WHITESNAKE's DAVID COVERDALE On Post-Pandemic Life: 'We've Gotta Be Prepared For An Entirely New Game'

Back in late March, it was announced that all of WHITESNAKE's previously announced touring activities, including this summer's U.S. trek with SAMMY HAGAR & THE CIRCLE and NIGHT RANGER, were being canceled so that frontman David Coverdale could undergo surgery for bilateral inguinal hernia. In a new interview with Steve King, Coverdale offered an update on his condition, saying (hear audio below): "When I got back from [touring] Asia [in March]… I started off in Australia, and the first show was in Melbourne. The second song is 'Slide It In', and there's a big vocal, physical projection. I had this awful sensation of popping, and it was, like, 'Oh my God! What the hell is that?' And it was very painful. And I knew it was something physical. So I had to be very careful. And then it was a very, very sparse schedule [for the rest of the tour], so I had plenty of chance to recover. The moment I got back [to my home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, outside Reno], I saw my doctor. He had discovered a cyst on the vocal cord, which has vanished over time. But he said, 'You should have these' — they're called bilateral inguinal hernias — he said, 'These are dangerous. We've gotta get you in.' But literally within 12 hours of him calling the surgeon general of Reno, the government closed down anything that wasn't life-threatening at the hospital. So I'm still unable to work out properly, and I can't strain myself, which actually works if you're my age. [Laughs]"

Coverdale also spoke about what a post-pandemic world will look like for the touring industry. "I can't see anything happening this year; I really can't," he said in regard to the possibility of playing shows. "Because number one, not only do we have to get rid of this completely and utterly, but all the venues are gonna have to be sprayed down and disinfected, and people are gonna have to be temperature checked… I was reading articles about how it's gonna be in hotels. And this is past 9/11. 9/11 changed our lives, and all the inconvenience other than the tragedy — but all the inconvenience it caused to those of us who are regular travelers… We've gotta be prepared for an entirely new game."

Coverdale had both his knees replaced with titanium in 2017 after suffering from degenerative arthritis. He later explained that he was in so much pain with arthritis in his knees that it hampered his ability to perform live.

WHITESNAKE has been touring in support of its latest album, "Flesh & Blood", which was released in May 2019 via Frontiers Music Srl.