Randy Bachman and Fred Turner Reunite After 20 Years Apart

Fred Turner was happily retired, spending his golden years restoring old Corvettes. But when former bandmate Randy Bachman asked him to lay down a vocal track for a song he'd written, Turner remembered something about rock and roll.

He really liked it.

"I said to Randy that people usually retire because they don't like what they're doing," Turner, the former Bachman-Turner Overdrive singer, tells Spinner. "And here I was into something that I had been very lucky all my life to be able to do, and I still enjoyed playing -- and I was retiring. There was something wrong with that."

Now, after 20 years apart, Bachman and Turner have reunited for a tour and a new album, which is due out in September. Because of contractual issues, they can't use their old band name -- or even its shortened acronym BTO -- so they're going by Bachman and Turner. But don't worry -- they're performing all the old BTO songs, including hits like 'Takin' Care of Business,' 'Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' and 'Roll on Down the Highway.'

The two Canadians wouldn't have gotten together were it not for Bachman's continued interest in music. While Turner had walked away from the business, Bachman kept plugging away, recording a solo album featuring well-known guests.

"He had Neil Young on a cut and Jeff Healey," Turner says. "And he had lined up Paul Rodgers to sing a cut."

When Bachman asked Turner to record vocals for a song called 'Rock and Roll Is the Only Way Out,' Turner obliged, adding his growly vocals.

"He got a hold of me and he says, 'This is knocking me out. I think I'm going to put the solo album on the shelf. Have you got any more songs?'" Turner recalls. "And I said, 'Yeah, I've got a lot of songs.'"

The two recorded several tunes and then decided to hit the road again, using Bachman's solo band for support. But first, Turner decided he needed to get into shape -- something neither Bachman nor Turner had ever considered in their husky heyday.

"We were always the big, chunky, husky guys that lived next door and mowed your lawn and took out your garbage," Bachman jokingly says.

But that changed for Bachman, who lost 150 pounds after gastic bypass surgery in 2001. With that inspiration, Turner began exercising and watching calories himself. In two years, he had lost 132 pounds.

"We're healthier now, in better shape and wearing nicer clothes," Bachman says.

On tour, they're not only playing BTO classics but also songs Bachman wrote for psychedelic '60s band the Guess Who. While the guitarist had considerable success with songs like 'American Woman,' 'These Eyes' and 'Undun,' the royalties for BTO were always better, Bachman says.

"The Guess Who, I was with them nine years," he says. "But those were the days when you took a contract because it was a contract, not because it was a good contract, so the Guess Who pretty much got shafted."

When he formed BTO, Bachman made sure to secure a better deal. So now a slimmed-down Bachman and Turner don't need to worry about money. Instead, the duo -- now in their mid-60s -- can focus on returning to the stage with a new, ironically younger, outlook.

"In all of this happening, I realize, this brings life back," Turner says. "I'm having the best time I've had in 35 years because I can do things that I couldn't do then. I can ride horses, swim, do anything that I want to do. And that's what life is all about -- going out to enjoy things. So I'd like to see a lot of people rejuvenate their youth and go back out and have a great time."