Let The Good Times Rock: A Conversation with Warrant Guitarist Erik Turner
By Darren Tromblay
In an industry of half-truths, lies and overinflated egos to boot, Warrant guitarist Erik Turner is a breath of fresh air.
As his band prepared to head out with fellow 80’s rockers Bulletboys on the “Let The Good Times Rock Tour” recently, a tour that will include a stop at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines this Friday night, the 61-year-old sat down with ListenIowa to give an honest assessment as to what it’s like to be a member of a rock band who has had the privilege of being able to play music for a living for nearly 40 years now.
There’s hard work, he said. Talent. Some luck, too.
And, of course, cherry pie. 
Yes, THAT cherry pie.
While it’s true the band paid copious amounts of dues in their quest of “making it” in the music industry via touring and touring and then touring some more, it wasn’t until the song featuring a smallish red fruit came into their repertoire that they really become household names. As in worldwide. Still are, as a matter of a fact. That’s not to say that the three million copies sold of their 1989 debut album, “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich,” wasn’t significant. It was. Chart toppers “Down Boys,” “Sometimes She Cries,” and “Heaven” were proof.
But having an eye-popping video on ultra-high rotation of MTV featuring a young, blonde vixen getting a piece of cherry pie dropped in her lap? Well, that’s next level stuff.
And it was.
The song, of course, was “Cherry Pie,” from the 1990 follow-up album of the same name. Thirty-five years, literally no one with a set of ears hasn’t heard that song somewhere.
The band and its writer, the now deceased ex-vocalist Jani Lane, caught some flack at times for the tune’s simplistic style and double-entendre lyrics. Even Lane himself grew to rue the tune in later years.
As for Turner, his take is a little different. He knows one of the rules in entertainment is to never bite the hand that feeds you. And he hasn’t. Never will.
“You know, God bless it,” he said of the song. “I wish we had 10 of them.”
You guys just got back from the Monsters of Rock Cruise. How did that go?
Some people love ‘em, some people hate ‘em. I love ‘em. My wife and I were “cruisers” before we started doing the whole rock n’ roll cruise thing. It’s a lot of fun for us.
So what’s life like these days for Warrant as far as touring?
We call ourselves “weekend warriors,” or “rock soldiers.” We don’t tour on busses anymore. I’ll leave Thursday, play a show Friday, travel to another show Saturday, come home Sunday, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Fifty-plus shows a year. A lot of flying. Last year, I think I traveled about 150,000 miles in the air. We joke that we play the shows for free but get paid to travel.
So which is more of grind, then, the ins-and-outs of airports, or touring for 200 dates a year like back in the day?
For me, I couldn’t do a bus. I’m not 25 anymore, so I couldn’t imagine doing a bus tour like that now. I would jump out the window. (Laughs) Is it tiring? Yes. Are there some early lobby calls? Yes. But I’m home a lot, and I like being there.
You’re on the “Let the Good Times Rock” tour, which marks the 35th anniversary of your biggest album, “Cherry Pie.” I know Jani (Lane, ex-vocalist) was quoted as saying he wrote the song in 10 minutes and it was both a blessing and a curse. How do you perceive it?
Well, prior to that album, we did “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich,” which sold three million albums and we had a bunch of hits and did 262 shows in support of. But the song everybody knows us for is “Cherry Pie,” of course, which took on a life of its own.
I have to ask, with political correctness the way it is, do you guys catch any flack out there for that song, or any of the others, which, back then, were perfectly fine. But as you know, people are bit more … uptight, we’ll say, nowadays.
The honest answer is no. We’ve always said that you should come out to our shows to get away from politics or preaching. Warrant is a party band. We’ve always been about playing songs and having a good time.
When you jump back in the way-back machine and look back at the peak of Warrant in late 80s, is there anything that sticks out in your mind?
There are a lot of amazing things. Just on the “Dirty Rotten” and “Cherry Pie” tours, that was over 500 shows, so there were a lot of great times. But if I had to pick one, it would have to be when we headlined the “Cherry Pie” tour with Trixter and Firehouse opening up for us. Every day was Christmas. Pyro, moving lights, the big stage, playing for 5,000 to 20,000 people every night. That was the highlight.
You guys opened for Motley Crue on the “Dr. Feelgood” tour and you were still promoting “Dirty Rotten.” What was it like to tour with those guys, especially with the reputation that they had, and the fact they were were allegedly in the midst of getting sober?
They were great. There seems to be some questions as to whether or not they were 100 percent sober or not. (Laughs) But they were super cool to us. Our manager and agents and whatever said, “No drinking on the tour,” so we were like, “Ok. We’ll go to a bar after we play our show and party on.” But the very first night of the tour, their tour manager came into our dressing room with a case of fifths of Jack Daniels and said, “Welcome to the tour boys!” (Laughs) The very first night. After we’d been preached to. So we were really surprised by that. But the band was super cool. They didn’t limit us and tell us we couldn’t do this or that with the stage or lights.
I don’t know if you were referencing what was to come, but the next year you went on tour with Poison and that’s exactly what happened, right?
(Laughs) Yeah, about 70 shows into the tour, all of a sudden they told Jani he couldn’t go on the speakers, or go on a part of the stage. Being the rebel he was, he went ahead and did it, and there was a big ruckus, and we ended up going home early. But we had 70-something good shows with them. I’ve loved Poison since I saw them the first time at the Troubadour in ’84. We still get to play shows with Bret Michaels from time to time, and it’s fantastic. It’s all love, and what was in the past is in the past. It was never about any of the guys in the band in particular, it was just someone telling Jani where he could and couldn’t go, and nobody likes that. (Laughs)
Years ago there was a rumor that another guitar player was brought in to play some parts on the first album. Can you clarify what happened there, Erik?
Yeah, it’s been addressed before, but basically what happened was our producer, Beau Hill, brought in this guy, Mike Slamer, who had played on a lot of guest slots on his records. So it was a handful of songs he played the solos on, but everybody from Kiss to Aerosmith to Warrant, guys have come in to play some tracks. It’s kind of sore spot, but we love Mike Slamer.
At the end of the day, though, it was still Warrant that had to go out on stage and pull these songs off live, which you did. And to get to do this 40 years down the line is even more special.
Yeah, it is. The four of us have been playing together since ’86 or ’87. We’ve had breaks where guys have left the band and come back here and there, but since 2004 we’ve had four of the five original guys and it’s great to get to play these songs together.
What was it like when that tsunami called “grunge” hit in the early ‘90s. You guys were at the top of your game and then, boom, it hit, seemingly overnight. Did it happen that way from your perspective, too?
Yeah, pretty much. It just all happened at once. Everything went dark. (Laughs) Then Jani quit the band for the first time. Yeah, it sucked man, to have all your dreams come true, and then have them crushed overnight. Not only crushed, but also getting bagged on, and kicked, and spit on. We were like an ‘80s rock punching bag there for a bit. But we never stopped playing, making records, and touring. Our goal from the beginning was to be able to make a living playing our instruments, and, thankfully, we’ve been able to do that.
It took a lot of years for grunge to get out of the system, but when it did in the early 2000s, boom, things were good again. How do you think that happened?
Yeah, I don’t know. I guess it takes 10 years for a stigma to go away. (Laughs) I actually love a lot of the bands that came out of that, like Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, that drop-D, dark stuff. It was just that, unfortunately, record companies would not let two genres co-exist at the same time.
Moving forward, do you see Warrant releasing any new music?
We’ve put out a few albums of new material over the years, but we live in different states, and I guess we just haven’t been inspired to make a record. We’re all just enjoying touring, and doing the things we all like to do when we’re home. If the time comes, and that one or two songs pop up, maybe it will create a record. Or maybe we’ll do like other bands are doing and just put out a couple of songs and not take on the enormity of writing and recording 14 songs.
If that should happen, though, are you guys under contract with any label right now?
Umm…. Yes and no. If we want to make a record, there’s a label that’s ready and willing to do it.
Is it Frontiers (record label), by chance?
We love Frontiers. We like all the people over there a lot, and they’ve been great. But making a record is so far off to the side right now that I just don’t know. But if we did make another record, I can’t imagine it not being with Frontiers. But, you never know. It’s the music business. It’s crazy.
How long do you plan on sticking with this and continuing to play?
That’s up to God, my friend. You have to be healthy to do this, and who knows how long we’re going to live? I guess in the perfect world, another 10 years would be awesome, but who knows? I’ll be 71 in 10 years. (Laughs)
For more information on tour dates, VIP opportunities, or anything and everything Warrant, visit www.warrantrocks.com.
