In a recent chat with Radioactive MikeZ, Doug Aldrich said Ronnie James Dio was angry at him for working with David Coverdale.
The guitarist was asked if he was in Dio when they toured with Iron Maiden in the U.S. over two decades ago. His reply was as follows:
“No. Actually, that tour was in 2003. And so what happened is, originally Whitesnake asked me to play [with them], and I asked Ronnie [James Dio if he was okay with it], and he said, ‘Yeah.’ And it was gonna be a two-month tour. And we just had a blast. I mean, the Whitesnake band was on fire, just like the Dio band. And [David] Coverdale [Whitesnake leader] said, ‘Do you wanna carry on? I’ve got dates. I’m gonna finish out the year.’”
Ronnie Also Wanted Him In The Tour
He shared his response to Coverdale’s offer:
“I’m, like, ‘Hell yeah. Let’s do it.’ And in the breaks, I was going up to Ronnie’s. We were writing — starting to write for what turned out to be ‘Master of the Moon’, which I actually in the end didn’t contribute anything to. But we started writing. And one day he goes, ‘Oh, we’ve got this tour with Iron Maiden coming up in the summertime.’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, Ronnie. Are you serious? Are you sure?’ He’s, like, ‘Yeah.’ I go. ”Cause I just committed to David Coverdale about the summer run.’”
Aldrich talked about how Dio reacted to his words:
“And he was pissed, man. He was, like, ‘What the f*ck?’ I was really upset. He kind of booted me out of the house. It was, like, ‘The writing session’s over. Get the f*ck out,’ kind of thing. He was pissed. And I felt horrible. But I had a great opportunity to work with Coverdale, and in the end it paid off with a lot of new music for Whitesnake. And I went back to Ronnie a couple of times. In 2005, he asked me to come back and fill in on a tour in Europe.”
Doug Convinced Coverdale To Write Together
The rocker detailed what happened after he later rejoined Dio for tours in Europe:
“And then I ended up doing another tour in Europe with him in 2005, which ended up being the ‘Holy Diver Live’ DVD. And that’s when Coverdale was, like, ‘Hey, I hear you’re back with Ronnie. And some people are saying it’s full time.’ And I just said, ‘Look, if you wanna keep Whitesnake going, we’ve gotta do some new music.’ And he agreed. And that’s when we started writing together. But it’s all kind of intertwined. But the bottom line is that I missed that tour, and I heard it was a great tour.”
Between 2002 and 2014, Aldrich wrote most of Whitesnake’s songs with Coverdale. Initially, Coverdale didn’t give Aldrich much creative freedom, preferring to play hits. However, after Aldrich suggested creating new music, Coverdale eventually agreed. They began writing together in 2006 and released the album ‘Good to Be Bad’ in 2007.
You can watch the rest of Doug’s interview below.