
<v Speaker 2>president is like, Okay, I'm gonna let you give it
<v Speaker 2>a try, but you've got to bring your own tape player.
<v Speaker 2>You've got to bring your reel to reel, and you've
<v Speaker 2>got to listen to every cassette that gets submitted. And
<v Speaker 2>he's like, okay, you did not listen to every cassette
<v Speaker 2>that got submitted because he they would. I mean, just
<v Speaker 2>think about it. People are sending in demos multiple sources
<v Speaker 2>all day long. So he his little filter system was
<v Speaker 2>he would pick the ones from music attorneys. He figured
<v Speaker 2>if the band was savvy enough to get an attorney,
<v Speaker 2>that they were probably going to have such a decent product.
<v Speaker 2>And if the attorney was impressed enough that he's sending
<v Speaker 2>it on, then it probably is another indicator that it's good.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's how he discovered a lot of his
<v Speaker 2>folks that's interesting. And so then he does that for
<v Speaker 2>a while. For Atlantic Records. He continues to kind of
<v Speaker 2>freelance on the weekends doing the photography and the writing
<v Speaker 2>for those journals. Then in nineteen eighty he gets a
<v Speaker 2>call from mister David Geffen to come join him and
<v Speaker 2>be the Geffen Records A and R man.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Now do you know what A and R stands for?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 3>Only because we googled it about ten minutes ago. I
<v Speaker 3>just we came in today and we're like, Klunder's an arm.
<v Speaker 2>What is a A and R stand for? What is it? Okay? Guest?
<v Speaker 2>Do you know? Would you like to venture your guests? Now?
<v Speaker 2>What is an R? Okay? Good?
<v Speaker 3>Guess here's the real answer. A and R means artists
<v Speaker 3>and repertoire. His job was to find new artists and
<v Speaker 3>acquire them for the label.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So he is the A and R man for
<v Speaker 2>Geffen Records. Yes, when he walks in the door, he says,
<v Speaker 2>mister Geffen, thanks for the hire. I think that we
<v Speaker 2>should hire Sammy Hagar yep. I think that we should
<v Speaker 2>hire Phil Collins yep. And I'm excited to work with Aerosmith. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>and Geffen's like, I like those suggestions, but we're not
<v Speaker 2>going with Phil Collins. We're going with Peter Gabriel. Sir,
<v Speaker 2>I think that Phil Collins is going to be better
<v Speaker 2>now we're going to go with Peter Gabriel.
<v Speaker 3>It's hard to blame Geffen too much on that because
<v Speaker 3>Peter Gabriel did have some success in the eighties, I
<v Speaker 3>mean very much success.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Well he kept Danger Zone out of the top spot. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>he did, which is a miracle in in and of itself.
<v Speaker 3>We talked about that last week. But my gosh, Phil
<v Speaker 3>Collins had a humongous nineteen eighties and nineties. For that matter,
<v Speaker 3>I was going to tell you I recognized John Kalodner
<v Speaker 3>once we started looking into this, and when I googled him,
<v Speaker 3>I looked at his face. I'm like, oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 3>that's the guy from the Aerosmith videos. He had a
<v Speaker 3>lot to do with Arismith's rebirth in like nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 3>seven the Permanent Vacation Tour.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, go back and check out our Aras episode. We
<v Speaker 2>talk about how Tim Collins is that his name, the
<v Speaker 2>guy that kind of helped them get off drugs.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>Kladner was another major factor in that process of getting
<v Speaker 2>those guys clean.
<v Speaker 3>Kladner is the guy dressed in a wedding dress and
<v Speaker 3>the dude looks like a lady video.
<v Speaker 2>Now everybody knows who we're talking about.
<v Speaker 3>That big lung, scraggy beard. It's kind of a weird
<v Speaker 3>looking dude.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, especially in a wedding dress. Yes, okay, so Kladner
<v Speaker 2>Ultimately round eighty two, here's this album that White Snake
<v Speaker 2>has put out that has these songs on it, including
<v Speaker 2>Here I Go Again. And he thinks to himself, this
<v Speaker 2>is a hit song. He calls David Coverdale. He's like,
<v Speaker 2>you got a hit song, but it was badly recorded
<v Speaker 2>and it was badly played.
<v Speaker 5>A blood cutting man when he's burning with a fever,
<v Speaker 5>a strand of house, when he's lonely in the night.
<v Speaker 2>You need a better band. You got a mediocre band,
<v Speaker 2>and you need a better producer. He's a nice guy,
<v Speaker 2>he's not a good producer, yep. So he hooks David
<v Speaker 2>Coverdale up with a new guy and gets rid of
<v Speaker 2>everybody else.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, these are all like his best friends. Gotta let
<v Speaker 3>him go, dude, if you want to make it to
<v Speaker 3>the big time, you gotta dump all these guys.
<v Speaker 2>So Kalladner has this guy who he's seen playing with
<v Speaker 2>Thin Lizzie, and his name is John Sykes. Yes, John
<v Speaker 2>had been with Thin Lizzie and another band, but he
<v Speaker 2>had a good look and he had a great ability
<v Speaker 2>with music and lyrics, and so he thought, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>get this guy together with Coverdale and we're gonna have
<v Speaker 2>the magic duo, just like bon Jovi.
<v Speaker 3>John Sykes is like a guitar guy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he is an exceptional guitarist and he just has
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there are guys who play well, there are
<v Speaker 2>guys who write good music, and there are guys who
<v Speaker 2>play well and write good music, and John Pskes is
<v Speaker 2>one of them. And he is a huge, huge factor
<v Speaker 2>on why this album is so good. Yes, which is
<v Speaker 2>interesting given what we find out later on.
<v Speaker 5>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>So the producer that John Kladner says we need to
<v Speaker 2>have come in is this guy named Mike Stone. Now,
<v Speaker 2>Mike Stone is another icon in the field. Kallawdner is
<v Speaker 2>he does not pick losers, right right, So he picks
<v Speaker 2>up this guy named Mike Stone who had gotten his
<v Speaker 2>start as an assistant engineer in Abbey Road Studios working
<v Speaker 2>with the Beatles. So not a bad out of the
<v Speaker 2>gate start start. Yeah. So he goes on to work
<v Speaker 2>with Foreigner on multiple albums, Journey on multiple albums, Asia
<v Speaker 2>on multiple albums, and Queen on multiple albums and hold
<v Speaker 2>on for the for the big hit ready. Yeah, he
<v Speaker 2>was the engineer behind Bohemian Rhapsody.
<v Speaker 3>That's incredible Mike Stone. I do think it's interesting that
<v Speaker 3>anytime Kaladner brings him up. Yeah, he's like genius drinker.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Well he died from drinking, so a bit of
<v Speaker 2>a drinker, which is tragic because he was an amazing
<v Speaker 2>sound engineer. So apparently with Mike Stone and John Sykes
<v Speaker 2>they lay down some amazing tracks. But then we started
<v Speaker 2>running in some trouble.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So let's back up for a second. So in
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty four, Coverdale and Sykes come out with an
<v Speaker 3>album called Slide It In? Right, Are you familiar Slide
<v Speaker 3>it In a little bit? Okay? I feel like I'm
<v Speaker 3>one of the first people that I knew that was
<v Speaker 3>familiar with Whitesnak because there was a guy on my
<v Speaker 3>bus who had, in nineteen eighty.
<v Speaker 2>Six, my school bus.
<v Speaker 3>On my school bus, he had a Walkman tape player
<v Speaker 3>and he would listen to Slide It In all the time.
<v Speaker 2>It's like a scene out of a movie man, right, And.
<v Speaker 3>So he would let me listen and we would listen
<v Speaker 3>to Slide it In and slow and easy and love
<v Speaker 3>ain't no stranger. So I was just say slow and
<v Speaker 3>easy again, slow and easy, let's listen to it real quick.
<v Speaker 3>I freaking love that song, dude. That's such a good song.
<v Speaker 3>It's awesome. A quick side story about sliding in. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>a few years ago, my wife made a video to
<v Speaker 3>be played in church regarding a women's retreat that she
<v Speaker 3>had just attended. Okay, and this is kind of funny
<v Speaker 3>because I know some women in my church listened to
<v Speaker 3>this podcast. But while she wasn't looking, I replaced the
<v Speaker 3>you know the Zoe Girl musical track with Slide it In,
<v Speaker 3>and it became the funniest thing we've ever watched. So
<v Speaker 3>the next day, when we played it in church, I
<v Speaker 3>checked it about fifteen times to make sure that I
<v Speaker 3>had corrected that.
<v Speaker 2>The sec please don't be slighted in Oh my god,
<v Speaker 2>that would have been a much better story, but I
<v Speaker 2>was not about to let that happen.
<v Speaker 3>Anyways, classic So I love sliding in, great out and
<v Speaker 3>that's with Sykes. Okay, Now in nineteen eighty four, that
<v Speaker 3>actually makes it to number forty in the US. They've
<v Speaker 3>get some videos, they've got some momentum, but they still
<v Speaker 3>haven't broken through in the US.
<v Speaker 2>Poised for success, poise for success.
<v Speaker 3>So Claudner's like, you guys, go to the South of France,
<v Speaker 3>write your follow up. This is the spring of nineteen
<v Speaker 3>eighty five, Right, go write some songs. Let's get this
<v Speaker 3>album pumped out. It's time nineteen eighty five. We're gonna
<v Speaker 3>take America by storm.
<v Speaker 2>The iron is hot, strike it now, nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 2>But right, so with Mike Stone, they laid down these tracks,
<v Speaker 2>right and the music is great. You've got John Syke's
<v Speaker 2>playing guitar, who, as you mentioned, thunder genius.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>So they've got Mike Stone and they've got the band. Now,
<v Speaker 2>the band is a little bit different than it was
<v Speaker 2>for Slid It In.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, it's definitely different. Coverdale basically fired everybody. Was
<v Speaker 3>persuaded to keep Sykes and Neil Murray right. He went
<v Speaker 3>to Geffen and said, I want to fire everybody.
<v Speaker 2>Sykes had come in to take over for Mickey Moody,
<v Speaker 2>who would.
<v Speaker 3>Left right on Slide It In, that's correct.
<v Speaker 2>And then who was the drummer?
<v Speaker 3>You had Cozy Powell, okay, which is very well respected drummer.
<v Speaker 3>In fact, Coverdale actually has said the nineteen eighty seven
<v Speaker 3>album was written with Cozy Powell's drum beats in mind.
<v Speaker 3>Made him an offer which he thought was fair. Cozy
<v Speaker 3>Powell thought it was no good, so he said.
<v Speaker 2>Screw you.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to screw you guys. I'm out of here.
<v Speaker 3>And Coverdale said sadly that cost him millions of dollars.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, I mean if he was offering him a
<v Speaker 2>percentage plus a salary, sure, yeah, I mean, but again,
<v Speaker 2>I can see how in that position, you'd be like, well,
<v Speaker 2>I don't really know. You have no idea that the
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty seven album is going to be the success
<v Speaker 2>that it is.
<v Speaker 3>We just finished up our most successful album we've ever had,
<v Speaker 3>and we're three million bucks in debt.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So, so part of the debt that we're going
<v Speaker 2>to talk about later on is due to the production
<v Speaker 2>of this album. That's right, of the nineteen eighty seven album. Right,
<v Speaker 2>But so they replace Cozy Powell with Journey drummer Ainsley Dunbar. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>it's not too that's not a bad trade. Yes, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>Ainsley Dunsbar is pretty freaking awesome honestly.
<v Speaker 3>By the way. Yeah, something I didn't know about Ainsley Dunbar,
<v Speaker 3>which James Buckley or Shirley friend pointed out to me.
<v Speaker 2>Number one Patreon subscriber, mister Buckley.
<v Speaker 3>We love we love James. He's a freak Zappa guy.
<v Speaker 3>Go back to our Toto episode where Steve Luca Third
<v Speaker 3>tried to join the Zappa band, right and was humiliated
<v Speaker 3>in front of everybody and scared off and all that stuff. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>James Buckley was just telling me that he admired Ainsley
<v Speaker 3>Dunbar and was a former Zappa guy.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So James Buckley is a drummer for a band.
<v Speaker 3>Hidden Tracks, Hidden Tracks, Yes, shout out to Hidden Tracks.
<v Speaker 3>Go see him at your local area bowling alley or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>Are they playing a bowling all? I don't know, James,
<v Speaker 2>if you were in Monroe, is it West Monroe or
<v Speaker 2>is it Mone?
<v Speaker 3>It's Monroe. He was people aid the Shreamport the other day.
<v Speaker 2>Oh nice. So he's all over the place down in Louisiana.
<v Speaker 3>I totally. When he makes it to Dallas, will be there.
<v Speaker 2>You just gather all that equipment, move over and we'll
<v Speaker 2>take a two hour air conditioned drive down to see you.
<v Speaker 3>Let's go.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So for the eighty seven album, we've got Mike
<v Speaker 2>Stone engineering, We've got John Sykes and the guitar yep.
<v Speaker 2>We got Neil Murray on bass, yep, who is a carryover. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>we've got Ainsley dunns Bar on drums, who, again, great drummer,
<v Speaker 2>but not the drummer that they had had in mind
<v Speaker 2>when they made the album. Right, and they laid down
<v Speaker 2>some great musical tracks, yes, and then all that's left
<v Speaker 2>to do is put down the vocal tracks. Hey, that
<v Speaker 2>sounds pretty easy, right, right. I mean, we've got the
<v Speaker 2>guy who's been singing for the last twenty years and
<v Speaker 2>you know, used to sing for Deep Purple and is
<v Speaker 2>now you know, steadily moving up in popularity in the UK,
<v Speaker 2>now in the US. And so David, what do you got.
<v Speaker 2>Dave cannot sing. He can't sing, he can't this this
<v Speaker 2>is the story. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>He starts to lay down the vocals and he notices
<v Speaker 3>that his voice is unusually nasally.
<v Speaker 2>That's weird, it's just stuck in his bass.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and he's off pitch.
<v Speaker 2>Uh huh huh.
<v Speaker 3>So he's like, something's wrong with the studio. We got
<v Speaker 3>to change studios, right, yeah, So they move from Vancouver
<v Speaker 3>to the Bahamas where they're gonna lay down the vocals.
<v Speaker 2>Better studio there.
<v Speaker 3>I work better in the Bahamas personally, Well it was.
<v Speaker 3>It worked for ac DC, right and the police. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>was that Jamaica. I can't.
<v Speaker 2>I mean Caribbean, Caribbean, it's all the same.
<v Speaker 3>I work better in the Caribbean as well.
<v Speaker 2>You mean too, we should move the Shirley studios down
<v Speaker 2>to the Caribbean so we sound a little bit better.
<v Speaker 3>But it's just not working for him, right, right, so
<v Speaker 3>he goes and sees a doctor.
<v Speaker 2>M hmm, yeah. So yeah. John Klaudner's like, okay, they're
<v Speaker 2>in California now, you know, right just down the street
<v Speaker 2>is Sugarman. He is the greatest e n T in
<v Speaker 2>the world. Let's go see what he has to say.
<v Speaker 2>He needs an operation for his septum. Septum. So anytime
<v Speaker 2>you say rock and roll and septum, you're either going
<v Speaker 2>to talk about a nose job or you're going to
<v Speaker 2>talk about the white powder.
<v Speaker 3>David Coverdelle says, every time he mentioned his nasal surgery,
<v Speaker 3>millions of people made invisible spooning motions to their nose.
<v Speaker 3>And he swears that's not the case. But I don't
<v Speaker 3>believe it. Hey man, it was called the liar.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know him, Okay, okay, but yeah, he is
<v Speaker 2>in the he is in a hard rock band in
<v Speaker 2>the middle of the eighties. It was kind of the
<v Speaker 2>thing to do.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So he gets his nasal surgery and still is taken
<v Speaker 2>a while to get something else.
<v Speaker 3>Six months of rehab.
<v Speaker 2>John Claudner talks about this and he's really like, he
<v Speaker 2>doesn't outright say it, but you can tell he thinks
<v Speaker 2>it's he thinks it's psychological. Yeah, and so desikes, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that being that what it is, you know, psychological. Whether
<v Speaker 2>that's a valid excuse or not. As an entirely separate story,
<v Speaker 2>but the case is, the man is not singing the songs, right,
<v Speaker 2>So what's John Sykes do it?
<v Speaker 3>So John Sykes is like, he knows what he's got, right,
<v Speaker 3>I've got twelve fantastic songs.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>He goes to Mike Stone, who has a good relationship
<v Speaker 3>with He's like, we might need to find ourselves a
<v Speaker 3>new singer. We might need to fire David Coverdale from
<v Speaker 3>White Snake, right, And that's not okay. David Coverdale does
<v Speaker 3>not like that idea at all.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean, let's just be real here. He's the
<v Speaker 2>only guy who's been consistently in the band. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>the band's original name was David Coverdale and White Snake.
<v Speaker 3>It was named after David Coverdale's Johnson. I thought you
<v Speaker 3>were going to say his first album, you mean by Johnson.
<v Speaker 2>We cut off Johnson. Yeah, So the idea of removing
<v Speaker 2>him from the band, it's kind of like trying to
<v Speaker 2>kick bon Jovi out of Bond. That's right, that's right,
<v Speaker 2>It really is I mean, you can't have the bon
<v Speaker 2>Jovie without the john That's right, right, yes, And you
<v Speaker 2>can't have the White Snake without the Johnson.
<v Speaker 3>So here's what happens. So he has the surgery, goes
<v Speaker 3>through six months of rehab. This whole time, Geffen is
<v Speaker 3>losing money and the band has zero income during this time.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. John Kladner says nineteen eighty six was the only
<v Speaker 2>year in the eighties that he did not have a
<v Speaker 2>hit to his name, John Gladner, because he's got Aerosmith,
<v Speaker 2>He's got all these other bands, but Aerosmith, he's cleaning
<v Speaker 2>them up deep in rehab, and David Coverdale is silent.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it's incredible. By the way, I want to throw
<v Speaker 3>this quick in real quick. John Kalodner had a hand
<v Speaker 3>in getting Berlin on the Top Gun soundtrack.
<v Speaker 2>Ladies and gentlemen, we tie everything back to any prior
<v Speaker 2>episode that we can, but this is a good one.
<v Speaker 2>This is last episode Berlin who sang take My Breath Away. Now.
<v Speaker 2>My story was that when Giorgio Moroder came in and said,
<v Speaker 2>Terry Nunn, I want you to sing this song, she
<v Speaker 2>was like, yes, please, But you're saying it took some convincing.
<v Speaker 3>Kallaidner said that he went to her as like, hey,
<v Speaker 3>I think you really need to do this, and she's
<v Speaker 3>like and he was the one who's like, no, you
<v Speaker 3>got to do this.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Kind of interesting different take again.
<v Speaker 2>You know, everybody's got a different perspective on how things
<v Speaker 2>go in the past.
<v Speaker 3>Right, So nineteen eighty six is rolling. Geffen's losing money,
<v Speaker 3>They're losing patients. John Sykes is losing patience. John Kladner's
<v Speaker 3>losing patients. John Clutter's like they might fire me. Like,
<v Speaker 3>if Coverdale doesn't release this album, I might get fired.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm the one who said this guy's a superstar, right,
<v Speaker 3>Sikes is going, we've got a great album here. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>we've got to release this or fire him. So Coverdale
<v Speaker 3>works his way through the rehab. He even admits he
<v Speaker 3>had a mental block.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and he they change producers, like he wasn't working
<v Speaker 2>well with Mike Stone. He's not working well with Mike Stone.
<v Speaker 2>They think, let's do another producer. That guy didn't work out.
<v Speaker 2>Eventually they get Keith Olsen in there, and Keith and
<v Speaker 2>David Coverdale are able to work together, and finally, after
<v Speaker 2>two years two years, right, they laid down the vocal tracks.
<v Speaker 3>Basically, these songs were written in nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so Iron is no longer hot.
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly right. Right now the model has switched to
<v Speaker 3>bon Jovi, right.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, bon Jovi. So Kalaudner, I will say this,
<v Speaker 2>there are several key factors in this album. David Coverdale
<v Speaker 2>obviously a factor in this album. Yes, you can't escape
<v Speaker 2>those vocals.
<v Speaker 3>Uh yeah.
<v Speaker 2>John Syke's huge songwriter, John Kladner, said he had absolute
<v Speaker 2>control of the album. He said their inspiration point was
<v Speaker 2>bon Jovi and musically yep, but he was in charge
<v Speaker 2>of what I mean he called John Klauderner made the
<v Speaker 2>call on songs, album, artwork, musicians, producers, like everything was
<v Speaker 2>his call because he knew how to make a hit
<v Speaker 2>record and that was what his job was. Yes, and
<v Speaker 2>so he is a giant, gigantic factor on the success
<v Speaker 2>of this album.
<v Speaker 3>You know who else is a huge factor in.
<v Speaker 2>This Yes, I do. And her name is Tawny Kataine.
<v Speaker 3>I saw her described in print as having a honey
<v Speaker 3>drenched million dollar act. And you know what, they were wrong.
<v Speaker 2>I can't fault that not an inaccurate description, Okay, so
<v Speaker 2>let's talk Tawny Katine for just a bit.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we have to.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So Tawnie Kataine had a boyfriend in high school. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Robin Crosby of Rat. Yeah, so Robin Crosby. I think
<v Speaker 2>we might have touched a little bit on him in
<v Speaker 2>our Motley Crue episode Close Friends with Nikky six big
<v Speaker 2>factor in Rat. Tawny Katain and he were boyfriend girlfriend
<v Speaker 2>in high school. Birthday is a day apart. She ends
<v Speaker 2>up leaving him for a guy named Pete Angelus. That's right,
<v Speaker 2>and Pete Angelis did the lights for van Halen. So
<v Speaker 2>she leaves the guy who's going to be a star
<v Speaker 2>in Rat to get the lighting guy for van Halen. Wow.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if that's a fair trade or not.
<v Speaker 2>But then the lighting guy comes the manager for Van Halen,
<v Speaker 2>and that ends up being a pretty good deal, right,
<v Speaker 2>And so one night they have to you know, she's
<v Speaker 2>with the rest of the guys. She went on tour
<v Speaker 2>with them. She was on the bus. She lived the
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty four Van Halen party life. Yes, And she's
<v Speaker 2>on the bus with these guys and they're going to
<v Speaker 2>different hotels and stuff, and you know, when they're you're
<v Speaker 2>as famous as they are. You have to leave through
<v Speaker 2>the kitchen. So one night she is walking out with
<v Speaker 2>Pete behind Eddie and Valerie, and she says to herself,
<v Speaker 2>someday that's going to be me with the leader of
<v Speaker 2>the band up there instead of you know this guy.
<v Speaker 2>That's exactly right, And if that thought goes through your head,
<v Speaker 2>you probably shouldn't still be dating a.
<v Speaker 3>Guy not as chump standing next to me.
<v Speaker 2>Right. So a little bit later on, she is in
<v Speaker 2>a restaurant. She had gone down to La she had
<v Speaker 2>started working in movies. She was the fiancee in Bachelor
<v Speaker 2>Party with Tom Hanks. Yeah, so she's already making a
<v Speaker 2>name for herself. Hey listen, Yeah, I'm gonna stop you
<v Speaker 2>right there. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>Bachelor Party was a naughty pleasure for me and my
<v Speaker 3>buddies back.
<v Speaker 2>In the day.
<v Speaker 3>It's funny, it's you know, booblned and.
<v Speaker 2>I want you to sleep. I want you to sleep.
<v Speaker 3>That was like the epitome of comedy slash naughtiness in
<v Speaker 3>our eleven year old self. Plus in nineteen eighty six,
<v Speaker 3>she did kind of an eighties off the beat classic Witchboard.
<v Speaker 2>Uh huh. Yeah, so she's in La having a drink
<v Speaker 2>with a friend, and the friend is like, hey, there's
<v Speaker 2>a couple of cute, long haired guys back there behind you,
<v Speaker 2>uh huh, And so she's kind of eyeing them a
<v Speaker 2>little bit. And so she gets up to go to
<v Speaker 2>the bathroom and the first one kind of stops her
<v Speaker 2>early on. It's like, hey, would you like to sit
<v Speaker 2>down and have a drink with me and my friend?
<v Speaker 2>And she's like, well, no, I don't drink, so that's okay, thanks,
<v Speaker 2>and she keeps on going. And then she gets up
<v Speaker 2>to the top of the stairs and there's David Coverdale
<v Speaker 2>and he says, excuse me, would you kid have a
<v Speaker 2>spot of tea with me and my friend? And she
<v Speaker 2>was like, spot of tea? Well, yes, that sounds very nice.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>So that's the introduction yep. So he asks her out
<v Speaker 2>for a proper date. Yes, shows up in a white jag.
<v Speaker 2>This seems like a good sign, right, Hey, here we go.
<v Speaker 2>He's wearing a suit.
<v Speaker 3>This is the same blue suit that he wears in
<v Speaker 3>the Here I Go Again video and the same white jag.
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>So she's like, okay, she's impressed. Yeah, And so she
<v Speaker 2>gets in and she's like, so you know, what, what
<v Speaker 2>do you do? And he's like, oh, well, I'm a
<v Speaker 2>singer and we've been working on this album. And she's like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>he's and she says, what's the name of your band?
<v Speaker 2>He says White Snake.
<v Speaker 3>She's never heard of him, right, She's toured the world
<v Speaker 3>with Van Halen, she's run around with rat she knows
<v Speaker 3>the rock and.
<v Speaker 2>Roll scene, and she doesn't know who White Snake is.
<v Speaker 3>Never heard of you, right?
<v Speaker 2>And then he's like, we've been working on an album.
<v Speaker 2>Let me put the tape in, and so she sticks
<v Speaker 2>it in and she's looking out the window like, oh great,
<v Speaker 2>I am with some loser who doesn't have any idea
<v Speaker 2>that he's never going to make it in the music business.
<v Speaker 2>And then the car breaks down in the middle of
<v Speaker 2>the road. So David, imagine this David Coverdale in the
<v Speaker 2>blue shiny suit pushing a jaguarre onto the median as
<v Speaker 2>smoke plumes from the.
<v Speaker 3>Hey don't worry. Two years from now, we're going to
<v Speaker 3>be in a video with this suit and this jag
<v Speaker 3>and we're gonna make millions of it.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna change history.
<v Speaker 3>He didn't even have insurance on the car, that's right,
<v Speaker 3>and he was living in a hotel room that he
<v Speaker 3>couldn't check out of because he didn't have the money
<v Speaker 3>to pay the bill.
<v Speaker 2>He literally, like you said, three million dollars in debt.
<v Speaker 2>At this point that he's met Tawny Kataine. This album
<v Speaker 2>still hasn't come out yet, right, they're waiting. And then
<v Speaker 2>another key factor in the history of the White Snake
<v Speaker 2>album absolutely John Kaladner says, there's a guy who needs
<v Speaker 2>to make a video for your album, and he introduces
<v Speaker 2>them to a guy who we've talked about before named
<v Speaker 2>Marty Callner. Yes, and you'll remember I was talking about
<v Speaker 2>him before because I mentioned that he was the guy
<v Speaker 2>who started the Hard Knocks series on HBO.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, Hard Knocks.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So at the time, that's all I knew about him.
<v Speaker 2>But now I've got a whole story. So here's this
<v Speaker 2>story on Marty Calner. When he's a little kid, two
<v Speaker 2>years old, his mom and dad get divorced. His dad
<v Speaker 2>leaves mom home alone to take care of the kids.
<v Speaker 2>She has to work three jobs. The dad doesn't support them.
<v Speaker 2>They live in like lower middle class you know, the
<v Speaker 2>picking up the sweet and lows so you have sweetener
<v Speaker 2>at the house, mismatch furniture, kmart art on the walls
<v Speaker 2>right until he's about ten years old, and then his
<v Speaker 2>dad dies. His dad's family says, oh my gosh, he's
<v Speaker 2>the only Calner male heir left. And it turns out
<v Speaker 2>they are like bajillionaires. Yes, so the Calner family is
<v Speaker 2>a huge family in Chicago, Like there's a Calner building
<v Speaker 2>in Chicago.
<v Speaker 3>WHOA.
<v Speaker 2>The dad never supported him, but he had the decency
<v Speaker 2>to die before the kid was fully grown, and so
<v Speaker 2>the family starts taking him up to Chicago. He gets
<v Speaker 2>picked up by a limousine like he's wearing his little
<v Speaker 2>league baseball uniform. Gets picked up by a limousine, taken
<v Speaker 2>to the nicest hotel in town. They have a penthouse
<v Speaker 2>suite up there. They have Monaise and Picasso's like the
<v Speaker 2>real thing, not even a print, but like the real
<v Speaker 2>art on the wall. And they spend the next eight
<v Speaker 2>years of his life culturing him. Each summer, so he
<v Speaker 2>spends half of his time in the you know, make
<v Speaker 2>it on your own in the right low income area. Two,
<v Speaker 2>I'm in the finest of the fine And he says,
<v Speaker 2>so that is how I developed my eye for what
<v Speaker 2>is beautiful because I could tell the difference between the
<v Speaker 2>Kmart pictures and the picassos. And so that's how I
<v Speaker 2>was able to develop this eye as a director. And
<v Speaker 2>so he goes to college. He has a lot of WS.
<v Speaker 2>He spends about five years in college. I don't think
<v Speaker 2>he graduated, okay, all right. He gets done with college,
<v Speaker 2>had himself a little trip experience that left him a
<v Speaker 2>little weird for about three months. But he gets out
<v Speaker 2>of college and has no real prospects at all. And
<v Speaker 2>his mom works for TV Guide Okay, she's like a
<v Speaker 2>local distributor to TV Guide, And she says, if I
<v Speaker 2>call one of these TV studios, will would you take
<v Speaker 2>a job? He's like, okay, sure, yeah, whatever, right, And
<v Speaker 2>so his first night in the studio in the TV studio,
<v Speaker 2>he's in the newsroom and there's been this big wreck
<v Speaker 2>and people are running around to get the full story
<v Speaker 2>on it, and it seems exciting. So he's excited about that,
<v Speaker 2>and so he starts talking to the other directors. They've
<v Speaker 2>got about seven directors on the staff at this TV studio, okay,
<v Speaker 2>and they're showing him, you know, with code hangers as
<v Speaker 2>frames for TV shots, how to do TV shots like this,
<v Speaker 2>and he starts working for the show The Nick Clooney Show.
<v Speaker 2>Have you heard of this? No? Okay, Well, Nick's son
<v Speaker 2>about seven at the time, is running around. His name
<v Speaker 2>was George.
<v Speaker 3>I've heard of George. Yeah, yes, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So that's where Marty Callner is getting his start, young
<v Speaker 2>twenties guy in the Nick Clooney Show. And then he
<v Speaker 2>gets his directing break when he's the only guy there
<v Speaker 2>and the director who actually knows something has to run
<v Speaker 2>because there's an accident, and so he's given the reins
<v Speaker 2>and he pulls it off, and suddenly he's making more
<v Speaker 2>money because hey, it turns out he can actually direct. Well,
<v Speaker 2>then he gets a call a little bit later on
<v Speaker 2>two job offers. Okay, one is eighty five thousand to
<v Speaker 2>work for this pretty well known TV studio and the
<v Speaker 2>other one's thirty five thousand dollars for this much lesser
<v Speaker 2>known TV studios this mid seventies. Yeah, but they said,
<v Speaker 2>we'll give you a lot of artistic license. You will
<v Speaker 2>really kind of be the guy who designs what this
<v Speaker 2>TV studio is going to be about.
<v Speaker 3>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 2>He goes, Okay, what's the name of the studio and
<v Speaker 2>they said, we're.
<v Speaker 3>Calling it HB. It's called Home Box Office. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 3>so this little known.
<v Speaker 2>Studio becomes the artistic outlet for Marty Callner. He's responsible
<v Speaker 2>for the music that everybody associates with.
<v Speaker 3>HBO thought we got to play that right here.
<v Speaker 2>So he didn't play it. He commissioned it. But I
<v Speaker 2>mean it was him. He was the guy. He was
<v Speaker 2>the guy for HBO. And he's still trying to do
<v Speaker 2>some directing and he directs. He decides what I want
<v Speaker 2>to do. He loves comedy. I want to direct a
<v Speaker 2>comedy stand up show, okay, and so it's Robert Klein
<v Speaker 2>is his first show. He does not do it right.
<v Speaker 2>He's not used to these type of shows where you're
<v Speaker 2>filming live. He says, it ends up looking horrible. You know,
<v Speaker 2>the angles, Robert Klein's hands look gigantic. You know, he's
<v Speaker 2>just filming it like he would a TV show and
<v Speaker 2>he's using real cameras. It just doesn't make any sense.
<v Speaker 2>And so he thinks, great, I'm gonna get fired. I'm
<v Speaker 2>gonna get fired from this job, right, and he almost
<v Speaker 2>does until the next day when there's a review in
<v Speaker 2>the New York Times magazine that says this is one
<v Speaker 2>of the best specials HBO has ever produced, and overnight
<v Speaker 2>he goes from thirty five thousand, two, three and fifty.
<v Speaker 3>That's awesome. That's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So he's sitting in bed one night. He's done
<v Speaker 2>some videos. He's done a few music music videos with
<v Speaker 2>Laura Branigan, among others. Okay, lots of comedy specials. He's
<v Speaker 2>sitting in bed one night and he sees a video
<v Speaker 2>by our friend Russell McKay. Uh huh Betty Davis Eyes
<v Speaker 2>by Kim Crush.
<v Speaker 3>She's never cold. She's got that today beside a ton
<v Speaker 3>of music.
<v Speaker 2>He sees that video and he's like, holy cow, this
<v Speaker 2>guy is breaking all the rules.
<v Speaker 3>Our man, Russell McKay.
<v Speaker 2>Russell McKay, he has had so much influence on so
<v Speaker 2>many things in the eighties, it's crazy. Yep. So he
<v Speaker 2>sees that and he says to his wife, I want
<v Speaker 2>to quit my job and I want to make music videos.
<v Speaker 2>And she's and she's like what. He's like, I know,
<v Speaker 2>we live in a really nice house and I make
<v Speaker 2>whole lots of money, but I need to go do this.
<v Speaker 2>And she said, I'll live in the desert in a
<v Speaker 2>one room house with you if you're happy.
<v Speaker 3>Oh what a woman?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, what a woman. So he goes and inquires with friends,
<v Speaker 2>and one of them says, Okay, I got three bands
<v Speaker 2>that you could do a video for. First one's out
<v Speaker 2>of Australia named in Excess.
<v Speaker 3>I'm sorry, inks, who is this.
<v Speaker 2>Pronounced in Excess? The other one is out of New Orleans.
<v Speaker 2>They're called Zebra, And I've got this bar band that
<v Speaker 2>I have no idea what to do with. Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>what's the what do they call Twisted Sister? So, yeah, everybody,
<v Speaker 2>Marty Comer is the guy responsible for the We're not
<v Speaker 2>gonna take it. I want to rock. Those amazing and
<v Speaker 2>iconic videos are Marty Culner. And so fast forward just
<v Speaker 2>a couple of years and Marty Culner is getting a
<v Speaker 2>call from John Klaudner who says, I need somebody to
<v Speaker 2>make a video, and I need you to make it cheap.
<v Speaker 2>We are out of money. Uh huh. So before we.
<v Speaker 3>Get to the video for Still the Night, which we're
<v Speaker 3>getting to, yeah, I mean Coverdale felt like he was
<v Speaker 3>dealing with a rebellion within the band, and so he
<v Speaker 3>went to Geffen and He's like, we're firing all these guys.
<v Speaker 3>They wanted to fire me from the band. I can't
<v Speaker 3>have these guys in my band. They're out. So as
<v Speaker 3>soon as Ainsley Dunbar got done with his drum parts, Ainsley,
<v Speaker 3>thank you, see you later. Neil Murray, you're done with
<v Speaker 3>your bass by and John Sykes is like, well, I
<v Speaker 3>could either quit or I could see it through. So
<v Speaker 3>I finished my guitars and then I quit and that
<v Speaker 3>left Coverdale as the only member of White Snake left.
<v Speaker 3>So Kladner said, all right, well here's my chance to
<v Speaker 3>build my dreamline up of White Snake. And that's when
<v Speaker 3>he brings in Tommy Aldridge on drums, he brings in
<v Speaker 3>Adrian van der Berg, he brings in Vivian Campbell, and
<v Speaker 3>he creates this band out of nothingness. And that's what
<v Speaker 3>you see in the videos, right.
<v Speaker 2>So the first time, this is monumental. Everybody listen to this.
<v Speaker 2>The first time the band that probably you and everyone
<v Speaker 2>you know knows is White Snake from MTV. The first
<v Speaker 2>time that those guys met each other was on the
<v Speaker 2>video shoot for Still of the Night. That's crazy, man,
<v Speaker 2>it is nuts. And just before they were about to
<v Speaker 2>shoot the video. They lost their model, they lost their
<v Speaker 2>female girl sex symbol. You know that was it's the
<v Speaker 2>guest girl, baby Claudia Schiffer. Claudia freaking Shiffer was supposed
<v Speaker 2>to be the girl in the White Sink video.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so Claudia Schiffer, we still show.
<v Speaker 2>Wait, yeah, she bails at the last minute. Marty Callner
<v Speaker 2>and David Coverdale are supposed to have dinner at Marty's
<v Speaker 2>house that night, and so David brings his new kind
<v Speaker 2>of new girlfriend with him, and Marty has just gotten
<v Speaker 2>the call that Claudia Schiffer is out and he doesn't
<v Speaker 2>know what to do, and so as he opens the door,
<v Speaker 2>he sees David with Tawny Katine and he says, you're.
<v Speaker 3>Her, freaking raise from heaven?
<v Speaker 2>Can you imagine? Yes, I'm who What do you mean?
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, you're her.
<v Speaker 2>We have to have you for the video shoot tomorrow tomorrow.
<v Speaker 3>And Coverdale's like, ah, this is kind of a new thing.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if she'll She's like, no, I'm happy
<v Speaker 3>to help in any way possible.
<v Speaker 2>I think she had a little hesitation. She was like,
<v Speaker 2>TV was not cool at that point. That's true. She
<v Speaker 2>was doing movies and this was not even really TV,
<v Speaker 2>it was music videos. Can maybe even step down from that. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>I'm so thankful that she changed her mind. Okay. And
<v Speaker 2>another thing that Marty Culner did that you're going to appreciate. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>he was the one who directed the first pee Wee
<v Speaker 2>Herman show. Oh I love that one, the nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 2>like it's supposed to be a kids show as really adult.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah that was Marty Callner. Pee Wee Herman had done
<v Speaker 2>that character on stage and he's like, we need to
<v Speaker 2>make a show out of this. Marty Culner directed the
<v Speaker 2>very first nineteen eighty This is well before eighty six
<v Speaker 2>when all the other exactly which one you're talking about.
<v Speaker 3>He hypnotizes a woman from the audience and it makes
<v Speaker 3>her take her clothes off. Yeah it was. It was
<v Speaker 3>definitely one.
<v Speaker 2>We liked all right then, Okay, so Marty Culner has
<v Speaker 2>shot the first part of the video with the band.
<v Speaker 2>He looks at the footage and he's like, this looks
<v Speaker 2>like a bunch of guys who don't know each other,
<v Speaker 2>who are pretending to play music that they didn't play. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, I need another day of shooting.
<v Speaker 3>He called him basically Millie Vanilli, right, yeah, He's like,
<v Speaker 3>they can play, but they weren't playing right.
<v Speaker 2>So he calls Deafen Records up and he's like, hey, guys,
<v Speaker 2>I need another day of shooting. We need some you know,
<v Speaker 2>maybe a female, some sexiness. Let's get this all done intercutting. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and we'll intercut it with our first day of shooting.
<v Speaker 2>Won't cost much. I'll shoot it sixteen millimeter, like thirty
<v Speaker 2>five thousand, and David Geffen says, David Coverdale can go himself. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean he they were done.
<v Speaker 3>They were done. Geffen was about to go out of business.
<v Speaker 2>John Kallawdner was about to lose his job, so he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't happy with him, right, nobody was happy with this band.
<v Speaker 2>But Marty says, guys, thirty five thousand dollars, they said, no,
<v Speaker 2>we're not doing it. They can he can rot. And
<v Speaker 2>so that night Marty's like, well sucks, because I really
<v Speaker 2>think this guy can make something of himself. And his
<v Speaker 2>wife says, well, can we afford to pay the thirty
<v Speaker 2>five thousand dollars? And he's like yeah, She goes, do
<v Speaker 2>you really believe in him that much? He said, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I do. She's been go do it. And so it's
<v Speaker 2>because Marty Callner put up his own money to shoot
<v Speaker 2>that second day and where we had Tawny Kataine. It's
<v Speaker 2>because of that that we get that video and then
<v Speaker 2>not over yet. We keep in mind at this point,
<v Speaker 2>David Coverdale is singing New York Seltzer commercials. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>let's let's listen to this. I'm not kidding, let's listen.
<v Speaker 5>Do you liten on New York salsa now available everywhere?
<v Speaker 3>That sounds like a man who lives in a hotel
<v Speaker 3>with no car insurance.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I don't know which is worse that one
<v Speaker 2>or the Hoover vacuum commercial with Brian Johnson's Yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>But these guys were obviously scraping the bottom of the
<v Speaker 2>barrel right before they're about to explode all over the mainstream.
<v Speaker 3>Marty Kalmer did step in and save the day for
<v Speaker 3>thirty five thousand dollars. Yeah, But you know who else
<v Speaker 3>deserves a lot of credit? His wife. Oh, for sure,
<v Speaker 3>she's the unsung hero in this story.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely. She's the one that says if you feel it,
<v Speaker 2>if you feel it, go do it.
<v Speaker 3>If she had said no, he'd have been like, all right, yeah, sorry,
<v Speaker 3>And that's how we get White Snake nineteen eights.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, Marty shoots the second day, intercuts, makes the video,
<v Speaker 2>and he sends it into MTV. So here's where the
<v Speaker 2>stars aligned. Yes, the video arrives at the same time
<v Speaker 2>that he happens to have the manager of led Zeppelin,
<v Speaker 2>Phil Carson, and Phil sees the video and he says
<v Speaker 2>to Sam Man, led Zeppelin would die to have a
<v Speaker 2>video like this, and Sam says, really, I guess I'll
<v Speaker 2>make it the hit clip of the week.
<v Speaker 3>Hip clip of the week. And in New York City,
<v Speaker 3>the executives at MTV, the people that work around him
<v Speaker 3>are like, this is not hip. This is an old
<v Speaker 3>guy singing, and He's like, no, no, no, you're wrong.
<v Speaker 3>This song is him.
<v Speaker 2>In Iowa, he knew that the audience had grown beyond
<v Speaker 2>the metro of New York City, right, Yep. The other
<v Speaker 2>side of the street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the were
<v Speaker 2>the ones buying the Duran Duran albums because they had him.
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>And he knew that that was his audience. And he
<v Speaker 2>was right.
<v Speaker 3>There's an army of mullets out there that are waiting
<v Speaker 3>to hear this song this week.
<v Speaker 2>So Still the Night becomes the hip clip of the week,
<v Speaker 2>and suddenly the band is world renowned.
<v Speaker 3>White Snake goes from three million dollars in debt having
<v Speaker 3>five bucks in a condom in your wallet. That album
<v Speaker 3>sold one million records in ten days. In ten days,
<v Speaker 3>you talk about your life turning on a moment. It's incredible.
<v Speaker 2>Just think if the mail had run late that day,
<v Speaker 2>if Phil hadn't been in there talking to Sam, we
<v Speaker 2>may never have known who White Snake was.
<v Speaker 3>Yep, it saved Geffen Records. Yep, it saved David Coverdale's career.
<v Speaker 3>It gave us a video of Vixen of the Ages.
<v Speaker 3>White Snake then opens for Motley Crue on the Girls,
<v Speaker 3>Girls Girls Tour, Changes lives.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely Wow. So nineteen eighty seven means that this album
<v Speaker 2>is thirty five years old this year. Yes, and the
<v Speaker 2>release date was not too long ago. That's right, you
<v Speaker 2>remember the date. I think it was April seventh, April seventh,
<v Speaker 2>and so on April seventh, my genius friend makes a
<v Speaker 2>little post for Facebook and Twitter that says, hey, this
<v Speaker 2>album is thirty five years old to day. He might
<v Speaker 2>have tagged David Coverdale and sweet and he says, what's
<v Speaker 2>your favorite song? And mister David freaking Coverdale responds and
<v Speaker 2>says all of them.
<v Speaker 3>That was a freaking cool moment in our Surely you
<v Speaker 3>can't be serious. Podcast lives amazed bass David Coverdale replied
<v Speaker 3>directly to my post he likes two of them.
<v Speaker 2>So you have had some amazing reactions to your Twitter post.
<v Speaker 2>You've gotten David Coverdale to respond to your White Snake post, right,
<v Speaker 2>You've got Stephen Stephen Desusa Desusa to respond to your
<v Speaker 2>diehard post. Have I gotten I don't have I gotten anything?
<v Speaker 3>Kathy Ireland liked your posts.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, that maybe makes me the winner.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, well done done.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So now it's time for us to go jump
<v Speaker 2>in the album track by track next week, next week. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>so everybody be sure and hit that subscribe button or
<v Speaker 2>that follow button on whatever your podcast app is so
<v Speaker 2>that you don't miss us going track by track through
<v Speaker 2>White Snake, White Snake nineteen eighty seven, some amazing songs
<v Speaker 2>on the album that We've got so many stories to
<v Speaker 2>tell you, but for now we have to go.
<v Speaker 3>Promise you we'll be doing cartwheels on the hoods of
<v Speaker 3>Jaguars and talking about infamous MTV nipple slips. It's going
<v Speaker 3>to be amazing. Come back next week.