JOE LYNN TURNER

The Voices' own Joe Lynn Turner (Rainbow/Deep Purple) will release his 5th solo album, "SLAM" September 5th!

Joe Lynn Turner has released 4 solo albums of mostly original material since the mid-80s: "Rescue You," "Nothing's Changed," "Hurry Up and Wait," and "Holy Man." The titles alone don't tell you much about the sound of the music or genre of rock and roll on each release. However, this time around, Turner has chosen a name for his new album that is the most "in your face" and revealing to date. It will be called, "Slam," and that word pretty much gives fans a feel for what to expect when they pop the disc into their CD players.

Turner explains, "I did take a separate direction on this record to make it more focused, more hard rock throughout. My guitarist on the album, Akira Kajiyama (from Japan) sent me a bunch of tracks that were heavy and I really liked what I heard. I also made a conscience decision to use the same musicians rather then different ones on each track." Turner's band consists of Kenny Kramme on drums, Eric Czar on bass, Paul Morris from the last incarnation of Rainbow on keyboards and of course, Akira, on guitar.

Joe is looking forward to the album's release September 5th on the Japanese Pony Canyon label. He says, "We are going to see how people react to it. They've been screaming for me to do the heavy stuff and yet there is such a big side of the fan base that is all about the ballads, songs like 'Stone Cold' and 'Street of Dreams.' It will be interesting to see the reaction."

JLT describes "Slam," as "Real hard melodic rock for the most part," but also reveals that, "We have a couple of blues styled tracks on it. One called 'Hard Time' and another one called 'Cover Up' a song about conspiracies. I am using the song format to launch my ideas and even throwing in book titles, 'The Biggest Secret,' for example. I am trying to subliminally give people the idea that they might want to check some of these books and ideas out."

Turner enthuses, "We also have a lot of real 'tear your butt off' type songs'[on the album] like 'Dark Days' and 'Bloodsucker.' 'Slam' is the title track and is about an asteroid hitting the Earth. One of the darker songs is called 'Evil' which is a true story of a witch in Germany who I had an affair with. She gave me this magic ring and my finger almost was cut off by the ring. I was so enamored by this woman and Ritchie[Blackmore] warned me about her because he had known her before. Her hair was blood red black just as the lyrics describe."

Even though the album is predominantly hard rock, not all the lyrics are "dark." Joe says, "There's even a track on the album called 'Show Yourself' that's a big kind of Van Halen meets En Vogue. Its got a big guitar riff and a funky vocal. The subject matter revolves around the concept that it's best for everybody to be themselves, come out of their shell. There's a hopeful song on it called 'Always Tomorrow' which is about believing in yourself and don't let anybody tell you differently no matter what they put you through."

Turner admits that there are a couple of "radio-friendly" songs on "Slam," and he is quite proud of them. He says, "My Asahi beer commercial in Japan (which has my name on the screen) was the Number One selling Import in Japan soon after it was released. That track is called, 'Challenge Them All,' will be on the album. It has a great hook, obviously. We also did do a ballad eventually because the record company and management forced us to but I am very glad they did because it probably is the 'hit' of the album. It's real commercial, called 'Heart of the Night.' It's a real tug on your heart strings type of song. It's got the moodiness of 'Stone Cold' with the majestic-ness of a Journey-type hook. It will probably get a lot of radio airplay in Japan."

Turner said that fans can look forward to eventually hearing a song from the "Slam" sessions that he has decided to save for a later release. He explained, "We cut 14 tracks but we are only going to use 13. So, we have this one track called, 'Hit The Wall' which I initially wrote for Dale Earnhardt. It started out with him being the inspiration and then I made it into a song that reflects on almost any man who chooses to live in the fast lane. But we will probably use that later on an EP or something."

JLT has a busy month of August planned with Voices of Classic Rock dates and events in South America, Florida (USA) and Canada. Then, in September he will focus on promoting "Slam" and recording an album with the Voices' Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple). Turner summarizes by saying, "Overall, I am real happy with the way the album turned out but my talking about it is really too subjective. I'd rather have the people hear it and draw their own conclusions about it."