A Group or Individuals? My Time In WHITESNAKE - Rudy Sarzo
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2023
- Rudy Sarzo discusses his experiences with Whitesnake, just one of the iconic bands he was a part of in the 80s. He shares the insights into how he joined David Coverdale's group and the explosive success they achieved.
He discusses the management and record company's role in remodelling the group to favor an American audience, hooked on MTV. He talks about the need to find the right 'look' for the job.
Rudy also talks about the dynamics within the group, after the assembled musicians came together as a unified musical force.
This interview provides a fascinating glimpse into the behind-the-scenes story of Whitesnake's rise to fame in North America.
I read Rudy's book. Left a message on his FB page telling him I enjoyed the book. He actually responded and thanked me! Nice guy.
He’s very active on FB, really cool dude.
@@LetsgoJags Thx
He's a connection of mine on LinkedIn. Very awesome, cool down to earth guy!
Saw QR live and Rudy Sarzo and Carlos Cavazo were the most friendly guys.
He’s active on Instagram also. Such a sweet guy! I direct messaged him on Instagram because I wanted to know if I could find a signed copy of his book, he got back to me the very next day! Love him!
Rudy is a genuine musician with a very gentle genuine soul. A true gentleman!!!!!
I've always thought Rudy seemed like such a cool and chill guy! Great musician and great guy!
It's interesting how everyone focuses on this band from 1987 on. Bernie Marsden helped to write a majority of the hits that were whitesnake.
In terms of chart positions, the two highest reaching albums in the UK were during the Moody/Marsden era. That time of the Whitesnake evolution is very underrated in North America.
Because that was the start of its downfall, Coverdale became a MTV star at the upper age limit that he could squeeze by on. After 87, DC had no hits, and even plucked a older song 'Fool for your Lovin' to stay on MTV.
I like that number.@@donhollio-1
Ready and Willing, Love Hunter
@@Moment-14 Come 'n Get It
I've seen Whitesnake with a couple different line ups , usually with ' hair bands' as openers ( Slaughter, Warrant, etc ) and the difference in playing ability was very obvious. Coverdale came from the 70s arena rock era and he and the bands he put together knew how to put on a great rock show. They rocked
Alot of people dont know who Ansley Dunbar is let alone he recorded with Whitesnake. Fantastic Drummer.
Played on Journey first album with Steve Perry
He is alright but really
Doesn’t separate himself with his style
@Basher ..At least you know yer sht. 👍
Played with Zappa too
With all due respect do this lineup , it was just that . A MTV friendly line up , granted great players all of them but I would have rather seen Sykes , Powell and Murray any day ✌🏻
Yours Aye! Awesome.
Totally agree
Agreed!
Agreed tenfold!
Rudy has always been a superb gun for hire. Doesn’t get near the attention he deserves.
I know right? I was a fan since the beginning of Quiet Riot!
I agree 100%!
I met RS when he was touring with BOC. One of the nicest guys I've ever met. Hi Rudy.
Your guests are often at great ease & open up. This is thanks to your knowledge & a unassuming, humble interview style. You're starting to make a name for yourself, enjoy the ride it's fully deserved...
Great to hear it from Rudy, one of the guys actually in the band, actually part of it - tell it as it happened 👏
Rudy is awesome....soooo underrated
True. Go back and listen to "Condition Critical" by Quiet Riot. He has some great stuff on there!
i don't think he's ever been underrated. He has always been known as a virtuoso on the bass!
The cohesion of the band is clearly visible in the albums. Great band
Love Rudy Sarzo as a musician. I've seen him perform with both Ozzy and Whitesnake. He and Geezer Butler (whom I've also seen several times) are my favorite bass players. PS, I highly recommend Geezer's new book.
Rudy had a podcast for A little while called - The Dash. He did some great interviews with some of his buddies.
Agreed. Rudy is an amazing bass player with a style of playing that's all his own. I've seen him with the Snake, Ozzy, and Quiet Riot. I was never disappointed in his performance.
Yess! It was Great!😮😊❤
One of the legends....
Sykes put the band on the map... Such a shame Coverdale's giant ego couldn't deal with such a master guitarist. Reb is the only one that tolerated him to the end.
I have the very best Rudy Sarzo story.
I hated this version of Whitesnake although I love Rudy. I loved the Cozy, Sykes, Murray, DC line up. Would love to have seen that line up for much longer.
Love that 87 album but I have to say the attention to the look of metal bands in the late 80s lended it self to some of us not liking the poser, fashion, big hair look. It was like a product not a band.
Well yea ...but we did get some really great music out of all of it.... awesome music....
@@jimmienonya8912 Yes the music was fabulous. But the guy who did it all didn't even get to tour and be part of it. Long live John Sykes!
@@DMDvideo10 oh I know all about what you're talking about, that John, Neil , and Ansley were on that album....I've seen all those guys before with other groups , John with BLUE MURDER, opening for BON JOVI...yea you heard right,,BLUE MURDER kick butt , and I had seen BON JOVI many times before but this night BLUE MURDER must have put the cattle prod up their butts this night...BON JOVI were awesome, I mean awesome...and i like um , was not the biggest fan , I looked at my little brother and said: they can't be this good , but they laid it down that night in Columbia , S.C....Seen Neil with GARY MOORE....in 82.....they opened for DEF LEOPARD on the PYROMANIA tour...KROKUS was after Gary....and IAN PAICE was on the drums, love PAICE...saw Ansley with JOURNEY in Atlanta , GA...at THE FOX THEATER...78....VAN HALEN..MONTROSE....and JOURNEY....VAN HALEN'S first tour but im sure u know this...
@@jimmienonya8912 I have no clue where you're coming from. I just said that Sykes got screwed out of touring with Whitesnake to promote and album he mostly wrote and recorded with Coverdale.
@@DMDvideo10 get over it , he left the band , you have no clue what you're even talking about..
An awesome 😎 bass guitarist.
Saw him with Quiet Riot about 2 weeks before the US festival..our town had about few hundred people at the show,then they played in front of 100,000 fans at US festival.
Anybody know whether you can you get Rudy’s background on Teams? 😁Loving the (junk room) glamour!
Rudy is just a very polite person he is a top knoch bassist
I thought the Still of the Night vid was shot first, then Here I Go Again later that night
I think Rudy has had such a great career is on account of his kind personality…not to mention his musicianship!!
Friend said that 89/90 whitesnake lineup best concert he ever saw live flat out smoked
I rem when in still of the night video debut on m t v ! I be honest I didn’t recognize Rudy at first cause his hair was blonde and I was a m t v teenager watching that channel a lot ! I just wonder if anyone else had that experience ? Space ace Ron ⚡️⚡️⚡️
@shredderonduty👍
The bass lick was the giveaweay.
@@JayTor2112 👍
Whitesnake did gel as a band, during "Here I Go Again" video. Specifically during Tawny Kitaen's nip slip
I was sixteen discovering the harder side of
M tv.___ "Is This Love", "Still Of The Night", "Here I Go Again"
With two hours on Saturday through midnite]HEADBANGER'S BALL[
& it got me through some$#@!
WHITESNAKE, WHITESNAKE.🤟🏼|Bones
Ooh, I remember the Headbanger's Ball! Loved that show!!
It was a gold mine, written by John Sykes
Had Rudy ever played on a song he wrote? Dudes bass talent lands him established gigs .
Would of asked about that bad ass black bass without the usual tuning pegs at the end..in the is this love video . Always remember thinking wow never seen one of them lol bk when I was like 6 lol
i always hated that this lineup was overshadowed for being just a MTV band...because they were great musicians but due Sykes amazing work on album it's kinda understandable. I Also love Slip of the tongue album...not the best but still some good 80s song in there.
I always wonder how the band members were compensated. And I mean the musicians who played the instruments not Coverdale. Did the other members get any publishing ownership? Or were they just paid some kind of salary. That first WS album sold like 25m copies. There is a business side of the music business.
People saying in the comments hear that Whitesnake was an image band. I disagree. First of all, they were around long before MTV started, which of course MTV was all about image for the most part. It just happened that in the 80s, Whitesnake struck gold. What came first, the band, or MTV…? Obviously the band. Plus Whitesnake is still around in 2023. They were even touring last year, in 2022. No spans that are only about image, do not have that longevity. Yes, they happened to have the right look for MTV during the 80s, but their lasting and staying power proves that they were not just about the image. As for David, yes, he goes through musicians like people go through underwear. Not sure what is up with that, but he’s always had fantastic musicians in his band. The ‘image’ part just happens to be kind of the icing on the cake, or it comes with the territory. I mean, even going as far back as Led Zeppelin, they had an image. Coverdale was in deep purple, a band that was not about image. It’s just that Whitesnake had mega success during the ‘hair band’ period. But they are still here, many years later, so obviously they’re not just about the image…
here (stupid auto correct)
They were an image band.
3:30-- Stylist
3:45
So let me get this straight... Tommy had those pants in his closet? Epic stuff.
Good one! I've always said I need to get that pair of britches that Bill Ward had on on the front of SABOTAGE...HA! .....people would be saying : look at this clown!!..On other side that is in my opinion the 2 best SABBATH album ..the best being SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH...
Rudy looks like he's getting ready to move out or moving in?
This guy made a living playing other people’s bass parts. Daisley and Neil Murray.
Yes but it wasn't his fault, he didn't steal their gigs, management created the situation
You're forgetting about Quiet Riot.
@@johnsoos6907 lots of people have forgotten Quiet Riot.... for many reasons
@@user-or4hs7xq9u Point being that he was playing his own parts & they were a very popular band for a while.
Whitesnake sacking John Sykes was a massive mistake went crap after this incident
Yup, Sykes was the talent.
David's ego and John's ego was going to explode sooner or later white snake still has a great following but it would've been one of the greatest bands of all time of those two could've put there egos aside
@@jasonjones2769 totally agreed
@@maxpower9499 It was David's band, and when he had voice problems, John went to management to try and have them fire him from his own band. Do you really think that was a fight he was gonna win? John had only re-recorded the Slide It In album for the US release, he hadn't written any songs with David yet. He was a trying to make a power play without having any power. It would be like Vinnie Vincent trying to Paul or Gene replaced. It was never gonna happen.
@robertkennedy5414 I've heard that story but I find that hard to believe.
This sort of confirms my impression of Whitesnake - a band created by record company management to create a nice family friendly image that fit the generic MTV mainstream. This required taking away all the rough edges that make rock exciting and interesting.
they where not that before 87 ,they became that .
Whitesnake? Family friendly? Are you out of your mind? The band is named after David Coverdale’s dick! One of their greatest number one smash hits is about getting laid in the “still of the night.” They were definitely main stream and extremely popular but, I would not go so far as to say they were family friendly.
Slide It In - family friendly 😳😂
Shame what happened with the other guys but they did look cool at Rock In Rio etc. Stripped down. Lizzy managed to get that that with JS; with the rest of the band intact ( always refer to ‘Cold Sweat’ in a pub on OTT tv show 1983 (clip on YT now.)
Didn’t care much for the overblown, chiffon WS but it brought a mixed gender market but here I go again (‘82 only;) .
What Rudy is trying to say is, MTV wasn’t gonna have a band on the airwaves looking like the Doobie Brothers or Steely Dan. Let alone looking like Bernie Marsden or Mickey Moody the original Snakes
I thought we liked " Super Groups"????
hopefully rudy got a chunk of change out of it
Not likely, The Brit musicians going back to the 60`s were cut throat. The main founder or original members of the band keep 90% of the money and the remaining employee band members split the 10%. There is no mercy. It's a vicious cycle because when a member breaks off and starts a new band he continues the cycle and is just as greedy and mean to the new members under him. One of the Brits famous lines to the newbies, Now it's your turn to pay your dues like I did. Someday when you start your own band you will be able to keep all the money for yourselves as the leader.
Rudy was a paid employee no different than vinnie, bruce, tommy and eric were/are.
David is a cut throat musician. John and Neil had to sue David for the royalties from Whitesnake`s 87 album. They ended up winning and David had to pay up. The English gall of him to rip them off with zero guilt for all the time and work they put into recording that album is so English. Richie did it to David and Dio and then they did it to their bands. Ozzy and Sharon did it to their bands too.
ya that's true! although vai is a smart businessman i bet he got a different contract @@johnsmith-ug5tp
Bob Daisley was integral to the first 2 Ozzy albums and took yrs to get the money. For some reason Coverdale won't release the other album he wrote with Sykes.
Neil Murray was a far better bassist than Rudy
to be fair ,Neil is probably the best band rock player in the world , Billy Shahan for eg is technically better but nobody drives a song with cool bass line like murray , so no shame for rudy in being inferior,every body is
Yes filled with pretty boys MTV friendly, but who can play the shit of anything!!!!
@AliceCooper- Glasgow Scotland
1987 is by faaaaaaaaar their peak .
Not for me it isn’t. I’m all about the classic Marsden/Moody era. And 1987 was the line up of my youth. I was knee high to a grasshopper when Lovehunter was released, but give me that 78-84 stuff any day
Whitesnake had the vocals that made the band. So all the effort for a image was not needed. So that part was pretty funny.
yes it was the look was vital .
Yeah, and John Sykes was a stud in all categories.. Playing, Vocals, Image...
Sounds as if Whitesnake were the The Monkees of metal.
From what I have heard, David had been an xsshole, even Tawny Kitaen mentioned how he responded to the video director with no more than what he invested out if his own pocket, to finance those videos. David also gave the director a picture of him and Tawny😂when the director was hoping for a return on his investment, now that the album was doing so well. Sykes also exposes Coverdale's shady sides, so does Vivian Campbell. I saw a video in the UK where a lady had a sign that said: thank you for your voice, David tells her, in front of everyone: thank you for your boobs🙄🤔what an idixt
Terrible era ,after Micky Moody & Bernie Marsden finished so did the good music all about the hair and jaguar cars not good.
Nonsense. 87 is a masterpiece of hard rock. A classic album with classic videos to match. Sykes playing is superb, along with Coverdale singing at his peak. I love Marsden and Moody era, but they could never have played the stuff on 87.
@@deepzepp4176I agree. Bernie and Micky were much too tasteful and considerate to inflict that widdling fretboard wankery on us. 😝
@charleigh195 I wholeheartedly agree, and the ‘classic line-up’ era is way before my time. I would say that Slide it In was the last great ‘snake album. Although Bernie was gone, they still retained some of the classic bloozsnake sound while starting to move away from it. I’ve always thought of it as Whitesnake’s transitional record. It straddles the two eras perfectly. But 1987 was a step too far.
@@mickmarsbar81Fuck outta here. John’s playing, while flashy and fiery, was still thoughtful, melodic, and contributed to the songs perfectly. Just listen to his vibrato on Is This Love. No shredding or twiddling around that.
@@deepzepp4176I concur. While the prior Whitesnake albums were solid, I can’t imagine the number of kids who bought ‘87 and were disappointed that their earlier works were slower blues rock and not more blazing, intense heavy metal.
John Sykes ………End of story.
Why didn’t he talk about recording project driver with Tommy Aldridge and Rob Rock on vocals, Tony, McAlpine and Guitar? Rob Rock destroys David Coverdale, and still destroys them till this day vocally
None of this makes sense to me. Styling? MTV friendly?
Coverdale, Marsden, Moody, Murray, Paice, Lord. End Of.
Rudy, someone has been impersonating you for over a year. I ceased connecting with him and said goodbye.
Whitesnake was the most contrived band of the era. It was every rock cliche of the time dressed up as rebellion. A band of "stars" (hired hands) put together by some money men to cash in. My least favorite band from that time,
1987 was the first and only Whitesnake album I heard for 20 years. I never liked it. Then I bought ‘Ready an Willing’ on a whim when I saw it cheap (£4.99) at a supermarket. That’s when I fell in love with the real deal Whitesnake. And I dislike the 1987 album even more now, for preventing me from discovering the good stuff for two friggin decades!
@@mickmarsbar81 Yes, they were originally a good band. I had "Come and Get It" and liked it. It became a completely different thing later, a contrived hair metal band of older metal veterans cashing in as hired hands. Acting out the cliches with a hair metal blueprint.
Definitely not a group once they turned into Amerisnake!
Saw them in 1987. The worst concert I have ever attended.
Imagine admitting to being in Whitesnake. 😆 🤣 😂
BS!! Rudy is being quite disingenuous. Vivian and Adrian have admitted that Whitesnake was an image band with no musical cohesion. Hell! I was there to see them live and it was a mess!! 😂 Bad timing, terrible improvised solos, guitars and vocals out of tune, etc… They got tighter once Vai joined them. By then, they had already been playing together for a while, but it was never what it should have been had Sykes, Murray, Dunbar and Airey performed the album they all wrote and recorded!!
I saw them at wembley arena and was blow away
You must have missed the tour in ‘88 then, Sir. I will never forget this lineup in Birmingham UK, it was unbeatable from every angle. The cohesion was overflowing with that lineup. I was gutted to see it fall apart 😢
What would prefer he says? That they all sucked and had no success? Come on man. Never was a huge fan myself, but they had as big or bigger hype that anyone. When you've got that level of talent together in one place, it's nearly impossible to have complete stinkers of shows. Rudy isn't a shit talker like you.
Hmmm saw that line up twice. The first show was amazing and they sounded exactly like the album. The second one they sounded tired and DC’s voice sounded worn. Didn’t care to see them after Slip of the Tongue came out.
They never sounded like the album!! 🙄🤣 You people have some thick nostalgia glasses on… 🤓🤣
The 1987 Whitesnake bore very little resemblance to the original band formed in 1978. The early band was a hard rock group,I saw them several times live 1979-1983, but the 1987 incarnation was rather pathetic hair metal aimed at MTV and in particular the US market.
David Coverdale was undoubtedly a talented vocalist, but his obesssion with breaking America led the band down a poprock road that was image related and really rather naff.
Coverdales voice left him in the late 1990`s but he continued on bluffing a living and flogging the Whitesnake name to the max. I last saw them live in 2013 and it was so bad, Coverdale was embarrassing; he got the audience to do most of the singing, his voice was well and truely shot. A pity.
I ❤ Sarzo and the body of work but for some reason he's steadily becoming an elderly chimpanzee that wears prescription underwear.
Bloody spit it out FFS,long winded answers are so annoying
Coverdale kicked his old friends out of the band and replaced them with All Stars. BACK STABBER.
What about line up with Vivian Cambell