From Fandango to Purple, from Rainbow to Yngwie – the king of AOR lead vocalists Joe Lynn Turner has done it all. But he never chooses the easy route.

I grabbed the great man for an extensive chat about projects past and present including his time spent with notorious guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow and Deep Purple, his history with current blues master Joe Bonamassa, and “˜crazy’ six-string virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen.

Tuner’s most recent album, Emotional Fire, with his Sunstorm project has been on the receiving end of some extremely positive reviews. This seemed like a good place to start.

Geeks of Doom: First of all, you’ve had so much great feedback for the Emotional Fire album you must be really pleased.

Joe Lynn Turner: Well not only am I pleased, I’m very surprised. I’d like to preface this by saying I didn’t have any chance to put any of my old material on it. Usually [on albums with] Sunstorm I’ve got three to five songs on it of old material that has never been recorded. I was in Turkey at the time for like a month down in Antalya and I had no hard drive with me, I just had this little mini computer so I told Serafino [Perugino, album executive producer] “˜I really can’t get to any of my material.’…He went around in search of material [and] came up with the two Michael Bolton’s and the Cher [songs], which I sang backgrounds on [originally], God only knows how long ago that was.

Russian band Pushking have joined forces with an onslaught of major musicians and vocalists from heavy metal and hard rock to create an impressive line-up on a collaborative album. The release has been titled The World as We Love It, and compiles 19 re-recorded songs from Pushking’s past efforts, with special guests ranging from Paul Stanley (KISS) and Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) to Alice Cooper and Steve Vai!

If you think those four guests listed above is enough, think again. Check out the track listing and the guests on each song by continuing on below.