Back to Babylon (Tormé, 1986)

Tormé is an unusual little twig in the Deep Purple family tree. First off, this is Bernie, not Mel, so if you are expecting smooth crooning versions of "Family At War", "Front Line" and "Love Guns and Money" you will probably be disappointed.

Bernie Tormé came into prominence when he joined one of the strangest bands of 1979, Gillan. Ian Gillan had assembled a bizzaro new band around brainiac composer/keyboardist Colin Towns, bouncy bald bassist John McCoy, and himself. His initial drummer and guitarist didn't work out, so he brought aboard an Irish punk guitarist (Tormé) and Mick Underwood on drums, an old chum from his Episode Six days (and the guy who introduced him to Ritichie Blackmore, which became a gig in Deep Purple). Thanks to horrific management, the band nearly died after a single album, but thanks to Richard Branson, they followed up with a top ten album the following year. Success either caused or couldn't mask the gross instability of the band, in which nobody seemed particularly happy. By 1981, Tormé had enough and quit mid-tour, entering a period of wanderings, which included gigs with Atomic Rooster and Ozzy Osbourne. Five years after his departure from Gillan came this, his first proper solo album.

This is a fairly average album for its day, fitting neatly in the seedy underbelly of glam metal (see below for various connections to that scene). Most of the songs are war-centric, and sounds more like the soundtrack to Iron Eagle than any kind of attempt to condemn all the bad things about war, especially of the Cold and Middle Eastern variety. It has more of a disposition of "here it is, take it for what it's worth."

Tormé continues to rabble-rouse from the sidelines. This band had a couple more albums in them (although the last was a totally different lineup and six years removed from the others). Other Tormé projects have been fleeting, most notably a collaboration with John McCoy in which Tormé handles vocal duties. Like McCoy, he continues to have nothing good to say about Ian Gillan, but is happy to endorse unauthorized releases of material by the Ian Gillan Band and Gillan.

I received this as a cast-off from the radio station back in 1998. It was getting too old to fit the format of most current metal shows, so I was happy to give it a new home. Tormé is also a great way to link Deep Purple to Guns N' Roses. Singer Phil Lewis was (is) in L.A. Guns, and Tracii Guns was the "guns" in GNR, though gone before their biggest albums. I'm sure Axl Rose and Ian Gillan have much to discuss.