JOE LYNN TURNER Defends His Controversial Views: 'The Difference Between Conspiracy And The Truth Is About Six Months'

In a new interview with Dave Spuria of The Real Music Observer, former RAINBOW and DEEP PURPLE frontman Joe Lynn Turner spoke about how some people — including unspecified media outlets — have supposedly criticized him over some of the comments he has made while promoting his latest solo album, "Belly Of The Beast", which is said to be "a lot darker" than his previous efforts. He explained (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "You know how many times I've been crucified like this, and I still will be, by all of these yellow rags that I call them, the ones who like to stir the poop, and all this? It's terrible. And I just have to laugh, because I go, 'Look…' I feel sad for them because if this is clickbait or if this is how they get an audience or if they have a satisfaction of putting someone else down to make themselves feel better, whether it's a comment or whatever, that's very sad. They have very small lives. That's all I can say.

"All I'm trying to do here is establish something that I'm trying to deliver a message, a little but of knowledge that I know I have. And if you're gonna fact-check me, do you know what the fact checkers are? There's no degree in fact checking," he continued. "And another thing: conspiracy. Do you know what the difference between conspiracy and the truth is? About six months. So, I will be vindicated."

Regarding his decision to directly address how he views the state of the world in the lyrics on "Belly Of The Beast", Joe said: "I had to do something. The world is going to hell. Somebody better say something. How come nobody is saying something? … Where is the courage? I mean, the new pandemic is cowardice. That's the pandemic.

"So, stand up for yourself and try to help the world," he continued. "You're not adding anything if you just let it continue. In fact, if you're complicit in that, you're just as much to blame. I paraphrase one of the parables that says, 'If a man sees something wrong and does nothing about it, he's wrong himself.' You've gotta stop that, the wheel of karma. You've gotta grab it and stop it. And somebody say, 'Hey, people, have you thought about this?' And that's what art is. And that's what 'Belly' is trying to do. I'm trying to say, maybe it will give you a perspective of things that you haven't thought through. Yes, it's entertaining; yes, it's rocking your ass off; yes, it's great music and all that; but there's a message here that I want you to listen to. The whole thing — the spiritual war, the physical war, for everything that's going on here with humanity right now.

"They are coming after our soul," Joe explained, without specifying who "they" are. "They're coming after our freedom. The first thing you lose with freedom is freedom of speech. And nobody can fact-check me on that. We have lost the freedom of speech globally. And don't get me started on the WEF, and don't get me started on Davos and all of those hypocrites," he added, referencing the World Economic Forum's annual meeting at Davos which has long been a lightning rod for conspiracy theories.

When Spuria pointed out that the mainstream media has repeatedly dismissed "conspiracy theories" about the Davos event regarding sinister schemes the globalists are supposedly plotting at the World Economic Forum's meeting, Joe fired back: "Conspiracy my butt. It's not a conspiracy. How come they all come true? How come everything happens…? All this tinfoil hat wearers, all of a sudden it comes true. You wait six months and it comes true. You wait eight months, it comes true. Well, how come they don't recognize that? Why don't they at least say, 'Well, you guys were right'?

"Look, this is an information war, a propaganda war," Joe explained. "What is the old saying, that the first casualty of war is the truth. That's the first casualty of war. And you can go fact-check that, anybody, okay? But that's the truth. The truth is the first casualty. There has very little truth got to do with any of the wars.

"I'm all about peace," Turner clarified. "There should always be peace. People who fight run out of ideas. I don't care if it's a street fight, a school fight or a major war, you're running out of ideas. You can't think to sit down and negotiate and say, 'Okay, let's bargain this out. Let's figure out what's wrong here and be logical about it. Let's be fair about it.' Nobody wants to be fair — that's the problem. They want what they want. They want tyranny. They want power. They wanna be in control. This is the problem. And it's getting to the point where we are the sacrifices — humanity."

Joe went on to say that he welcomes an open and honest discussion about the pressing political issues, including all viewpoints and ideas, and he encourages everyone else to do the same.

"Learn to open your mind," he said. "I listen to both sides of the story. In fact, [I also listen to] a third side. Why not? There's always something else in the middle. There's left, there's right and there's center. So let's try to massage all of it and see, 'Where are we going with this?' 'What's the truth about this?' and 'What's really happening?'"

Turner also touched upon viral stories proliferating on social media about professional athletes dropping dead of sudden cardiac arrest and children being hospitalized with severe health issues. He said: "When we see, when we know things are happening, as in people dropping dead and dying suddenly, when we see that, is that a reality or is it not? When 14-year-old kids have heart attacks, are you gonna tell me that's normal? No. You can't fact-check that. You can't pull that wool over my eyes. That is not normal. That has not happened. For example, the whole thing with [Buffalo Bills safety Damar] Hamlin [who suffered a cardiac arrest during this month's game against the Cincinnati Bengals], the football player, that hasn't happened in 50 years of the NFL. Everybody gets hit all over the place. That hasn't happened ever. So go fact-check that. I mean, what are people talking about? If you wanna turn a blind eye to it, that's fine. It's not fine, but if that's the way you wanna live your life, it's really gonna be very sad for you, because you really have to wake up and smell the coffee, man. It's happening all around you. And you could be next." [According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit web site FactCheck.org, there has been no increase in sudden death or cardiac injury among U.S. athletes since the COVID-19 vaccines became available, despite anti-vaccine campaigners' efforts to spread a false narrative about vaccine safety since Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest.]

Turner's latest comments come just four months after he performed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The singer broke with most international artists who canceled their live appearances in Russia in response to the global condemnation against the Kremlin and its president, Vladimir Putin, over the war in Ukraine. In addition, major record labels suspended their operations in the country, while streaming services like Spotify pulled out of the market.

A month earlier, Turner apparently threw his support behind Roger Waters over comments the PINK FLOYD co-founder made about Russia. Waters blasted U.S. president Joe Biden for "fueling the fire in the Ukraine" amid Russia's ongoing invasion of the country, and asked in an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish, "Why won't the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelensky, [Ukraine's] president, to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war?" After Smerconish responded that Waters got it "reversed" and was "blaming the party that got invaded," Waters fired back, saying it was about the "action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border."

A short time later, Turner took to his official Facebook page to share a video of Smerconish's interview with Waters, and he included the following message: "Roger Waters speaks TRUTH to power! Thank you Roger. Someone has to say it..."

This was not the first time Joe had publicly taken a political stance. Back in 2015, the singer made headlines when it was revealed that he joined a list of Western celebrities who publicly expressed support for and defended Vladimir Putin, whose image had suffered greatly because of Moscow's aggressive foreign policy.

Two years later, Turner said that his opinion of the Russian president had remained unchanged. "He still is [telling the truth]," the singer told Kraig Casebier's "American Barber In Prague" in a 2017 interview. "Honest to God, I got a lot of crap for [saying] that [before]. But it's true, and he still is, whether you like him or not. He may be a gangster, but he's a good gangster. And I say there are good gangsters.

"There were gangsters in my family, in the Mafia, and they were good people," he explained. "They were the safest neighborhoods, and they protected everyone on the block, and they took care of a lot of people. And they actually donated their time, money to good causes. If somebody didn't have enough bread or food, they'd buy it for 'em. I mean, it depends on what kind of gangster you are. The politicans are bad gangsters; they can't even cover up their crimes."

Joe went on to lament the state of American politics and denounced the culture of extreme political correctness, which he believed had gone too far.

"I think America's lost its way," he said. "We've lost God, we've lost a lot of things that made that country great. And I'm sorry to say, being an American — Italian-American, and holding an American passport… I have had uncles… and my father did military service for twelve overseas stripes — the whole thing. And I went to Iraq for the troops, so anybody that wants to challenge that, c'mon, bring it on, because I think I know a few more things than you. But I think that we've lost a lot in our values of America. We can't even speak freely anymore. There's more freedom in Russia; I can tell you that. I've done a lot of time there and still will. People don't understand what Russia is [in America]."

According to Turner, his country's demonization of Russia is rooted in the fact that "America always needs a big, bad wolf. We need to hate somebody, because of the military industrial complex," he said. "So we need to hate somebody all the time [and] create a war. There's no need for it, really. If we can just straighten out the economy and get the Fed out of there, I think the people would have a chance. But right now, I pray for them — I really do. Because I just think they've got it all wrong."

As if sensing the criticism that would likely follow his comments, Turner preemptively defended himself by saying: "I said Putin was telling the truth, 'cause he is telling the truth. I got subpoenaed by my own government, okay? So all these naysayers and these haters who are gonna see this about me and stuff, you guys have no clue. 30 percent of the American people have passports, so 70 percent of you are isolated and know dick about it — you have been nowhere and done nothing. Excuse me, but that's what you should have been told a long time ago."

The now-71-year-old singer went on to explain that he was "subpoenaed" by the U.S. government after he played "three charity shows" in Russian-annexed Crimea, which he called a "wartorn country." "The people had a great time [and] we had sellout houses," he said.

Joe was the singer of RAINBOW between 1980 and 1984 and he sang on the album "Difficult To Cure", which featured the band's most successful U.K. single, "I Surrender".

During Turner's time with RAINBOW, the band had its first USA chart success and recorded songs that helped define the melodic rock genre.

1990 saw Turner reunited with RAINBOW leader Ritchie Blackmore in a reformed DEEP PURPLE for the "Slaves And Masters" album.