Joe Lynn Turner International Rescue Howard Johnson celebrates the solo return of ex-RAINBOW singer and 'wimphem warrior' JOE LYNN TURNER "RITCHIE BLACKMORE! Yes, he did! No, he didn't! It's all true! OK, so let's go eat, huh?" Joe Lynn Turner obviously acknowledges the influence of a certain Maninblack in his overall life scheme of things. We both laugh, the tape recorder continues whirring its merry way onwards but the importance of the allusion is lost neither on myself nor Joe Lynn. Yup, he was the frontman with Ritchie Blackmore's last incarnation of Rainbow ("The poofter actually, that's what the British fans called me!") and a great part of his life it was too! But it's not the beginning and the end, the be all and end all! Joe is sitting close enough to smell the Budweiser on my breath in the New York home of Elektra Records. No, life doesn't terminate at the end of the Rainbow, and if there ain't no pot of gold lying in wait at the arrival point, then at least in this case there is a pristine contract with Elektra, a solo album 'Rescue You' and the chance to get back on the rock 'n' roll conveyor belt! It's a belt that came to something of an abrupt halt back in '84 (April 1 to be precise!) when Rainbow were officially announced as having gone into hiatus... "Hiatus? That's just a polite way of saying the band broke up!" So where's Mr. Lynn Turner been? A man who stands beside Lou Gramm as perhaps the guy with the voice most suited to the class end of AOR (forever shrinking!). What have you been up to during the interim, while yer old mate's been busy making money — sorry, reforming Deep Purple?! "Panicking! Nah, I've just been trying to get some kind of a solo thing happening." No scuba diving in New Zealand, no pygmy searching in New Guinea? How disappointing! "Nah, I was too busy trying to get out of my attachments to the Deep Purple organisation! See, I was still supposed to be signed to Bruce Payne (DP/Rainbow manager) who was supposed to be handling the affairs of my solo deal. He was blowing sweet smoke up my ass for a long time about getting down to work on my stuff, but the longer things went on the more obvious it became that he was too busy with Purple to really give a s**t about me. I kinda understand that, though, cos Ritchie's his gaffer and he didn't wanna screw that up!" Not a wise move, I'd imagine. Still, it seems as if you must have been on pretty good terms with the Maninblack cos you continued to be part of the organisation even after Rainbow had disintegrated... "OH YEAH! In a way I feel almost responsible for having put Purple back together, because it was my yearnings to do solo stuff that made Ritchie think really seriously about the Purple thing. "Originally, I wanted to do a solo bit within the framework of Rainbow because of the usual crap; I had a lot of stuff that wasn't right for blah, blah, blah... Ritchie was cool about it but even then Bruce Payne wasn't pulling his finger out. It wouldn't have been any good putting the record out through Polygram (Rainbow's label) cos they would have treated it like burnt toast, so every spare moment I had I was chasing up record companies to see if there was any interest! "Now I think Ritchie really didn't like the idea of that cos I was getting too involved in my own thing, so the seeds of splitting the band up and putting Purple back together were sown. Anyway, Paicey, Lord and Gillan were always calling him up, so draw your own conclusions..." According to Joe, though, his plans weren't as grandiose as the Maninblack seemed to think. Who said paranoia? It was you, you swine, go on, admit it! "No, it wasn't! There were gonna be a lot of ballads, things I wanted to get out of my system, but nothing like Rainbow. Anyhow, Ritchie always said I was only a ballad singer, that I couldn't sing rock, but then again he always liked to wind me up. We were talking about this on the plane on the way back to New York from Japan after our last tour and we kinda came to a mutual agreement that it would be best for me to go do my own thing and for him to put Purple back together. They weren't getting any younger, y'know! It was all very amicable really!" What? Despite the financial considerations of the move? "Despite that. I was getting into the idea of the solo thing and Ritchie knew he couldn't get another singer for Rainbow. I was supposed to get help from the organisation but that never materialised so I was living off royalties for a year just writing and waiting!" And you didn't think of throwing in your lot with another band? After all, it woulda been a whole lot simpler... "Well, I wasn't short of offers! Geffen were interested in some demos I did with Bob Kulick and wanted to put a band together with myself and Craig Chaquico from Starship, but it was like vascillation city, there was no real commitment! I got a call from Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo regarding their band (Driver), I heard from Survivor and Toto too but I was determined to do my own thing." To be master of your own destiny, eh? You musta learnt a thing or two about that from the Maninblack... "TOTALLY. It's not easy being the boss, it's scarey, but I learnt a lot from Ritchie about leadership, about keeping people at arm's length. I really admire his single-mindedness, though it can be a terribly lonely life. There's no such thing as a democracy, however, and from now on I want to be something like a semi-benevolent dictator. You need to have a focal point, one viewpoint in a band if you're going to have any sense of direction." And I guess you might need a record contract too! Having finally severed the Rainbow/Purple arteries (razor blade optional!), Joe managed to secure the Elektra deal within a month and had a hot troupe of musical technicians on the go and ready to roll. All so simple really! Having recruited former Foreigner/Spys keyboard genius Al Greenwood, drummer Chuck Bürgi (an old mate from Rainbow days but a brighter star in Bob Kulick's Balance) and guitarist Bobby Messano of Starz/Fiona fame, Joe got the producer he was after for the "big bam boom drum sounds" in Roy Thomas Baker — and the conveyor belt began to creak into life again. Hardly surprising for a man who had a large Yankee hand in the creation of monster Rainbow AORers such as 'Stone Cold' and 'Street Of Dreams', but 'Rescue You' is a really choice concoction of AOR, the kinda stuff that littered the market five or six years ago and which is now pretty much extinct in any palatable form... "I wanted a record that would be both commercial and understandable," says honest Joe. "It's about personal politics, not world politics; I'm just doing what I want to." And impressively too. I have to agree with the Maninblack in that Joe's vocals are far more suited to the softer end of the rock spectrum, and this despite his paltry pleas of having been a Metaller for years playing bars in the Tri-State area in a band called Ezra — even before Fandango! The album's opening triumvirate of 'Losing You', 'Young Hearts' and 'Endlessly' are wimphem warriors of the highest order and the closest comparison I can draw is, hardly surprisingly, Foreigner. With the totally tedious 'Agent (Un)Provocateur' unceremoniously dumped in the back of my cupboard, 'Rescue You' is very much the album Foreigner should have made! "Well tell 'em to move over," laughs JLT. "They're taking a break anyway so this could be a good time for us! Actually, I thought their last record was garbage, which surprised me since '4' was such a great album! I just hope our record does as well as theirs do, cos we're the cream of the crop, a real quality mainstream act!" Well yeah, I hope so too, but I'm getting tired of all this record company talk (it must be sitting in the MD's office that does it!). Let's be silly for a while. What's this poofter business then? "Oh God, I blame you Brits for that! I got a bit carried away with being the front man in Rainbow. You can get away with the preening bit in the States, but it doesn't work over there! I'm not gay, just ask the ladies! Blackmore once said he'd waited 10 years for a soulful singer in the Paul Rodgers mould and there I was doing f**kin' cabaret! He was right, too!" And the wig rumours? Actually, I didn't have the heart to ask him about the wig rumours again! Purple then? "They sound like they were freeze dried in '72 and had water added this year! What the hell though, they've all got fat Swiss bank accounts now!" I suppose I could ask about the Grapevine bar on 44th Street between Broadway and 7th Avenue: "Oh, you mean a certain member of the Kerrang! team and beautiful women with Adam's apples! Well it was back in Rainbow days..." AW, WHAT a shame, the tape just ran out! Well, it didn't, but I think it'd be more than my job's worth to reveal that little anecdote, so you'll have to make do with stories of the Maninblack's personal valet, Ian Broad, driving right into the reception area of Le Chateau recording studios in a brand noo Jag to ask for a room for Mr Blackmore, of former Rainbow keyboardist Tony Carey taking the Maninblack to court on an attempted murder charge following a practical joke involving very heavy wooden beams that went horribly wrong, and of Rose Tattoo talking about neo-physics and the like with Rainbow — what a sight! And if all that's too much for you to handle, then maybe you'd best just settle down with a copy of 'Rescue You' and wait for sanity to return! Anyway, Joe Lynn Turner's scheduled to head over to Europe for a six week tour at the end of the year or at the beginning of next year, so you can ask him about all of these things yourselves, can't you? But do the guy a favour! Don't call him a poofter, OK?! © Kerrang! no 106 - October 31, 1985