Exclusive: Pierce Turner Announces New Guitar-heavy Album with Gerry Leonard, Terrible Good

Wexford-born singer-songwriter Pierce Turner has announced a brand new album with legendary fellow Irish guitarist and solo artist Gerry Leonard, titled Terrible Good. The recording of the album is finished and it will be released in the spring of 2022.

Dubliner Gerry Leonard is known for his work with David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright and Suzanne Vega, among other major names, while Turner is widely regarded among aficionados as one of the outstanding Irish songwriters and performers of the past 40 years.

Having started out in a tin whistle band and then a brass and reed orchestra, Pierce Turner turned professional when he joined The Arrows showband. Pierce moved to New York and formed a duo, The Major Thinkers, with Larry Kirwan – they also toured as Turner and Kirwan – before going solo in the mid-1980s.

Turner's first solo album, 1987's It's Only a Long Way Across, was produced by American avant-garde composer Philip Glass and was nominated for 'Best Debut Issued by an Independent Record Company' at the New York Music Awards. The musician went on to make two more albums for Beggars Banquet: The Sky and the Ground (1989) and Now Is Heaven (1991). The latter was produced by John Simon.

In June 2001, 3 Minute World was released, with Hot Press giving it a 12 out of 12 rating at the time. Turner has since released five more full-length projects, but this marks the first time he has worked with Gerry Leonard.

"Just before the pandemic, I had mentioned to Gerry Leonard that I would like to work with him, and he concurred," Turner tells Hot Press about the origins of Terrible Good.

"When Gerry moved to New York in the '90s, he was mixing my sound at a club in New York and I had no idea that he was even a guitar player, never mind a superb one," Turner adds. "Then one day in the late '00s I was watching a video of David Bowie playing live in some massive venue, when I noticed a blond-haired guy playing some amazing guitar. He had great rhythm, and a powerful melodic sensibility with the ebow. He jammed away on the right side of the stage, while Earl Slick feed-backed away on the far left. When they did a close up, I was astonished to see it was my old sound man, Gerry Leonard."

The plan to work together having been hatched, Gerry Leonard later brought in Tony Shanahan - bassist and MD with none other than Patti Smith - and Yuval Lion (who works with David Byrne). Within two weeks, the duo were rehearsing. They later recorded with Hector Castillo, who also worked with Bowie in his Long Island studio.

"It's my first real electric guitar album with Gerry Leonard – who, of course, was David Bowie’s guitarist – on that instrument. It really sounds like a band," Pierce continues.

"Gerry and I wanted to make a New York album, as we are both Irish musicians that have lived there for decades. Having purposely avoided it all my life, it’s time to try to pigeonhole my music. This should make my life a little bit more cyber-easy, and hopefully knock me out of the dreary singer-songwriter category. For the first time, I can actually name what my music sounds like: Irish alternative guitar-rock.

"Now I'll finally be able to fill out online questionnaires, without wincing," Turner quips.

Pierce is happy to acknowledge influences that seeped into the record, listing them off: "The Rolling Stones on occasion; music from BBC6 and W.F.U.V radio from New York; The National; Fontaines D.C.; rap; Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac; The Small Faces – and Bowie, of course.

"Bowie’s old upright sat by the wall in the second room where the keyboards lived, including the beautiful Vibraphone and a full size Grand Steinway," Turner says. "I swear that Bowie’s piano spoke in some way: I was almost afraid to play it. One day I just sat down and hammered out ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ – turned out it was perfectly suitable to its personality to play that."

'Where It Should Be' is the album's opening track, featuring David Mansfield’s gorgeous strings. Mansfield is best known for his work with Bob Dylan.

The album is set for release on StorySound Records, a New York-based label launched by Dick Connette.

"I'm really excited about the recordings," Pierce says. "But it is important to get a proper promotional plan in place. That’s the way Dick and StorySound operate: it is like an old school record company with a full recording budget and a budget for videos, publicists etc and international distribution organised in advance. We’re planning to launch it at Joe's Pub in Manhattan on March 17th. And from there? We’ll be refining the plan between now and then. In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to getting back out there with an album that I am really proud of."

On the title of the album Pierce has this to say: "It’s a very Irish thing, but other culture’s do it too, to use a negative out of context with the positive. People use the word ‘Wicked’ to describe something great for instance, or ‘Deadly’. In the rap world, ‘Bad’ means ‘Good’. And then there’s ’Sick!’."

The lead contender for the first single is 'Tommy and Timmy', with a video curated by Declan St Onge ready to go.

Revisit Pierce Turner's July 2020 reflections on Rory Gallagher here as part of our special 25th anniversary tribute to the legendary Irish guitarist.