David Coverdale handling guitar duties. This was originally a touring band for Coverdale's first solo album, it soon developed into a full-time band. In early 1978, the band released the "Snakebite EP", which was later repackaged as a full album (titled "Snakebite", released in June 1978), with the B-side taken from Coverdale's "Northwinds" album. For the follow-up album, "Trouble", Coverdale was joined by his former Deep Purple colleague, keyboardist Jon Lord. For Whitesnake's 1980 album, "Ready an' Willing", drummer Ian Paice also joined the group. "Ready an' Willing" also featured the band's biggest hit up to that point, the song "Fool for
Ian Gillan with Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, he recorded his entire vocal contributions in three hours. He was subsequently offered the lead role in the 1973 film adaptation. Gillan demanded to not only be paid £250,000 for his role in the movie, but also insisted, without the consent of his manager, that the entire band be paid because filming would conflict with a scheduled tour. The producers declined, instead casting Ted Neeley in the Jesus role, and Gillan continued on in the band. After 1971, particularly after the release of "Fireball", Gillan started to become disillusioned with the workload of the