Listen to New Whitesnake Song, ‘Trouble Is Your Middle Name’
Whitesnake have released another taste of their upcoming album, Flesh and Blood.
You can hear the high-octane track "Trouble Is Your Middle Name" below. The song’s debut follows the release of “Shut Up and Kiss Me,” the album’s first single that was unveiled in February.
Flesh and Blood marks the band’s first studio release since 2015’s The Purple Album, a re-imagining of classic Deep Purple tracks from Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale’s time in that band. You have to go back to 2011’s Forevermore to find a Whitesnake LP made up of original material.
Coverdale admitted it’s been a long and bumpy road getting Flesh and Blood ready for fans. During an interview with Atlanta-based radio station Rock 100.5, the singer revealed how knee surgery slowed him down.
“I'd been suffering, in my knees, for about 10 years, with degenerative arthritis,” he confessed. "And, basically, for 10 years, we'd been covering it up with shots, injections and stuff for tours.”
Coverdale later elaborated on the severity of the issue. "There was no question," he said. "Had I not gone in to have knee replacement surgery for both knees, I would have certainly been in a wheelchair, and I could not see myself within that picture.”
During his recovery, the Whitesnake frontman wrote many of the songs that make up Flesh and Blood. Even after the surgery was behind him, health concerns continued cropping up. “Coming to 2018, my immune system was so depleted I was like a poster boy to get that H3 flu virus which was just awful," he explained. "Took six weeks, two months to get rid of.”
If that weren’t enough, technical problems nearly forced the group to start again from scratch. “The album was on hold, then we came back to finish mixing, we were 85 percent done, and my entire studio system crashed," he noted. "We didn't know whether we just lost the album.”
Despite constant issues, Coverdale believes the album was destined for a 2019 release. "It's like all of these things the universe was manipulating to make sure the album came out this year," he said.
Flesh and Blood will be released on May 10. The band kicks off its world tour on April 12.