It began life as a planned reunion with fellow Deep Purple ex Ritchie Blackmore, but became a Whitesnake title after the pair failed to reach artistic agreement.

Coverdale tells Rolling Stone: "I was trying to retire. I reached out to Blackmore after 30 years of hostility to bury the hatchet. We started communicating into 2013, when he asked me to speak to his manager about either a Blackmore-Coverdale or some kind of Purple thing.