Music career Early years Turley's passion for music began early in life, taking up the guitar at age 14. He listened to
punk,
grunge, and
metal growing up as a teenager in southern California, and was also exposed heavily to
country music from being around his father. During his football career Turley played in a number of bands in the offseason, including various
cover bands and a
death metal band named Perpetual Death Mode. He also
jammed with other NFL players, and learned to play bass and drums.
The Kyle Turley Band A year after retiring from football, Turley moved to
Nashville where he set his sights on pursuing a music career. His first full-length album,
Anger Management, was released in 2010 and included all songs from the earlier EP. The album sold over 10,000 copies came out in 2011 and became the top selling album in New Orleans, as well as reaching #1 on
Billboard's Heatseekers South Central chart and #28 on the Heatseekers chart overall. Turley's second full-length album
Skull Shaker was released in 2013. Turley sings and plays guitar for The Kyle Turley Band. He describes his style of music as "power country", drawing influences from old-school country, heavy metal,
Southern rock, and punk rock. which in the years since his 2003 departure Turley has expressed regret for leaving. Turley has toured extensively with his band, including in spring 2010 when he hit the road with
Hank Williams III across the western United States. Other acts that Turley has opened for include
Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Eric Church,
Joe Nichols,
George Jones,
Stephen Cochran,
Jake Owen,
David Allan Coe,
Josh Thompson, and
Kansas. Ogles is the band's guitarist while Turley sings and plays drums. Their first album, a 4-track live EP titled
Half Alive, was released in December 2013. Delta Doom has toured as an opening act for the New Orleans
sludge metal band
Crowbar.
Gridiron Records Turley launched Gridiron Records in 2006, along with two of his friends Mike Doling (ex-
Snot /
Soulfly guitarist) and Tim Pickett (of
EMI Music). Turley and Pickett are the current owners. In addition to The Kyle Turley Band and Delta Doom, other acts signed to Gridiron Records include The Hairbrain Scheme, Unset, and Invitro. and in 2015 he was diagnosed with
early onset of Alzheimer's disease. Turley has a seizure disorder, suffering a particularly severe episode in 2009 when he blacked out suddenly followed by several hours of slipping in and out of consciousness while seeking treatment in an emergency room. Turley also experiences bouts of
vertigo, a condition that first appeared during his rookie season but which increased in frequency throughout his career and became a daily occurrence in retirement. Other symptoms that Turley has dealt with include depression, anxiety, rage issues, suicidal thoughts, migraine headaches, light sensitivity, and memory problems. Turley was a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed against the NFL seeking medical benefits and compensation for former players suffering from the effects of head trauma, initially resulting in a 2013 settlement of $765 million but later amended to allow for a payout expected to exceed $1 billion. Turley was featured in the 2013 documentary
United States of Football examining issues of neurological health in the NFL and youth league football, and has been involved with efforts to educate and assist youth sports programs in head trauma prevention through the Just Cool Me - T.K.O. initiative. Turley has agreed to donate his brain posthumously to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at
Boston University to help advance research in the area of sports-related neurological disorders.
Painkiller addiction Turley retired from football with an addiction to pain-killing drugs. He has criticized the manner in which painkillers are dispensed by medical staff in the NFL, stating that pills were handed out to players "like candy" after games. Turley also says team doctors gave him painkillers while concealing the true nature of a serious back injury in 2003, in an effort to keep him on the playing field until season's end.
Medical cannabis Turley uses
cannabis to treat the neurological issues that he suffers from post-NFL career. He credits cannabis with greatly improving his quality of life and even saving his life, after previously relying on numerous prescription medications with side effects that he says almost drove him to suicide. Turley eliminated his use of pharmaceuticals – including psychiatric and pain-killing drugs – beginning in early 2015 when he went
cold turkey and switched to cannabis only. The organization is also involved with medical cannabis research, commencing a study in 2016 to examine the effectiveness of cannabis in treating chronic pain and depression. The letter was penned by
Doctors for Cannabis Regulation and signed by several other NFL players. Turley is also a member of the Doctors for Cannabis Regulation NFL steering committee. In January 2017 Turley announced the launch of Neuro Armour (now Neuro XPF), a
THC-free cannabis oil that is rich in
cannabidiol (CBD) and various
terpenes. In March 2020 he opened a cannabis dispensary in
Moreno Valley, California, operating under the Shango brand of dispensaries. Turley received criticism in March 2020 for claiming his CBD products could cure
COVID-19 by boosting the immune system. The
Food and Drug Administration advised him to cease making such claims on official materials from his CBD business or else he would be subject to legal action. He immediately complied with the request.
Gridiron Greats Turley is a board member and active supporter of the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, a non-profit
501(c)(3) organization providing medical care and other forms of assistance to retired NFL players in need. Turley first became involved as an active player in 2007 when he pledged one of his game checks to the fund and challenged other players to do the same, many of whom joined in helping to raise several hundred thousand dollars. Announcing his pledge at a November 2007 press conference, Turley spoke of the debilitating football-related health problems and inadequate medical and pension benefits that many retired players face, a topic that had already been the focus of two congressional hearings earlier in the year. Turley became the first active player to publicly take up the cause, also taking
NFLPA executive director
Gene Upshaw to task at the time for failing to address the issue. Through his involvement with Gridiron Greats, Turley was instrumental in the development of NFL Life Line, a 24/7 confidential
crisis hotline for current and former NFL players. Turley conceived of the idea after
Junior Seau committed suicide in May 2012.
Other After living in
Nashville for a number of years, Turley and his family moved to
Riverside, California in April 2014, ==References==