Before Joe Lynn Turner recorded ‘Slaves And Masters’ with Deep Purple, he had received offers from other legendary rock bands. Turner, the sought-after face of the rock scene in the ’80s, revealed in his last interview with Metal Godz Radio why he preferred Deep Purple over Foreigner and Bad Company.
“Yeah, I was really familiar with Ritchie [Blackmore] and Roger [Glover],” the rocker said when asked why he chose Deep Purple. “And Deep Purple was, like, one of my favorite bands and still is, of all time. I just used to put those, like, ‘Machine Head,’ I got the original vinyl of that. That kind of stuff. I got all their albums.”
He continued, “But I felt more comfortable personally with them. But it was tough because the bluesy side of me really wanted to go with Bad Company. But then that was an iffy situation because you don’t know, I mean, with Foreigner, for example, Bud Prager, rest his soul, the Silver Foxes, they called them. He was an arrogant manager, and I was sick of arrogant managers.”
Although he has worked with many other legendary names, his heart has always been with Deep Purple. “But out of that relationship with Mick Jones, I did his solo album, and I also was on the ‘Storm Front’ with Billy Joel, and I did a couple of videos with Billy Joel, was on a David Letterman Show, blah, blah, blah. So that expanded.”
He added, “Now, a couple of my guys, like Dave Rosenthal and Chuck Burgi, have been with Billy Joel for 20 years. So they’re still playing the Garden and what have you. So a lot of things came out of it, but it was easier for me to relate to Ritchie and Roger.”
Turner received all these offers from Bad Company, Foreigner, and Deep Purple within the same month. Can you imagine? He had to make a choice, but he could not suddenly reject the others. Because we’re talking about Bad Company and Foreigner, it’s really normal for him to want to try his luck, at least.
Even though he had been leaning towards his favorite band from the beginning, he also participated in an audition with Foreigner, but they could not come to an agreement. Still, this audition gave birth to different musical collaborations. This is the story of how Turner was featured on Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones’ solo album and Billy Joel’s album, which Jones produced.
However, the winner among these three was clear to him from the start because Deep Purple was his childhood favorite. Turner had also said earlier that he felt like he was over the moon when he got the offer. He never regretted this choice, so there is clearly no ‘what ifs’ in his mind.
