This might have the Whitesnake faithful crying in the rain. Frontman David Coverdale, who co-founded the multiplatinum hard rock band in the late 1970s, co-wrote most of its songs and also sang with Deep Purple and Jimmy Page, announced his retirement today. Watch him reveal the news in a video below.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, brothers and sisters of the Snake, a special announcement for you,” Coverdale said. “After 50 years-plus of an incredible journey with you — with Deep Purple, with Whitesnake, Jimmy Page — the last few years it has been very evident to me that it’s time really for me to hang up my rock ‘n’ roll platform shoes and my skintight jeans.”

The English singer added: “And as you can see, we’ve taken care of the lion’s wig, but it’s time for me to call it a day. I love you dearly. I thank everyone who’s assisted and supported me on this incredible journey: all the musicians, the crew, the fans, the family. It’s amazing. But it really is time for me to just enjoy my retirement, and I hope you can appreciate that.

Now 74, Coverdale founded Whitesnake in 1978 after a stint fronting Deep Purple following Ian Gillan’s exit. His recorded three albums with that band — 1974’s Burn and Stormbringer, both of which went gold in the U.S., and 1975’s Come Taste the Band — singing on such popular tracks as “Burn,” “Mistreated” and “Soldier of Fortune.” He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the group in 2016.

Coverdale then formed released a pair of solo albums before forming Whitesnake in 1978. Its first two LPs charted in the Top 50 in his native UK, but the band would break out with its third disc, Ready an’ Willing. That 1980 album hit the UK Top 10 and made its first U.S. chart appearance, peaking at No. 90 fueled by the single “Fool for Your Loving.” Fans would hear much more of that song late in the decade.

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Whitesnake’s next two albums, Come an’ Get It (1981) and Saints & Sinners (1982), also reached the UK Top 10 but didn’t click stateside. That changed with the group’s 1984 LP Slide It In, which made the U.S. Top 40 thanks to the single-entendre FM hit “Slow an’ Easy,” “Love Ain’t No Stranger” and its libidinous title track. It was the first Whitesnake album to feature ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist John Sykes, who would co-write many of his new band’s songs with Coverdale.

But the group’s next disc shot Coverdale and company to superstardom.

Released worldwide in March 1987, the eponymous Whitesnake was an international smash, spending eight weeks at No. 2 — thwarted from the top spot by U2’s The Joshua Tree — and going Top 10 in a half-dozen countries. The album featured the band’s first big hit single: “Here I Go Again,” a new version of a track from the band’s Saints & Sinners disc, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It ranked No. 17 on VH1’s list of the Top 100 Songs of the 1980s and was fueled by its steamy, MTV-smash video that featured Coverdale’s soon-to-be-wife, model Tawny Kitaen. Watch it here:

Whitesnake also featured such popular tracks as the ballad “Is This Love,” which hit No. 2 in the U.S.; the hard-rocking, Zeppelin-esque “Still of the Night,” “Crying in the Rain,” another reworked Saints & Sinners song; and Give Me All Your Love. The album ultimately sold more that 10 million units stateside and drove sales of its catalog, making Whitesnake of one the poster bands of the “hair metal” genre, though it often was bluesier and/or more hard rocking than most others.

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The group then released Slip of the Tongue (1989), which went Top 10 in the U.S. and the UK and featured a reworked version of “Fool for Your Loving” that was a huge FM hit, spend four weeks at No. 2 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart.

But Coverdale would dissolve Whitesnake the following year, and in 1993 he teamed with Led Zeppelin’s guitarist to form the one-off Coverdale Page. Their self-titled album made the Top 5 in the U.S. and UK, going platinum stateside, but the pair split late that year.

Whitesnake had a run of eight consecutive Top 10 albums in the UK from 1980-94, including one live and one compilation set. Its 2008 disc Good to Be Bad also went Top 10 in Coverdale’s homeland.

Coverdale revived Whitesnake in 1997, and the group would release five more studio albums through 2019. None would reach the commercial heights of the band’s ’80s output, though. Coverdale would continue to tour the world with the group up until this past summer.

Whitesnake’s music can be heard in dozens of films and TV shows ranging from I Know What You Did Last Summer, Old School and The O.C. to How I Met Your Mother, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Cobra Kai.

Here is the Coverdale’s video announcing his retirement: