Joe Lynn Turner is a rock and roll veteran who is going strong after over 25 years in the business. His collaboration with Glenn Hughes, HTP was recently released in the USA. He also has a solo album that’s just been released in Europe, and a live HTP album is on the way in the USA.
Turner’s first major band was Fandango. They released 4 albums between 1977 and 1980. After they broke up, Turner got a call out of the blue from Ritchie Blackmore asking him to audition for Rainbow. After Turner joined the band, they had their greatest commercial success with the hit singles Stone Cold and Street Of Dreams. After 3 albums with Turner as the lead singer, Rainbow disbanded because Ritchie Blackmore reformed the legendary group Deep Purple.
After Rainbow, Turner released a solo album in 1985. He also appeared as a backup singer on many pop albums during that era, including Michael Bolton, Cher, Billy Joel, Bonnie Tyler, Mick Jones, Taylor Dayne, and John Waite.
In 1988 Turner joined guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force and recorded the album Odyssey. A couple of years later, he joined former bandmate Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple. After one album with Turner the group rehired Ian Gillan as the lead singer.
Since then, Turner has appeared on numerous tribute CDs, has worked with Brazen Abbot, Mother’s Army, is a member of the Voices of Classic Rock, and has released several solo albums.
He’s a busy man, and a great interview.
Chad Bowar: How did the Hughes Turner Project album come about?
Joe Lynn Turner: Glenn and I have known each other for over 20 years, and actually wrote some songs when we were in England together and in L.A. together, but we never did anything seriously. I put out a solo album called Holy Man about three years back. I was in Japan doing a promotional tour and I needed an English speaking bass player to sing backup because the other three guys I was working with were Japanese musicians. I tried originally to get Greg Smith, who plays on JLT albums, but he was out with Alice Cooper at the time. We called him "Little Glenn Hughes" because of the similarity, so I said why don’t we get "Big Glenn Hughes"? I called him that night, and he said, "for you I'll do it".
So we get over to Japan and we start the Holy Man tour. I gave Glenn a segment of five or six songs of his own, and the place was just going crazy. Than we did a couple songs together and it was unbelievable how the chemistry took to each other. We were thrilled of course, and the Japanese said would you like to do an album? That was when the album was actually born, and before we left for the States, we had most of the details worked out.
Chad Bowar: What was the studio dynamic like with two great vocalists singing together?
Joe Lynn Turner: There were two mics set up at first, and we decided to just get on one mic and we were literally cheek to cheek in some places. We were very spontaneous a lot of the time. We knew how the songs went, but when you write songs its different than performing songs, so they take on a new life. We stood next to each other singing these songs, and each time we grew progressively tighter and the chemistry was obvious and instant. As far as pushing ourselves, I would have to say yes, because say Glenn would start a verse and the energy would be way up. I would have to keep that energy.
It was a great experience, because he was always one of my heroes. Actually doing something with him was an inspiration to me.
Chad Bowar: You guys have already recorded a second album, right?
Joe Lynn Turner: Yes. I just came back about 10 days ago and we finished HTP 2. Once again this thing is a horse of a different color. After we tip our hats to the Deep Purple type of classic rock, we took another direction. It's almost like The Beatles meet Led Zeppelin. There's a lot of double leads like Lennon and McCartney did. There's a lot of big choruses, we put a few harmonies on there, it's pretty lush. The orchestrations are incredible. I left L.A. with my mouth wide open going, "Wow, this is a great album." I thought the first one was great, but the second one seems to have something else to it.
Chad Bowar: What's the release date for that one?
Joe Lynn Turner: September 4th. We have to wait through the Summer, because we both have solo albums released.
Chad Bowar: What are your tour plans?
Joe Lynn Turner: I have some scattered dates the summer with the Voices Of Classic Rock, which is still going on. It's a great project. Glenn and I are planning on going to Japan probably in the early Fall. We will do Japan for a couple weeks and then we are trying to get into Europe for eight weeks like we did last year.