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
Ian Gillan with Mickey Lee Soule and then Colin Towns on keyboards, Mark Nauseef on drums and John Gustafson on bass. Their first album, "Child in Time", was released in July 1976, followed by "Clear Air Turbulence" in April 1977 and "Scarabus" in October. The sound of the band had a distinct jazz-rock aspect which, although interesting to Gillan, proved unpopular, particularly since punk rock was in vogue at that time. Gillan then formed a new band, simply called Gillan, retaining Towns (who would co-write most of the material), and adding guitarist Steve Byrd, bassist John McCoy and drummer Pete Barnacle. Byrd