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A baby that didn’t grow much
Greek site Rockpages has interviewed Bernie Marsden on the occasion of his recent release Chess. The extended and rather interesting conversation invariably turned onto his days with PAL and Whitesnake:
Rockpages.gr: I was reading the Classic Rock magazine lately with an interview of yours where you said that the best album you’ve ever made was “Malice In Wonderland” with Paice Ashton Lord. Can you bring back some memories from making this album with those great guys?
Bernie Marsden: Yeah, I think there is a lot of people that is fond of that record, not just in the music circles, because I think there is a lot of nostalgia. It was a big step for me, working with those guys, with Jon and Ian especially. Tony was different, he was crazy funny guy. A very good musician, but he wasn’t a rock musician, he was a jazz musician really. But, working with Jon and Ian really upped my game as they say, you know? I realized how good they were. I knew how good they were and making that record was such a joy working with those people with a horn section and creating that kind of music, which was so original and of course Deep Purple fans didn’t like it Hahaha (laughs). But I think that’s why that record holds a very important place in my heart, really. Because, it is this kind of the baby that didn’t really grow very much. Whitesnake was enormous and everything else Ι did went really well. That’s the one that I thought would be really big, but that never really made it into the first team. I have a long time for it.
Rockpages.gr: Also, you were around with the Deep Purple guys in Whitesnake. And then you had the very famous “Deep Purple” t-shirt. Who came up with that idea?
Bernie Marsden: Oh, that was me, I would say it was nothing serious. Some people, magazines some guys from the Deep Purple fan club -I think- they kind of thought that we were all really angry. I had nothing to do with that. Anywhere we would go in the early days -we were saying we were going to Greece and there would be two guys from Deep Purple, or three Guys from Deep Purple and three were three other guys, every time journalists, or people would say, “excuse me, are you from Deep Purple?” So, I though I had to stop this, I’d better get some T-shirts made. So that’s what I did. In fact, Jon Lord used to wear one all the time. It was a bit of fun.
Rockpages.gr: I am not sure if David liked that though…
Bernie Marsden: Oh, yeah, he was okay… I think that he was not one of those guys that he will instigate something and then when it went against him he would say “oh, no. I never did that”. He was the victim of all our jokes sometimes, but he pretended not to be.
Read more in Rockpages.gr.
We’ll leave you with a Merry Xmas message from the victim of all the jokes:
Thanks to Yiannis Dolas for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I remember being disappointed in the Malice In Wonderland release, but getting older and embracing more than just ‘hard rock’ this LP is actually quite good with some nice classic tunes!
December 25th, 2021 at 12:31I was disappointed that PAL only did one album.
December 25th, 2021 at 17:13David’s singing is so awful my dog was so scared when I was listening to this clip.
December 26th, 2021 at 09:49Merry Xmas David and WS
(Don’t take it personally David😂)
Pease