Warrant returns to rock The Boathouse

Warrant’s still rockin’, ready to make waves in a free concert at 5 p.m. Sunday at The Boathouse Waterway Bar & Grill.

Calling last week while relaxing at home in Southern California, Erik Turner said the pop metal band that first formed in the mid-1980s has “kept busy,” averaging 50 concerts for at least the past 15 years.

Among four of the five original members, Turner, like Joey Allen, plays guitar, with Steven Sweet on drums and Jerry Dixon on bass, and Robert Mason has succeeded the late Jani Lane on lead vocals.

Building on new CDs from 2006 and 2011 — and keeping with artistic album covers, with “Born Again” and “Rockaholic,” respectively, on independent labels — Warrant members continue writing music for another release by Frontiers Records, in 2016.

Turner said the group members live out West, also in Nevada and southern Arizona, and they see the importance to “take care of themselves” in lifestyle for continued longevity.

Their paths have crossed with various fellow acts from the 1970s and ’80s, Turner said, and Warrant has played this past year with Bret Michaels, Winger, Firehouse, Great White, Lita Ford and Dokken.

Warrant will come to the Grand Strand after co-headlining with Quiet Riot Saturday at the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival. The band has played The Boathouse “quite a bit over the last 25 years,” Turner said, always ready for “a good time” along the Intracoastal Waterway, just west of the Myrtle Beach city limits. Then, the guys will move on to the M3 Rock Festival in Columbia, Md.

Warrant’s biggest hits, heading into the 1990s — “Heaven,” “Down Boys,” “Sometimes She Cries,” “I Saw Red,” “Cherry Pie” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — remain staple songs for every concert, said Turner, who joined various combinations of bandmates in helping co-write all those titles in a time when Warrant’s music also found a home through videos on MTV.

“It doesn’t matter where the songs come from,” Turner said, stressing the most important ingredients: “heart and soul — blood, sweat and beers.”

He said “younger people” knowing Warrant songs and singing along “always surprises me” at concerts, and he hopes new generations discover the group’s music.

Friends taking the band to visit Arlington National Cemetery will “be a good thing to do” as well on this East Coast swing, Turner said, repeatedly grateful for “a fine day” in Southern California, which included a glass of wine, “a pretty wife” and pastimes with golf and family camping.

His wife, Kirsten Turner, with whom he will celebrate 19 years of marriage in May, handles publicity for the band. She said Erik Turner and Warrant wines have evolved through a partnership with South Coast Winery & Resort, southwest of Los Angeles (store.wineresort.com/cart/cat/Home/Celebrity-Wines.aspx).

Donating a portion of proceeds makes a difference, Kirsten Turner said, for various proximate California charities, such as Animal Friends of the Valleys in Lake Elsinore and Michelle’s Place in Temecula to help women in recovery against breast cancer, where “Rock the Pink” Syrah and sparkling bottle sales make their own music to help the cause.

The Turners have a cat and three dogs — all Chihuahua-types — including one named Kennedy, pictured on a painting by Warrant’s drummer on the label for Erik Turner’s “Dog Day Afternoon” white table wine, Kirsten Turner said.

She also declared it’s “my fault that a ‘rock star’ has Chihuahuas,” serendipity after the couple’s Akitas passed on in “very old age,” including one that lived to age 16.

After she picked a pooch that looks more like a “wiener dog Chihuahua mix,” Kirsten Turner said, “we fell in love with the breed, then got two others from the animal shelter.”

This story was originally published April 23, 2015 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Warrant returns to rock The Boathouse."