In a brand new exclusive interview conducted by Nightwatcher's House Of Rock with JOE LYNN TURNER (RAINBOW, DEEP PURPLE, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, OVER THE RAINBOW) the legendary vocalist discusses his latest project Over The Rainbow, which features on guitar Jürgen Blackmore, son of former Deep Purple/Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, the possibilities of that band recording original material, his days in Rainbow, his latest album 'Live In Germany', working with hard rockin' blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, and much more. A short excerpt from the interview follows below:

Nightwatcher's House Of Rock: First off, I'd like to talk a bit about Over The Rainbow, which besides yourself features ex-Rainbow drummer Bobby Rondinelli, keyboardist Tony Carey, bassist Greg Smith and on guitar Jürgen Blackmore, son of ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. How exactly did this come about, and why do this now?

Joe Lynn Turner: "I'll be honest with you. This is kind of my brainchild. What happened was, there's always promoters all over who would say to me, 'Oh, it would be great if Rainbow got back together.' I'd say, 'Look, Ritchie's happy doing what he's doing. Give the guy a friggin' break.' Needless to say, I never had a problem with Ritchie, we're still on decent terms, we'll send e-mails back and forth every once in awhile. Especially when I was doing my last solo album 'Second Hand Life'. He's the one who very strongly suggested that I do 'Stroke Of Midnight,' 'Cruel' and all these songs. They came out great, so I'm really thankful for that. Those are some of the songs which were left over from the Deep Purple album that never came out. That being said, I know what he's doing, and I know what he wants to do. I respect that totally, but nobody else seems to. None of the fans... everybody's always busting his balls about everything. I just said to these guys, "Leave him alone. He's never going to be doing this again. He's doing what he wants to do, and once this is done, Blackmore's Night, he's just going to kick back and play soccer."

So I'm sitting there after the last Russian tour, and the promoter's going, 'Oh the Rainbow tour! It would be so great!' I said, 'It's never going to be with Ritchie. Who's actually going to play guitar?' So, I'm sitting there with a couple of vodkas, and it hit me. It just came to me like a flash. Who better than another Blackmore? Jürgen is perfect for this. I know he's been playing for about 25, 30 years. So, I checked out some of his older stuff on YouTube, and I said this kid can play. I've known Jürgen since he was 16. We'd be in Germany, and Bobby and I especially were like his big brothers. I don't want to really get into it, but let's just say there were problems between Ritchie and Jürgen's mother.

So, I called Jürgen and said, "Look, I'm going to be in Germany. I'd like to meet with you, especially as I'm going to be in Hamburg." So we went out to dinner, and it was so great to see him and Karen, his manager, whom I've known for a long time. To make a long story short, I just threw it at him. I didn't ask anybody before Jürgen. He was the key player in all of this because if he couldn't do it, then I don't think anybody could really fill in. I wanted this thing to be genuine. I wanted it to be authentic. We're not a fuckin' tribute band, we're Rainbow. Every single guy besides Jürgen was a member of Rainbow in one incarnation or another, and I'd say Jürgen has the bloodline."

To read the entire interview go to this location.