However, Coverdale was completely
unrepentant. “We’re exercising the male fantasy
of being a peacock and strutting,” he insisted
to Sutcliffe. “We are playing cock-rock. We are
bathing in innuendo.
“In America the sleeve has been banned for
sexism and the album is going out in a brown
paper bag,” he continued, before launching into
an extraordinary rant: “I suggested stick-on panties
for the boiler in the picture, but they seemed to
think that would make it worse.”
Yes, he really did use the word ‘boiler’; four
decades ago this was less of a hanging offence than
in today’s #MeToo-conscious climate. And withthe benefit of hindsight, Marsden happily
admits that the band’s wordplay and the
Lovehunter sleeve were if not morally
wrong, then a product of a bygone era.
“When you look at those things now,
I can understand it,” he comments,
referring to Whitesnake’s difficult
relationship with the media. “Then again, we [the
band’s instrumentalists] didn’t really take a lot of
notice of the lyrics, though David wrote some
magnificent ones like Ain’t Gonna Cry No More.
What people didn’t realise was that what he wrote
was completely tongue-in-cheek.”
Coverdale didn’t seem to realise that in
principle Sutcliffe was on the band’s side. His
story pointed out that the sleeve did Whitesnake
a disservice, because most of Whitesnake’s songs
“were not sexist but sexy” – that with the film
Spinal Tap still five years away.
“David believed those things were all right [to
say] because he’d convinced himself they were,”Marsden offers now. “That said, there were times
when Jon [Lord] and I would see something he’d
said in the Melody Maker or whatever and we’d
wrinkle our noses. But David was the singer, and
he did the interviews.”
It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for
Coverdale, whose Rock & Roll Women seemed to lay
his manifesto on a plate – he was looking for
‘a high-heeled double trouble backstage queen/Who gets
what she wants and knows where she’s been’ .This was six
of one and half a dozen of the other.
“That’s true, but I completely concur with
some of the criticisms,” Marsden insists. “David
did believe in that stuff, because he had to front
it [on stage], and maybe you have to give him
credit for that. Though when I sign the
Lovehunter cover these days, I write the word
‘cheap’ instead of ‘cheers’ on the girl’s bum.
Because that’s what it was.”
Lovehunter would prove to be Dave Dowle’s last
record with the band. Coverdale explained toGET
TY
x 2“We are exercising the male fantasy of being
a peacock and strutting. We are playing cock
rock. We are bathing in innuendo.” David Coverdale
Whitesnake’s Lovehunter line-up:
(l-r) Neil Murray, David Dowle,
Mick Moody, Jon Lord, Bernie
Marsden, David Coverdale.40 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM