Bernie Marsden recalls the first time he heard Whitesnake's 'Here I Go Again' remake

Bernie Marsden says the first time he heard Whitesnake’s 1987 remake of ‘Here I Go Again’ was when he watched the iconic video on MTV in a bar.

On Saturday afternoon (13th November), Bernie Marsden came to Planet Rockstock at Trecco Bay to record a special episode of My Planet Rocks with Ian Danter from The Trooper Lounge.

One of Bernie’s song choices was Whitesnake’s ‘Here I Go Again’, which he co-penned with David Coverdale for the band’s 1982 album ‘Saints & Sinners.’

Ian Danter asked Bernie about a recent David Coverdale story on Planet Rock where David said he was against re-recording the song until his record label Geffen eventually persuaded him.

“I think it was (Geffen executive) John Kolodner (who persuaded Whitesnake) and they recorded it,” Bernie told Dants.

“I didn't know much about it until somebody called me up and said, ‘have you seen the video?!’ This is early days of MTV - remember that long time ago now isn’t it?

“And the phone started ringing and people say ‘have you seen this video?!’ ‘No, I didn't’. Nobody actually said, ‘have you heard the song?’

“I was doing a gig in a bar like this with TVs on the wall... (I watched it) and now I understood what they meant with the late Tawny Kitaen cavorting across the Jaguars. So, the song was done without me knowing really.”

Bernie continued: “I did get a call from the David Geffen company to say the record is going to be Number 1 next week and I was like, ‘what?!’

“It was going up and up and up (the charts) and then it didn't go up, it went down. So, I got a message to John Kolodner somehow and I got a message back saying ‘wait.’ That was all. And next week it went to Number 1.

“That's every songwriters dream. If you're in a band and you write songs, you think every one is the next one and then suddenly you get that one and you realise that the top of that Billboard Chart’s gonna have your name right next to it.

“You don't think that 30 years / 40 years down the line I’m going to be talking to you guys about it at Trecco Bay. But that's what happens with that kind of song.

"There's a good (Whitesnake) catalogue out there but the one song that everybody knows is ‘Here I Go Again’ and as such I kinda like talking about it.”

Listen to Bernie Marsden on My Planet Rocks live special:

Bernie later reflected upon performing ‘Here I Go Again’ live for the first time with Whitesnake in Sweden in 2011.

“I never played it live (with Whitesnake) until (David) invited me to the Sweden Rock Festival a few years ago. And of course, the usual thing – (I said) ‘so any rehearsals?’ (puts on David’s voice) ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

He added: “Just before we went out on stage in front of about 40,000 people I said to David ‘you do realise this is the first time you and I have ever played this song together?!’ And he went ‘What?!’ I completely unnerved his performance before I went out on stage.

“And he said ‘you're always bloody doing that, you used to do all the time and now you've just done it straightaway again!’ And that was first time we played it, so that was rather poignant, but we've done it a few times since.”

Heaping praise on David Coverdale, Bernie continued: “He's fantastic. What a frontman he is! I used to watch him on stage and never take that much notice because when you're on stage you don't. But watching him from the audience when I've been (to Whitesnake shows) subsequently and you realise how present he is on the stage.

“I'm glad (‘Here I Go Again’) has kept going and there's a Whitesnake out there and I don't have any problem that.”

Bernie Marsden releases his new solo covers album ‘Chess’ on Friday 26th November 2021 on Conquest Music/Little House Music.

The follow-up to July 2021’s ‘Kings’, which saw Bernie cover songs by Albert King, B.B. King and Freddie King, ‘Chess’ is Bernie’s musical homage to the influential Chicago based imprint Chess Records.

It features tracks by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf , Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and Elmore James, plus two original Bernie Marsden originals.

Saturday at Planet Rockstock 2021 with Bernie Marsden, The Darkness, Stone Broken and more:

Listen to Planet Rock on DAB nationwide, on our free app, online, via your smart speaker (“Play Planet Rock”) and on Freesat.

• bernie marsden
• whitesnake
• david coverdale