Guitarist ERIK TURNER Talks SUNSET STRIPPED, The Future Of WARRANT

January 7, 2011

Michael Hixon of The Beach Reporter spoke to WARRANT guitarist Erik Turner about the band's past, present and future and going acoustic with SUNSET STRIPPED, Turner's new band which also features in its ranks WARRANT drummer Steven Sweet. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

The Beach Reporter: How did SUNSET STRIPPED come about?

Turner: I've been wanting to do an acoustic thing for a while, something unplugged, more toned down and intimate. I've been doing the loud hard rock thing for 25 years. It sounded real nice to me to just sit down and play some songs in an intimate setting. We play a couple WARRANT songs, "I Saw Red" and "Heaven", and then we do a bunch of ballads from other bands like GUNS N' ROSES, BON JOVI, EXTREME, MR. BIG, DEF LEPPARD, POISON, stuff like that.

The Beach Reporter: Is there a particular challenge from the arena-like rock to the stripped-down acoustic versions?

Turner: It's definitely a different approach. Playing guitar solos on acoustic is a lot different. It's a lot more challenging. We take some liberties with arrangements, but we try to keep it as true as possible to the original composition. Even the original composition, they are recorded in studio with electric guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, all kinds of stuff.

The Beach Reporter: Are you doing any original songs?

Turner: No originals at this point. WARRANT is writing a new record right now. I have one song that lends itself to the SUNSET STRIPPED thing we're doing, and it's not going to end up on the WARRANT record. I was thinking if I finished the song with Steven it could be an original down the line. I imagine SUNSET STRIPPED will be doing four or five shows a year. We're really busy with WARRANT recording a new record and playing shows. During the summer, we tour constantly. We actually tour year round. We have two SUNSET STRIPPED shows this month. We have two WARRANT shows this month. We have pre-production for WARRANT and we start recording this month with Keith Olsen, a pretty famous producer we're excited to work with.

Read the entire interview from The Beach Reporter.

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