Whitesnake: Here we go again

David Coverdale has had a hard time being unsuccessful in the music business.

If his name doesn’t sound familiar, perhaps some of the bands he’s fronted are gathering dust somewhere in your stack of vinyl: Whitesnake, Deep Purple and Coverdale/Page (with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page), which combined have sold more than 40 million records.

Whitesnake is easily his most high-profile gig. The internationally successful band is best known for hits “Here I Go Again” and “Is This Love,” from the band’s self-titled album in 1987. The hits have found a permanent place on ‘80s compilations and, for many, epitomize the decade saturated with heavy metal and hair bands, though Coverdale has never been particularly fond of either classification.

“I can’t stand being called heavy metal, and I have great difficulty with ‘hair band’ references,” the Englishman said in a press release. “We’re a hard rock, rhythm and blues band. The only comparison we have with metal is that we’re loud. Very loud.”

Though he admits the band was all too happy to adopt the glitter of the late-‘80s, it didn’t do much for its image.

“We looked like an over decorated Christmas tree,” he said. “Somehow in all the fuss we lost sight of our original blues-based roots.”

After seemingly giving up the business in the late ‘90s, Coverdale reformed Whitesnake in 2003 and has been revisiting a songbook that dates back to 1973 and his days with Deep Purple. The band now includes guitarist Doug Aldrich, drummer Tommy Aldridge, guitarist Reb Beach, bassist Uriah Duffy and keyboardist Timothy Drury.

“I have a career that spans over three decades now, so we’ll be doing some early Deep Purple stuff and some early Whitesnake material which has never crossed the Atlantic, as well as more familiar hits,” Coverdale said of the tour.

The “VH1 Classic Presents: Whitesnake The Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues” tour comes to the Big Easy Concert House for a 7:30 p.m. show Monday. Tickets to the all-ages show are $35 through TicketsWest, (800) 325-SEAT or www.ticketswest.com.

“I’m back with a mission,” Coverdale said. “It’s an appropriate time to reintroduce good, uplifting, positive rock ‘n’ roll.”