Legendary singer Joe Lynn Turner has joined forces with extreme visionary Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy, Pain, Lindemann) on his upcoming Belly Of The Beast album and he talks to us about it this Saturday, September 17th at 3:33 PM EST on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance.

From founding and releasing four albums with Fandango in 1977, to performing and recording with Rainbow, Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, Deep Purple, Glenn Hughes, Mick Jones, Cher, Lita Ford, Billy Joel, Michael Schenker, and Arjen Lucassen's Star One, five decades into his career, Joe Lynn Turner unleashes the heaviest music he has ever recorded on Belly Of The Beast. It may even be scaring the you-know-what out of some of his fans! 

"Yeah, I got that,” Turner agrees in an excerpt from the BraveWords Zoom chat. “It's scares the shit out of them. Some say it's too brutal, too honest, too dark. Can't believe it's me, 'this is not your kind of music', you know, 'it's a one-off" or something. No. This is coming right from the heart and soul of both of us. Peter was kind of the vehicle that I needed in order to express this type of message and emotion, really, to get this across. And we both knew that because we're like-minded in a lot of ways, as far as the way we look at the world and what's happening. So, we're very compatible with that, as well. Plus, we wanted to make something, which I think you'd agree, is a melodic metal record. It still has choruses, it's not throat singing or any of that. It's got some elements of the classic part of what I do, and all the elements of what Peter does, and you put 'em together, mix 'em up in a pot and I think the record came out just killer. Like, the ballads, for example, and they're part of my background, except for the modernization and metal treatment of the instrumentation. So, you put that together, I adapt the voice a little bit to that darkness, plus the subject matter, I mean Dark Night Of The Soul, that's about my heart attack, man. That's about laying on a slab and the doctor is telling you you don't know if you're going to live or die. You don't get more death-oriented than that. That's the truth. And it's about a man coming towards his end, and looking at his life and saying, 'Did I do it for love? Did I do it for gold? Was I a fool? Was I wise. It answers these questions. It all fits."

On Belly Of The Beast, Turner says he gets very personal on this new material, deeply melancholic and brooding moments like ”Tortured Soul", "Dark Night Of The Soul" and "Requiem" are very dark and “Very personal,” Turner adds. “I mean, look, I think an artist has to reflect, has to somehow transmute through his own soul, his own human-ness, and art reflects life. I was reflecting what was happening to me, and I'm not alone in this, I'm not the only person who feels this way or that this has happened to, and I think that that unites people, when you get that person. I know in my life, when I would listen to a person who is bearing his soul, it meant a lot more to me than 'Moon June Spoon I love you'. And that's all good, on the pop side of things, but it doesn't last very long in your ethos. Doesn't shake you. And the stuff that I love goes deep into the soul, goes deep into your personal aspect, dark, light, or however. And you've got some grit in there, and I put a little more attitude in it. I mean, when Peter was asked, 'Hey, how's the Joe Lynn Turner album coming?', he said, 'It's coming out cool'. And they wanted to know, 'How's he doing the singing end of it?', and he said, quite honestly, 'Well, he adapts his voice'. And that's exactly the truth. Adaptation. So you always sing to the colour of the music. If it has a dark tone, you sing with a dark tone. You don't sing a happy song in the death metal voice, you know? Basic instrumentation. It doesn't work, right? Pretty natural."

BraveWords: Obviously heavy keeps you young, because I'm talking to a man that turned 71 last month (August 2nd)!

And for certain that’s the case Turner says! ”You know what? What's wrong with heavy? I was listening to heavy, and to be honest with you, I started to get sucked into AOR because I have a good AOR voice, but I also have this side of me. I also have the Blues side of me. I also have an opera side of me. I mean, this is an instrument that can go a lot of different ways, and it's all truthful, because it's an instrument, it's what you put into it that comes out of it. So what's wrong with heavy, and what's wrong with dark, and what's wrong with any of that? That's part of life, man. Don't tell me you're all happy and peppy and loved, that's not all the truth. Truth is, we're in some dark days here. Which reminds me of an old song I did on the Slam album, solo album, it's called Eye For An Eye. I had all these dark titles. And you know what? People were like, 'Oh, we don't want to hear that!'. I mean, what do they want? Fruit cups and flowers? I mean, you want reality, you want art, you want something to move you and shake you? You gotta dig deep, that's where you gotta go, into your very soul. Otherwise, you're just on the surface, playing around."

Stat tuned for more of our conversation with the legendary singer Joe Lynn Turner this Saturday, September 17th at 3:33 PM EST.

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(Photo courtesy of Agata Nigrovskaya)