By A. Lee Graham
Jeff Scott Soto clasped rock’s
brass ring before losing it to … well, exactly why he lost the
Journey gig remains unanswered.
But that’s OK for a man happy
with life and the opportunities it’s brought one of rock’s most
underrated vocalists. Whisked away aboard Yngwie Malmsteen’s
Viking ship in 1984, Soto began turning heads with pipes capable
of metal screaming and soulful crooning, often within the same
song.
“It’s my ‘70s upbringing,”
says Soto, whose versatility struck a chord with Eyes and
especially Talisman, the Swedish act whose cult following
continues to support Soto and his myriad musical endeavors.
Those include an impressive
solo catalog as well as stints with Axel Rudi Pell,Takara and a
little band called Journey. After Steve Augeri stepped down,
Soto more than capably filled his shoes and had fans pumped for
the new lineup’s debut release.
It never came, with Journey
plucking Arnel Pineda from Youtube obscurity and giving Soto the
boot. An official explanation has yet to surface. Too bad, as
many believed Soto would have refreshed the band’s sound while
honoring its legacy. His contributions to Soul SirkUS seemed a
firm foundation for what Soto would have contributed to
Journey.
But that’s water under the
bridge, for W.E.T. is Soto’s latest passion. Rounded out by
Eclipse guitarist Erik Martensson and Work of Art axman Robert
Sall, the trio’s debut has become a modern classic for AOR
acolytes and paints a bright future not only for the young
group, but for its tireless front man.
Whether fronting Journey or
screaming “Stand Up And Shout!” (yes, it was Soto powering Mark
Wahlberg’s vocals in Rock Star), Soto has enjoyed — and
continues to enjoy — a full musical plate. Classic Rock
Revisited caught up with Soto weeks before Santa made his
yearly trek.
Lee: Congrats on W.E.T. I
mean, what a great album.
Jeff: It’s one of those
unexpected things. We had no idea what was going to happen with
it, musically or anything else. It’s all been really surprising.
That’s for sure.
Lee: What brought you guys
together: the W, E and the T?
Jeff: Well, it mainly started
with Serafino (Perugino, Frontiers Records president-C.E.O.) It
was a little brainstorm to get these two guys to write together,
to write songs in this sort of AOR vibe. I think Serafino wanted
me to do an album like this after my stint in Journey.
It was the last thing I wanted
to do. I already had my Beautiful Mess thing — my last
solo album — in the works the previous year. I just never had
the chance to finish it. Once I left Journey, it was my passion
to get that done. So the last thing I wanted to do was kind of
chase those AOR kind of coattails. And I told Serafino we’ll
have to wait on it.
But it wasn’t until after I
got Beautiful Mess done and out of the can that we
started talking about the W.E.T. project. I said, “OK, let’s
discuss this thing. Send me some songs and let’s see what we’ve
got here.” It was one of those immediate things when I heard the
first two songs, I said these two guys have something special
here.
Lee: As hard as you try to
escape your AOR origins, they just pull you back, huh?
Jeff: Well yeah. It’s in the
blood. It’s pretty much where I’ve got my core fan audience. And
that’s all fine and dandy. It’s not necessarily the only side of
me that you know. As an artist, you want to grow. You want to
change yourself, but you also want to tap into the influences
and resources that made you want to be an artist in the first
pace.
I always wanted to follow in
the footsteps of Queen and Freddie Mercury where they didn’t
have any walls or barriers or boundaries. AOR’s a good thing to
come back to and revisit once in a while.
Lee: You definitely have
explored quite a variety of styles, from metal with Yngwie and
the AOR-oriented rock of Talisman and Eyes, to the really … I
guess what you’d call maybe, not singer-songwriter, but soulful
‘70s rock roots like some of your solo stuff like Beautiful
Mess. It just really runs the gamut.
I guess maybe the common
link is it’s all just timeless music. It doesn’t really fit into
something where you say, “Oh, that’s so ’81!” It’s valid in
whatever year you hear it.
Jeff: Yeah, that’s it exactly.
That’s what I love about ‘70s music more so than ‘80s music.
What I grew up with was the ‘70s stuff. I tapped more into that
with Beautiful Mess, where W.E.T. has more of that ‘80s
kind of vibe, and more of a classic rock sound. I grew up with
Styx, Boston, Journey, Van Halen. Those are my bands growing up
despite all the great Motown and soul and R&B stuff.
Lee: Does it frustrate you
that, despite all the accolades and rave reviews that W.E.T. has
gotten, if it were released in the ‘80s, it probably would have
been huge commercially?
Jeff: Actually, it doesn’t.
And I’ve answered this question in another interview. I’d rather
be where I am at now because a lot of those guys in the ‘80s
have a hard time reinventing themselves. They can do their
reunions and nostalgic things, but I don’t want to do that. I
don’t want to be a nostalgia artist. I haven’t done enough on my
own in my own life to only live in the past.
And honestly, I think that if
W.E.T. had been released in the ‘80s and was big then, I might
have this kind of stereotype of being stuck in a rut in this day
and age, so it’s kind of cool that we can relive it in the sense
that it’s revisiting that time, but it’s also something brand
new and fresh and kind of reinventing that time.
Lee It’s funny that when I
listen to the album, every song screams “radio friendly.” Yet I
have to stop myself and say, “What’s really radio-friendly these
days?”
Jeff: (laughs)
Lee: Everything is so
divided, so categorized now. There’s no homogenous selection of
songs everyone listens to.
Jeff: What is the term radio
friendly, especially when alternative and college bands became
the radio norm? If you compare it with Britney Spears and Rianna
and all that stuff that’s on the radio. Radio friendly? That is
kind of an old term you can’t really use any more. But I know
what it means and I know what you’re referring to.
Lee: When you first got
together with W.E.T., at first I didn’t know if all three of you
guys knew each other or whether this was some sort of master
project overseen by a John Kalodner type. But it sounds like you
guys really meshed well. Would you say you gelled organically
and this wasn’t just something planned on paper?
Jeff: The funny thing was that
we never actually sat with each other in doing these recordings.
And Erik (Martensson, guitarist), when they were writing the
songs together, that’s the only actual connection. Erik pretty
much recorded the entire alum with members of his band Eclipse
and pretty much did all the rhythm guitars, as well. And Robert
played on a few things here and there, but Robert was mainly
instrumental on songwriting with Erik.
Erik basically demoed the
vocals and sent them to me and was in another continent
completely. We were just communicating through e-mails and
Skype. The first time I actually met Robert (Sall, guitarist)
was when we were shooting the videos. It’s funny how the
chemistry was so strong and how the songs sound like we were
really a working band where we’d never been in the same room
before, in the same presence.
I’d met Erik before. I had
seen Eclipse once and met him in Stockholm when I was working
with Talisman. Aside from that, we had this sort of chemistry
and basically it was parlayed into the songs there in the end.
Lee: So you sent your
vocals through sound files via Skype or e-mail?
Jeff: Yeah, they just sent me
the demos. I’d go to the Pro Tools and sing the song and I’d
make sure they had the reference track to make sure they could
match them back into their master tracks and it was so easy.
Lee: How would you describe
Talisman and W.E.T.? Are there qualities that really distinguish
them from each other?
Jeff: With Talisman, we tried
to be radio-friendly. But they were more riff and
guitar-oriented songs whereas these are more song-oriented
songs. Talisman was more about, for a better term, guitar
masturbation (laughs)
Lee: Talisman was more hu-man
where W.E.T. was more human.
Jeff: (laughs) That’s a good
way to say it. But on the working side of things, they’re very
much the same, almost identical because more of the Talisman
albums were done in exactly this way. They were done with the
recordings prerecorded, sent to me and I’d record and send them
back.
And maybe we’d be sitting
together when we’d be mixing. But rarely were we in the same
room while these things were getting done.
W.E.T. had a lot of the same
humble beginnings as Talisman, so it’s possibly the band to kick
off the next stage of my career.
Lee: Who came up with the
name W.E.T.?
Jeff: We had no idea what to
call this. There was this working title that Frontiers gave us
and it was their way of putting their controlling stamp over it.
We absolutely hated it. We thought, “We can’t keep this.” It was
horrible.
Lee: Was it W.E.T.?
Jeff: (laughs) No, we went to
the label and said, “We can’t do this and you’re not going to
stop us.” And we couldn’t come up with anything so the first
thing I do in any situation, I start with the initials with the
guys I’m working with and see if I couldn’t come up with
anything that sounded good so I sent with the three bands that
combine us and it sounded better than WTE or TWE (laughs)
Lee: What was the initial
name proposed by Frontiers?
Jeff: Do I really have to tell
you?
Lee: Oh, please.
Jeff: It was so terrible. It
was called Lost In The Shadows.
Lee: Lost In The Shadows?
Jeff: I said, “You must be
kidding me.”
Lee: At least it wasn’t
Savage Animal.
Jeff (big laughs)
Lee: It sounds like a
Dokken song.
Jeff: Or a Queensryche song.
Lee: Oh, like “Walk In The
Shadows.”
Jeff: Yeah, “Walk In The
Shadows.”
Lee: Maybe that’s what they
were thinking.
Jeff: It wasn’t for me.
Lee: Was it awkward with
W.E.T. coming out at a time when you’re up to your eyeballs with
Trans-Siberian Orchestra rehearsals?
Jeff: We’re actually halfway
through the tour.
Lee: Really? I’m behind the
ball here.
Jeff: Yeah, we’re halfway
through the tour. Rehearsals started in October and the tour
started Nov. 1.
Lee: How is it going?
Jeff: It’s going great. I’m in
New Mexico now and we’re working our way through Texas.
Lee: Wow. I’m still trying
to wrap my head around the fact that it’s December, let alone
that TSO dates are coming up.
Jeff: It’s very hard getting
into the spirit of things when we’re singing “Merry Christmas”
on Nov 2.
Lee: I remember you playing
a solo set in a small club in Fort Worth a few months back. I
kicked myself because I couldn’t go that night. I was wondering
if Texas or anywhere else in the states can expect any dates
from Jeff Scott Soto in the coming year?
Jeff: It is unfortunate that I
have to put the U.S. on such a backburner when it comes to
touring. That was a test run when I did that thing in the U.S.
because of Journey. People were saying, “Well hey, Jeff’s
picked up a lot of fan base and he’ll be able to play to a
helluva lot more people in the U.S. So I said, “Let’s see how
much the Journey thing helped my career.”
After playing to over 900,000
people in the course of seven months with Journey, I went out
with a two-week run and didn’t draw more than 80 or 100 people a
show.
Lee: I wouldn’t take that
personally. That was probably attributed to marketing or lack
thereof, not you as an artist.
Jeff: I attribute it to the
fact that the U.S. is so huge and spread out. In Europe, I have
a large enough fan base that they’re willing to drive two or
three hours to see me, whereas in Dallas, I might have 20 or 30
fans there and 20 or 30 in the surrounding cities that can’t
necessarily make their way in.
It’s hard to make it worthy of
a tour. It’s sad, but true. That’s why with TSO, I’m trying to
use that as a lift, so to speak, to get myself more exposure
here to do more things in my home country.
Lee: Sounds like a prudent
approach, for sure. As opposed to your solo tour stateside, I’m
sure you’re seeing lots of bigger audiences with TSO. How is
preparing for a tour like that different than preparing for a
traditional rock tour?
Jeff: For starters. I’m only
singing three songs in a 2-and a half hour show. It’s that long,
In the first two songs, you’re starting to warm up and you’re
starting to get into things, but with TSO, there’s only three
songs, and we’re doing double shows so we’re in arenas for eight
or nine hours a day and they’re so spread out.
We do double shows. There’s a
whole factor of warming up and warming down, cooling off,
cooling down. Your really have to go into it with a different
approach. Luckily, I did it last year and really found my
groove. I only sang one song last year.
Lee: Really?
Jeff: They tripled my workload
(laughs) We just did seven shows in five days. We do a lot of
matinees on this tour.
Lee: It’s only three songs,
but I’m sure the dynamics and demand of those songs are quite
considerable.
Jeff: That’s the other thing.
It’s more in the musical Broadway rock opera thematic kind of
thing, which takes a completely different approach. Normally, I
go onstage and do like I normally do. I don’t use my usual
approach with this stuff. I have to do it in a way that meets
Paul O’Neill’s (TSO founder) vision that he had with this whole
TSO thing. I can’t sing it as Jeff Scott Soto. I have to sing it
as the person Paul O’Neill originally wanted. So it is a little
different. It is a little more challenging for me.
Lee: I wanted to touch on
your last solo release, Beautiful Mess. From your
perspective, did it catch your audience off guard as you
initially thought, or did they warm to it?
Jeff: It took them a while to
warm to it. That’s why I put a disclaimer, if you want to call
it that, before I released it. Because I didn’t want to give
people the wrong idea of what kind of album it was going to be,
I made sure there were plenty of audio clips, even text things
saying exactly what the album was going to be like.
I didn’t want people to think
it was going to be like what was in my solo albums previously or
stuff that was in my bands previously. I wanted them to know
this was going into this particular direction. I didn’t want
people bitching that they got ripped off because this wasn’t the
normal Jeff Scott Soto album.
It took them a while to warm
into it, but I picked up a whole other fan base I didn’t have
before. And that was my whole intent — to pick up another side
that could hold in with everything I’d already been doing. I
didn’t want to be stuck in one rut.
Lee: That goes back to the
timeless vibe that we were talking about. I hear not only a lot
of ‘70s influences, but I hear specifically Stevie Wonder and
Lenny Kravitz, and in your discography, it blends well.
Jeff: The funny thing is that
some songs were written with the intent of pitching them to
Christina Aguilera or Kelly Clarkson, the contemporary artists
that are on radio today and I was more interested in trying
something like that to see how my voice would fit something like
that for someone who’s on the charts today.
Lee: Did you actually pitch
those to Christina or Kelly Clarkson?
Jeff: Yeah, “Our Song,” I
think, was pitched to Kelly Clarkson. There was a song on the
Soul SirkUS album I did with Neal Schon that was pitched to
Christina Aguilera.
Lee: Really, which one?
Jeff: That was “Soul Goes
On.”
Lee: That would have been
interesting.
Jeff: When Neal wrote it, he
wrote it with the vibe of the first song “Beautiful” she had and
kind of formed the song that way. It’s all up to the
interpretation of what’s actually covering the song when it gets
to the recording stage.
Lee: From Soul SirkUS to
Kelly Clarkson, it’s really like a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
thing.
Jeff: Yeah. Even the song was
pitched to Justin Timberlake. It was one of those things if you
hear them do it, you would not believe in a million years I’d do
a song like that. But if I did it, you’d say, “Yeah, that sounds
like a Jess Scott Soto song.”
Lee: I wanted to touch your
cover of “Frozen” with Talisman. I’m not the biggest Madonna
fan, but you guys did a great job. But I have to admit that even
before your cover was released, some elements of the song really
intrigued me. There was this melody, this eerie underlying
component that reminded me of why I liked a track by George
Michael called “Father Figure.”
There’s an outro that has
this really exotic, almost Middle Eastern melody that pulled me
in. I hear something similar in that Madonna song.
Jeff: That’s what Marcel
[Jacob] heard when he wanted to cover the song. When he said I
want to cover “Frozen,” I was like, well, first of all, the song
is not even a year old [at the time] and secondly, why are we
doing a Madonna cover? (laughs) He heard the same kind of
eeriness that you did and thought it would sound great with a
rock base.
Lee: The world truly
suffered a loss when Marcel passed. Allow me to share my belated
condolences.
Jeff: Thank you for that.
Lee: He was quite a talent.
Jeff: It still is not real for
me. It’s still hard for me to believe he’s no longer with us.
Lee: When did you guys
start working together?
Jeff: Well, we started
together in Yngwie’s band back in ‘84. That’s 25 years that we
actually knew each other and started working in Talisman 19
years. Next year would have been our 19-year anniversary. It’s
weird when you work with someone that long, they become such a
fixture in your life. It’s not just someone you know and someone
you work with. It’s someone you’re connected to.
Lee: And all of a sudden,
they’re gone.
Jeff: Yeah. Like I said, it’s
not like an illness or accident. The way it occurred, it’s
difficult to just let go.
Lee: I first saw you at the
Arcadia Theater in Dallas on the Marching Out tour in
1986.
Jeff: Wow, that was a long
time ago. That was with Yngwie.
Lee: You were standing in
the bar line in front of me, and I’ll never forget it. Just the
day before, I saw your picture in Kerrang!, and the next
day you were standing in front of me singing “Sink Your Teeth
Into That” by Talas. Do you remember that?
Jeff: (laughs) I love that
band. I probably was singing that because I really loved Billy’s
[Sheehan] band and that was my first national tour, my first
real outing in the rock field.
Lee: We were all incredibly
impressed. Great show. I started following you with Yngwie and
Talisman and even Eyes all the way through your solo material
and Soul SirkUS. What actually brought the Soul SirkUS project
to you? Did Neal seek you out?
Jeff: Yeah, Neal has this
Planet US band. Those were the early stages of what is now
Chickenfoot, but then Sammy and Michael were summoned in to do
the Van Halen reunion. Neal had a lot of down time and was bored
with Journey at the time. Every time he opened up [Web site]
melodicrock, he read about Jeff Scott Soto.
And he wondered who this Jeff
Scott Soto was and decided to find out. He got my number and
decided to give me a ring. Of course, it was a huge thrill for
me as Journey was a huge influence on my life.
Lee: I loved Soul SirkUS
and really wished it would’ve lasted beyond one release.
Jeff: Thank you. I’m equally
disappointed. We had a lot of potential for where it could have
gone. People who were working with Journey at the time decided
they’d keep Neal so busy there would have been no way he could
work with Soul SirkUS.
Lee: I thought the reason
was he wanted to jump-start the whole Journey machine again.
Jeff: No, that was Journey
management that wanted to start it again. In fact, he wanted to
walk away from it at that point in his life. That’s not what
they wanted; they wanted to make sure he wasn’t ready to leave
anytime soon because Journey is a cash cow. Whoever you put in
singing, it’ll bring in revenue, but Soul SirkUS was unproven
and there was no way they were going to drop something that was
bringing in six figures a year to something that was going to
have to grow and take years to get to that point.
Lee: Now’s the time that I
have to say how miffed I was about how you were fired from
Journey. Nothing against Arnel; he’s great in his role, but I
really wanted to see how much you’d not so much reinvent the
sound, but sort of enliven the legacy because your voice is
different from our classic Steve Perry tenor.
Jeff: You and me both. It’s
not so much the fact that I was let go from Journey, but how I
was let go. To this day, I still don’t know the true reasons. I
haven’t spoken with anyone in the band for more than two years
except for Ross Valory who who came with the white flag, came to
the TSO show in San Jose last week. I never had any problem with
those guys.
Lee: That’s what makes it
so weird.
Jeff: Exactly. Only they know
the true nature of it. I’ve stopped losing sleep over it. It is
what it is. More power to them. They’re doing great with Arnel
and I wish them continued success.
Lee: I’m definitely glad
that you’re at peace with it, but I definitely hope at the same
time that one day you’ll get some actual closure. Like Neal
calls you up and you get together and have a couple of drinks.
Jeff: It’s usually when Neal
gets bored is usually when I hear from him.
Lee: When he’s bored, he
scouring Melodicrock.com and then Youtube.
Jeff: The guy’s just full of
ideas. Every day, he’s “Let’s do this, lets do that.” It’s
amazing what makes that guy tick.
Lee: I wanted to touch on
the Rock Star soundtrack. If memory serves, I saw the
movie in the theater just before 9/11. My friends were having a
great time. Those original songs were killer. How did you become
involved in the movie?
Jeff: I’ll give you the
abridged version. I’d done a lot of backing vocals for Tom
Werman. A lot of people know Tom’s work from the ‘70s with Cheap
Trick, Ted Nugent, Mother’s Finest. It’s just ridiculous how
many people he’s produced. And in the ‘80s, he was doing bands
like Poison and Motley Crue, Lita Ford and Steelheart.
I met him in ’91, I believe it
was. No, I’m completely wrong. Don’t quote me on things. It was
basically Stryper’s last album for Hollywood Records, Against
The Law. They asked if I’d come in and toughen up their
Born CD because what they’d done so far was more angelic
sounding.
And I think I was one of the
first outsider musicians that came in and actually did anything
on the Stryper album. It was through that that I got Tom and
created a new thing with “I’m doing a new album. Jeff’s singing
background.”
I did five or six albums with
him before he retired, but they brought him out of retirement
for the Rock Star soundtrack. And one of the first things
he said was, “I’m bringing back Jeff Scott Soto to sing one of
the voices.” He knew that someday we’d work together for
something with lead vocals instead of just singing backgrounds,
and that’s exactly what he did.
Lee: I also heard that Jeff
Pilson played a role, or was instrumental in landing the role
for you.
Jeff: Yes, both he and Zakk
Wylde. When Tom said “What about Jeff,” they said, “Oh, you’ve
got to get him.” I’ve known Jeff for, oh my god, how many years
now? Same with Zakk. It was one of those things where this was
our own dream team for the band we were creating. Even though I
wasn’t going to be in the movie with them, at least my voice
was.
Lee: I want to close this
by looking ahead. What can Jeff Scott Soto fans expect in the
coming year? Will W.E.T. tour, and can we expect any other solo
projects?
Jeff: Well, I’m kind of
tapping a little bit of everything. I don’t think there’s going
to be any new material in 2010. There’s no time. At this time,
there are dates in Europe in January. And there’s talk about
Marcel’s memorial show in Sweden in February. And from there,
doing the next TSO show. So a spring tour for the Night
Castle album from March until May.
From there, there’s discussion
of me going out and doing some dates with W.E.T. and going and
hitting the festivals during the summertime. So I’m pretty much
busy until August when we I plan to take a few weeks off.. In
October, I start rehearsing again for the TSO winter tour.
Lee: It never ends, does
it?
Jeff: Exactly. There’s just
not going to be time. But there’s discussion of doing an album
with Steve Lukather. We keep talking about it. I really want to
get something going on that. The guy’s really tremendous. I’ve
known him over 25 years.
Lee: Awesome. Any idea what
sound you two might go for?
Jeff: I had no idea. Steve
said it’s going to rock and it’s going to have a groove.
Lee: Going back to Marcel,
can we assume that Talisman is no more? I mean, Marcel was more
than just a member, he was pretty much the heart of Talisman,
right?
Jeff: Yeah, that’s one of the
reasons why any future releases … there will be no more with
Talisman. The Talisman name is basically put on the shelf for
life. It would be a bastardization of the name, blasphemous to
go on without him. All the material came from his fingers. There
wasn’t one Talisman song I brought to the table myself.
The whole marriage of that
band was based on him writing the songs and me writing the
lyrics and us finishing it that way. I would look into the
prospect of doing a final tour or a memorial kind of tour to
give a final homage to him, but more so to the fans. Like a
proper farewell tour for the fans.
(note: After this interview
was conducted, a Marcel Jacob tribute concert was announced for
Jan. 30 at the Pub Anchor in Stockholm, Sweden)
Lee: This is one fan that
would definitely look forward to it. It’s sad that Marcel’s no
longer with us, but then again, just look at all the wonderful
music he left this world.
Jeff: Exactly. That’s what I
really want to do for this. We have such a body of work and body
of music I didn’t’ want to see fall by the wayside. I really
enjoy singing a lot of those songs and I don’t want to lose that
part of myself. As long as I’m doing the Jeff Scott Soto band,
I’ll include Talisman material in my set. It’s something I won’t
let go.
http://jeffscottsoto.com/news/
