WARRANT Guitarist: 'We're Lucky; We Have Six Songs That Did Really, Really Well For Us'

WARRANT guitarist Erik Turner recently guested on the "Joe & Borna" program on the Wisconsin radio station 102.9 The Hog. The full conversation can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):

On how the music industry has changed over the years:

Erik: "It took us five years to get a record deal, but once we got a record deal, back then, the record company — if they believed in the record — would spend millions of dollars on marketing. Putting your video on YouTube and the Internet and Facebook doesn't compare to having a multi-million dollar marketing budget and this huge distribution machine that was Sony, that could sell millions of these plastic discs. There's no comparison to it, but leading up to it and getting your band name out there nowadays, there's a lot of social media. There's a lot of social media to dig through to find something to break through and have a million followers, as opposed to 1,100 or whatever. It isn't going to have much impact unless you have some sort of big marketing machine behind you. But I'm old-school. We're lucky — we have six songs that did really, really well for us, and we sold millions of records, and fortunately, people still like to come out, party, have a good time and hear all those songs."

On the band's current lineup:

Erik: "In 2004, Steven [Sweet, drums] and Joey [Allen], our lead guitarist, came back to the band. Since 2004, we've had the four original guys, and we've had a couple different singers. We did a CD in 2006 called 'Born Again' with Jaime St. James on vocals. Then Jani Lane came back to the band, and we had all five original members at the end of 2007 up to about the end of 2008. That didn't last too long, unfortunately. [I'm] really disappointed about that, but the bright spot is, at the end of 2008, we got Robert Mason, who was the singer for LYNCH MOB and CRY OF LOVE. Actually, his band opened for WARRANT on the 'Dog Eat Dog' tour, so we've known Robert a long time. This September will be his ten-year anniversary in WARRANT."

On whether he's ever visited a strip club and name-dropped the fact that he played on "Cherry Pie":

Erik: "Well, I didn't write it, but yes — 'I perform in it. It's our band. Would you mind dancing to our song? It brings joy to us like you wouldn't even understand.' Many many years ago, when I used to go to strip bars before I was married, we loved that. We'd bring our record in there, ask the DJ to spin it, start buying him some drinks, buying the girls some drinks, throwing money around... you can figure out the rest."

WARRANT's latest album, "Louder Harder Faster", was released in May 2017 via Frontiers Music Srl. The disc was recorded with producer Jeff Pilson — a veteran bassist who has played with DIO, FOREIGNER, DOKKEN and T&N, among others — and was mixed by Pat Regan, except for the song "I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink", which was mixed by Chris "The Wizard" Collier (FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, PRONG, LAST IN LINE).

Last year, Turner told Love Is Pop that he understands why so many of WARRANT's peers don't bother releasing new music anymore and focus mostly on playing old hits. "We do it [because] it's a labor of love," he said. "It's a lot of work [and] pressure. But I think that it also depends on what your expectations are. If you have a band that's always sold 500,000 records and nobody's gonna buy that many anymore, so they think, 'Why do it?' But for our band, every half a decade or so, we get the itch to make a record. We know we're not gonna have a platinum album on our hands. The odds of that happening are not good."