Adrian Vandenberg

Adriaan van den Berg was originally approached to join Whitesnake in the early 1980s, having impressed David Coverdale with not only his guitar skills, but also with his songwriting talent and his ability as a band leader. He initially declined, due to the success of his own band Vandenberg and their Top 40 hit, "Burning Heart." By 1986, however, with pressure from the record company to become more and more commercial and their success hitting a plateau, he relented and finally disbanded Vandenberg, agreeing to join Coverdale in Whitesnake. Initially he was hired as a session musician, helping to complete their eponymous album Whitesnake (known as 1987 in Europe) after a mass-firing of the original band members by Coverdale. He contributed the solo to their No. 1 hit "Here I Go Again," but guitarist John Sykes played all of the other lead and rhythm guitar on the album.

After an extremely successful world tour and extensive airplay for their 3 videos on MTV, van den Berg co-wrote all of the music to the follow-up album Slip of the Tongue. Injury prevented him from recording for the album, so Coverdale enlisted Steve Vai to record both lead and rhythm guitar.[1] Van den Berg was sufficiently healed to play with the band, in a dual-guitar role alongside Vai, for the tour supporting the album. After Whitesnake was disbanded in 1990, he returned as part of other Whitesnake incarnations such as the 1994 Whitesnake's Greatest Hits reunion/tour. He once again co-wrote the songs for the 1997 album Restless Heart with Coverdale. This time, he played all of the guitars on this stripped-down, bluesy album, turning away from his well-known rock/metal neo-classical chops and towards his original main influence, Jimi Hendrix. He also collaborated with Coverdale on the Whitesnake unplugged acoustic album, Starkers in Tokyo.

Vandenberg in 1990

After Whitesnake, he played in the band Manic Eden, which also featured former Little Caesar singer Ron Young, and Adrian's former Whitesnake bandmates bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Tommy Aldridge. The band split up when Adriaan took part in Whitesnake's 1994 Greatest Hits reunion/tour.

He has since returned to painting and is an accomplished airbrush artist, having created the cover art for both the Heading for a Storm and Alibi albums.[2]

When Whitesnake played in van den Berg's home country, the Netherlands, he made a "surprise guest appearance," doing so at the June 2008 Arrow Rock Festival in Nijmegen, where he joined the current line-up for a performance of "Here I Go Again".[3] He also played with them on the Sweden Rock Festival in 2011 along with Bernie Marsden.

As of 2011, Adrian van den Berg has written and recorded a song called "A Number One" for Dutch football team FC Twente from his hometown in Enschede. Controversy would soon ensue, resulting from the fact that he released the single under the moniker "Vandenberg". Other (former) members of his eponymous band in the 1980s did not approve of Adrian using the name "Vandenberg" without his first name, which resulted in a lawsuit. In court, Adrian won, with the final decision declaring that he has all the rights to use the name "Vandenberg."[4]

Vandenberg's MoonKings in 2014

Vandenberg formed Vandenberg's MoonKings in late 2013. The band consists of Vandenberg (guitar), Jan Hoving (vocals), Mart Nijen-Es (drums) and Sem Christoffel (bass). On 21 February 2014 Vandenberg's MoonKings released their debut album MoonKings on Mascot Records.