David Coverdale recording "Slide It In" to re-form Deep Purple. (Ian Paice had left Whitesnake in 1982.) In 1985, Sykes and Coverdale started working on new songs for the next album, but Coverdale soon contracted a serious sinus infection that made recording close to impossible for much of 1986 and which had doctors thinking he might never sing again. Coverdale eventually recovered, and recordings were continued. But before their upcoming album was fully recorded and released, Coverdale had dismissed Sykes from the band. The split with Sykes was, reportedly, not amicable. In many period interviews, Coverdale stated that the next album was
Born Again (Black Sabbath album) in the UK charts. The album also hit the top 40 in the United States. Following the departure of vocalist Ronnie James Dio and drummer Vinny Appice in 1982, Sabbath's future was in doubt. The band switched management to Don Arden (Sharon Osbourne's father) and he suggested Ian Gillan as the new vocalist. "That band was put together on paper," guitarist Tony Iommi revealed in the 1992 documentary "Black Sabbath: 1978–1992". "We'd never rehearsed." The band had considered vocalists such as Robert Plant and David Coverdale before settling on Gillan. They even received an audition tape from the then-unknown Michael