David Coverdale says he's staying safe and sane amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but he worries about those who aren't following guidelines suggested by doctors and scientists.

"It’s just a really challenging time," he tells UCR. "I see some people taking the protocols seriously and others just completely ignoring it. As if they’re immune to the worst biblical challenge we’ve had for millennia. It’s breathtaking to me. I don’t know whether it’s arrogance or the imagination that they’re immune for whatever reason."

The Whitesnake leader is currently on home lockdown and awaiting word on when it will be safe to have surgery on the bilateral inguinal hernia that forced him to bow out of a planned summer tour with Sammy Hagar. The worldwide coronavirus health crisis eventually forced Hagar to cancel the tour altogether.

"At my age, I have to be really careful," says the 68-year old former Deep Purple singer. "I can’t get my health issues dealt with because the hospitals are dealing with life-threatening virus victims. We’ll get through this. The reason we’ve survived hundreds of thousands of years is because we adapt. We have to - we’ve been given no choice. But this is a hell of a thing to adapt to."

Still, Coverdale says quarantined life hasn't been too awful. "My wife and I are blessed with a very comfortably sized house," he explains. "If we need our personal space, it’s big enough to achieve that. And we are the best of friends, which is fantastic."

The forced break also gives him more time to promote The Rock Album, a "revisited, remixed and remastered" collection of Whitesnake's rock songs, which arrives on June 19. Similar upcoming sets will focus on the band's ballads and blues-based material. The trio of reissues will serve as a "tasting menu" for a massive sonic overhaul of the band's most popular records.

"I'm coming up to 50 years as a recording artist," Coverdale notes. "I've always used the best technology. But I've been through so many changes and lineups and whatever. You can only achieve so much in remastering. The most important thing to me was to achieve a sonic identity and consistency from one record to the other. I've had this dream and ambition for many, many years. Everything from [1984's] Slide It In on is getting a fresh coat of paint."

 

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