by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
“It’s complicated” might be one of the best phrases ever coined if you don’t want to delve into the topic or explain too much about a certain issue. And that’s a situation which, everyone is ready to admit, happens more often than not… “Complicated” was also a key word for yet another conversation Hardrock Haven has recently had with one of the busiest artists on the planet, Jeff Scott Soto. It’s the title of his new solo album – the eighth one overall – and, as he rightfully pointed out, perhaps the best term to shortly describe his trademark musical versatility. But there’s even more to that. From performing and touring in post-lockdown reality of what everyone hopes to be the end of the pandemic to the current situation in Ukraine and the society dominated by cancel culture and political correctness, there’s certain complicatedness to the entire musical landscape in mid-2022. And even an attempt to look back on JSS’ early days leaves us with a cultural heritage of a New York-born Angeleno which remains slightly complicated but nevertheless fascinating. Exactly like almost four decades of Jeff Scott Soto’s musical career…
Hardrock Haven: Your new solo album Complicated is to be released on May the 6th on Frontiers Music SRL, but before we get to talk about it, let’s try to pick up where we left off… The last time we talked was in January 2021, when the world was still very much in lockdown. Now that you have returned to the live stage and performed quite a few times, how does it feel to be back? Has anything changed for the audience, or in the way you personally approach things?
Jeff Scott Soto: Nothing’s really changed. I mean, it’s basically something you take for granted when you’re doing it for so long and so freely, and so effortlessly for so many decades now. When you wanna do a show or go for a tour, you just go ahead with it. And to be grounded for so long, obviously you realize how much you miss the realities, how much you miss your life, how much you miss everything what seemed the so-called “normal.” And yeah, it’s not really quite normal yet, but it’s slowly getting there. [It’s] the same way it took us months to get used to wearing masks and locking down and trying to be safe, it’s gonna take the same amount of time to get used to getting back up there and feeling safe again. But, to be honest with you, I think everybody’s pretty much of the same mentality of, “It’s been long enough and it’s time to get back to work and it’s time to get back to fun.”
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. You’re one of the pioneers when it comes to making music remotely, whereas some artists utilized it for the first time only during the pandemic. So just hypothetically, if such a situation with the virus happened in the ‘80s or in the ‘90s, how do you think the music business would cope with that, without the technology that kept it going somewhat for the last two years?
Jeff Scott Soto: Oh yeah, that’s a great question. It absolutely would have been horrendous… would have been way worse by so many means for so many. Because, of course, we rely on technology for the sake of staying busy and staying creative… All the collaborations that happened with all those quarantine videos and covers… I personally did more in the studio than I ever would’ve done or than I ever would’ve had the time to do – or even the interest to do – because of the pandemic. But without those means, without the technology and the means to be able to do these things together while we’re apart from each other, there would have been a lot more mental issues and there would have been a lot more kind of retirements and removing… People would have actually drop away from this business, I think, a lot more than [now] if not for the allowance of being able to continue doing what we do… even from home or the other side of a laptop.
Hardrock Haven: And now that every artist’s dealing with some unfinished business obviously, in your case it’s the unfinished Sons of Apollo tour postponed since 2020. Are there plans to finish it this year?
Jeff Scott Soto: So far, at the moment, we only have the South America portion booked. We haven’t looked into the European one yet, as things continue to take them a while to get back to normal in terms of mandates and protocols… but also, we have to deal with this whole thing going on in Ukraine, and it’s concerning for a lot of bands to be travelling in Europe, especially Eastern Europe right now. And we did have a lot of shows in Eastern Europe – we had shows in Russia and we had shows in Ukraine… So I think at this point it’s still on a holding pattern for the European side of things, but we’re watching everything as it goes… The main thing [is], we have to also consider what you said, a lot of people are going back to making up dates and making up a lot of cancelled or postponed items. So there’s gonna be a massive traffic jam of too many bands and too many artists and too many people trying to make up the same dates… and between the fact that people just don’t have that kind of money to do everything all at once, also the availability and the opening windows of certain venues, it’s best for us to wait and to do it when it’s right and when the time is working for everybody that’s involved, between our band and our camp.
Hardrock Haven: Let’s focus on your upcoming solo album then and maybe let’s start from the album title – which in your case is never accidental, I guess…
Jeff Scott Soto: Right [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: So, what’s so complicated? Why is complicated the key word of sorts?
Jeff Scott Soto: As you’ve said, I always have reasons for naming the albums and naming certain things for certain reasons or themes. And this particular one, it’s more funny than it is in-depth or deep. When I was doing the interviews for the Duets album [The Duets Collection, Vol. 1, 2021] last year, at the end of one of the interviews one of the journalists basically said, “So, Jeff, if I had to tell somebody who knows nothing about Jeff Scott Soto, knows nothing about your voice and your music, and I wanted to introduce them to you, what would be the best way to describe you as an artist, as a performer…? You know, are you a rock singer, are you a metal singer, are you a pop singer…? What’s the best way…?” And I said, “It’s complicated, you know…” Being a student of a band like Queen all my life, for instance, there’s no general direction that Queen would actually give you or send you. I’m so involved and so influenced by so much of what they did that it’s impossible to say, I like only the rock side of Queen or the pop side of Queen, or the disco [side], or the funk, or the opera, or the blues or the jazz… There’s so many categories that they played and they were existing under. And I feel the same way as an artist – I want to be all of the above. I want to be more complicated in terms of trying to pinpoint me as a kind of artist that most people want to [categorize]. You know, you generally get stereotyped or typecast as the kind of artist that people wanna hear and see you as. And for me, it’s complicated to answer that. And I like the way that’s stuck. And I remember thinking, “That’s a great way to describe me and it would be a great way to describe my music, my career… It’s just complicated.” I just thought it was a great way to kind of plant that seed and remind the people that I’m not just a one-trick pony.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. So, Complicated has a clear Talisman vibe to it, musically. Was it deliberate, something you agreed upon, or maybe it’s the influence of [the late Talisman founder, songwriter and bassist] Marcel Jacob Alessandro [Del Vecchio, the album’s co-writer and producer] can’t help but somehow utilize in his songwriting, especially when you two work together?
Jeff Scott Soto: It’s a combination of both, to be honest. On Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) [2020] that we did together, Alessandro decided to write the songs based on what he loves about my career as the whole. He took a lot of different facets, a lot of portions of my life and my career to create those songs. On this particular one, we had a conversation that he wanted to do the same thing – but he wanted to be a little more focused on one of the bands that’s kind of missing in my life in terms of direction and style and sound, and that is Talisman. If Talisman still existed in this day and age, it would be silly for me to make music that sounds like it could be Talisman music. But because I’m not doing that now and currently Talisman is dormant and we’re not playing or discussing any new material, it makes more sense to tap into that missing element of what I’m not doing currently in my career and in my releases. It’s a very important one as well – it was an important one for Alessandro and clearly, it’s an important one for my personal career and my own body of work. So I was happy to tap more into the Talisman kind of style. But as you said – yes, Alessandro had the same experience of working with Marcel as I had [Marcel Jacob was a producer of the first Edge of Forever album Feeding the Fire back in 2004 and Alessandro considers Jacob his mentor]. So, naturally, he’s influenced by the stuff, he knows how to write the stuff… I could call Alessandro tomorrow and say, “Let’s write a Talisman album,” and he would know exactly what to do. And that’s one of the reasons that we tapped [into that]. We decided to really generalize the direction of Complicated to more of a Talisman vibe and feel.
Hardrock Haven: And as far as the particular songs on the album are concerned, you seem not to like discussing particular inspirations behind your song lyrics, often claiming everyone should interpret them in their own way…
Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah. In general, I don’t mind explaining what the song or lyric means, but for the most part, as you said… I’ve said it many a time that I like to write in double entendre because it gives a song a little more interesting meaning, especially for the person listening to [it] or reading the lyrics. It’s the same thing as reading a book versus watching the movie. When you’re reading a book, it may take you maybe a week or two weeks up to finish it, depending on the size of the book, and you’re really absorbed by the characters ‘cause you don’t have faces. You don’t have images of what these people look like, based on a director or a screen- or playwriter, or a casting director rather. When you see a movie and it’s two hours later, you’re done with that particular story and it’s all mapped up for you. You don’t have to use your own imagination, because it’s all displayed for you. I like the fact that people can use their own imagination for lyrics and for songs, and for meanings of themes, because for me personally it just makes it more interesting. It makes it more interesting for you to think what the song is about, and it could be about something else – it could be about several things. And to me, that’s way more exciting than just writing a lyric that’s black-and-white and you know exactly what it’s about. There’s nothing wrong with that either, but in general, at my age now and with the amount of things that I’ve done, I find it more interesting under these terms and these guidelines.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. The new album has been promoted as being your best since Damage Control [2012], which was very personal and very honest. Did you approach the songwriting process for Complicated from the same angle as it was with Damage Control?
Jeff Scott Soto: I think the comparison to Damage Control was made based on [that] Damage Control was an all-round JSS album. It had a lot of different influences of what I have done to that point, and things that I was going to be doing into the future at that point. And I think the same thing can be said for Complicated, because it’s setting a kind of a memory level of what I’ve already done but it’s doing it in a different way. It’s got a different flavor, a different kind of contemporary feel to it even though it sounds like classic rock. And I think that’s one of the reasons why it was compared to Damage Control in terms of just having that variety and certain amounts of different things that you can really tap into my career as opposed to… well, you know, my [album] Beautiful Mess [2009] for instance. When I did it, I really wanted to tap into another direction completely and I knew my general fans were not gonna accept it and like it, but for the most part I did it for me. Damage Control was more for the fans, and that’s who I think Complicated is more for.
Hardrock Haven: Some of the songs on Complicated seem to be a bit nostalgic, like “Back to the Beginning” for example. So if you were indeed taken back to your beginnings and able to pass on some helpful advice to your younger self – perhaps at the point of recording with Yngwie Malmsteen for the first time – what would you say?
Jeff Scott Soto: I think I would’ve done everything the same way I did then. As you learn the business, as you’re growing into business and you start getting more opportunities and a name for yourself… for me, the key thing has always been honesty and basically just to stay humble, just to stay as you were when you started in this. Because it’s so easy to get jaded and to be guided away from your natural, normal self when people start praising you… You’re getting popular and you’re getting a lot of money thrown your way, you’re getting a lot of girls and interest from fans – and it’s a natural thing that can really start digging into your head and make you feel like you’re something more special than you actually are. And for me, it’s always been about keeping your head down and keeping focus on the music, because that’s the only way you can truly make it in business… It’s treating everybody fairly and just being a good person. And that’s something I always strive for – from day one – and it’s something I strive for now. Doesn’t matter what level of success I’ve had or felt or been able to experience… for me, the majority of why I do this is because I love music so much. And it has nothing to do with the rewards and all the glamour. That’s all great, but that goes away. That can come and go. The music itself will always be there for you, regardless of whether people are buying it or their interest in you. And that for me has always been the biggest focus. Just to stay true to everything you’re doing – always.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely! So, in some of the songs on Complicated, there are some slight references to the theme of the previous album Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) – like in “Until I See You Again”. Would you say that the new album is a continuation of a previous one not only in terms of people involved, but also ideas and inspirations?
Jeff Scott Soto: I absolutely feel that and I’m glad when people actually see that or hear that and notice – because if it’s an intention and they’re not getting that, they’re not getting what I’m trying to go for overall… then it’s difficult to keep doing things behind people’s back and trying to surprise them if they’re not catching on. So I’m glad when people like yourself notice that – that this is a continuation and I wanted this album to be an extension [of the previous one]. I don’t really necessarily need to experiment or try new things or reinvent myself, all that stuff… At this point of my career, my life and my age I don’t think I necessarily need to do any of that anymore. I’ve established who I am and what I wanna be, and now it’s all about keeping that going and solidifying everything I’ve done to this point.
Hardrock Haven: And do you think that when it comes to your solo work, your songwriting partnership with Alessandro [Del Vecchio] and the line-up behind the last two albums will continue further into the future?
Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, and that’s really a decision that I make with Frontiers [Music SRL] and that I make with any label. You know, we go over the demographics, we go over the numbers, we go over the interests – how many people are truly interested in this new sound and the new versions of what we’re doing on current releases. If they agree and they feel it was successful in terms of sales, or even in terms of acceptance, that’s something that continues naturally. And it’s something I wouldn’t change. It’s the old cliché – if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. And right now it seems like it’s all fixed. It seems like it’s a great thing we’re doing, and I’m not about to go in and change things if the label are happy and the fans are happy. And I absolutely love working with Alessandro – he gets me, he knows me, he knows what to get out of me… When I’m putting that kind of trust in somebody to take over the writing of my albums and the production of my albums, it’s important that I trust them the way I trust him.
Hardrock Haven: And speaking about continuation of successful collaborations, when it comes to the music videos you’ve been working with a Brazilian director Thiago Kiss for quite a long time. What do you think is so striking and so convincing about his style and visuals that you continue to work with him on your next videos?
Jeff Scott Soto: Well, what I love about work with Thiago is that he’s a filmmaker. He’s not a video guy at all – not a music video guy. He’s a filmmaker and he’s also a film teacher, so he does courses and classes for up-and-coming filmmakers. He’s very hands-on with technology and the latest cameras and all that stuff, but the most important part is, he’s not getting rich from any of these videos ‘cause my video budget is so tiny and it’s so easy to spend the money in one place and make a kind of a really terrible video. And he’s such a good friend… He sees it as an opportunity to not only grow as a filmmaker himself, but he’s helping me out. And he also has students that he brings in for the shoots and for the editing, so it’s kind of like he’s letting them be the apprentices to what he’s all about. It’s kind of an all-around masterclass for everybody. He gets to work for me, because he’s a dear friend, but he also gets to create things that he has visuals and visions of – that he wouldn’t necessarily get to do unless he’s putting it out on his own money. So it’s a great win-win for everybody in terms of what I get out of it as well.
Hardrock Haven: I guess a lot of your fans would say that the videos to the singles off The Duet Collection, Vol. 1 album released last year were particularly powerful visually, especially “Coming Home” with Deen Castronovo. Do you think that it’s unfortunately becoming even more accurate now with the war in Ukraine, and especially the situation of war refugees, all the grief and anticipating freedom at the end of the war? Do you think a music video can become a vehicle of an indirect social and political commentary?
Jeff Scott Soto: Well, at this point it’s so difficult to say anything anymore. Especially artists nowadays – you know, if you try to be vocal just as a human being, everybody starts… they start attacking you and going, “Oh, you’re a singer. Stick to this. Don’t talk about politics. Don’t talk about world events.” It’s kind of strange to be put in that category just because we do what we do for a living – that we’re also not supposed to have a voice and that we’re just supposed to record our music, sing our songs, and not have a mind and not have an opinion on anything. And it’s turned into more and more of that – that every time I say, or anybody I see say something, we get attacked for our views. It’s gotten out of hand and I truly feel like the world needs a reset button, because we have to stop all this idealism of… Just because we have a voice, just the same as a regular Joe or anybody out there, let’s talk about anything. Especially when you do your research, it’s ridiculous that we’re told we have to now shut up about it or we start losing fans. And so I’m trying to offer my own personal thoughts and opinions without biasing them or pissing somebody off and make them say, “Ahh, I’ll burn all your records now, because I don’t agree with your political views.” I think that’s silly. I don’t have to agree with my fans’ political views but it doesn’t mean I don’t want them as fans. So, in general I’m trying my best to stay away from saying too much about how I feel or my personal opinion on things, because for the most part, if someone doesn’t agree with them, all they would do is attack you, saying, “I don’t even care about your political beliefs and decisions,” whereas somebody who does agree with them will say, “Right on, Jeff! Go get them!” and it’s no winner in the situation, to be honest [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: Right… And what do you think in general about cancel culture, which has a lot to do with what you’re speaking about, and especially cancel culture in relation to artists?
Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, I think in general cancel culture is that for some things, it should exist. I mean, because clearly there’ve been a lot of things in history that people have gotten away with, from the whole #MeToo movement to a lot of racial injustice, et cetera. But in the past few years, it’s gotten to the point where they’re equating almost everything to all of these general things that have been going on lately. Every single thing is linked to the same concepts and the same ideals, and that’s just like… Come on, if you cancel everything, there’s no history left. You have to keep things intact – otherwise you have nothing to learn from. If you cancel it, then you don’t have anything in the future to actually remember why it was so bad or why it was so good. You have to find your own decisions and move on in life based on things that have already existed in [it]. But to cancel it completely, it’s like erasing history. You can’t erase history. It happened, and you learn from it and you move on from it.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. So speaking about that, you’re an artist who collaborated with a lot of artists of different origin, including Russian musicians in RTFact. You also performed both in Russia and Ukraine not so long ago. With the war going on right now, what do you think about people cancelling Russian culture and erasing it from history because of the evils of war? Do you think it’s what should be done, or maybe art and music and culture should unite people even more now?
Jeff Scott Soto: I’m all about uniting and I’m never about dividing. So, with everything that’s said in the second part of your question is exactly how I feel. I’m all about [it], especially when there’s a conflict and especially when there’s division or [people] not getting along and not agreeing. To me, music is and has always been a kind of an equalizer. Music is the one that brings people together and it keeps people together. And hopefully, music will play a stronger part now when it’s really necessary – especially once this conflict is over. And I’m hoping and praying that it’s over soon, because we can’t continue seeing this. It really just affects everyone and it affects everyone around the world, because everyone’s connected to somebody on that side somehow, whether it’s friends, or family, or friends of family et cetera. And obviously, we’re all concerned – we’re also concerned for the neighboring countries… All across the board, everyone is affected. So clearly, I wanna see this [done] over with and I’d love to see this with a positive outcome and as you said, music can be the bonding thing, the glue that kind of gets us back together – not divided anymore and not separating anymore but actually coming together as one.
Hardrock Haven: Hopefully. And yet about all these collaborations and different cultures you’ve been adding to your arsenal throughout the years… The last time we talked, you’ve cited your tenure as Yngwie Malmsteen’s singer as particularly eye-opening. But do you think the biographical fact of you moving all the way from Brooklyn, NY to Los Angeles when you were just a kid also made some kind of impact on your future life as an artist?
Jeff Scott Soto: I think it would have taken a different course if I remained in New York and grew up there. But obviously, living in LA I was so influenced by so many things in LA, and especially the musicians – the circles of people that I hung out with, the bands that I got to see as they were coming out of the [Sunset] Strip and the LA circuit… It’s funny, because being from New York, I still feel more that I’m from LA – especially with the music scene. When I think of the [East Coast] bands… you know, everything from Dream Theater to Anthrax and Twisted Sister and all those bands… these are the artists I never got to actually be close to, as I was establishing myself and getting older. There truly was a separation between New York and LA and the East Coast/West Coast thing, and almost a competition between the East and West in terms of how they looked and how they played, and the ideas of image versus music and attitude… There was such a different mentality overall. LA was more about the visuals, more about the image, and New York was more about the attitude… and I think there was more realism in the New York presentation of metal music, especially early on. So I didn’t have any connection to that, and it’s funny now that thirty some-odd years later – almost forty years later – I’m finally kind of brothers in arms with my New York or my East Coast side of things [laughs]. Even Saigon Kick was from the East Coast and I’m doing so many shows now with my buddy Jason Bieler but he was brought up in such a different way and [had a] different mentality of playing in bands that it’s funny to actually share that difference and those differences now. And now that I’m actually able to look into everything that I was able to do and everything that influenced me, now I can add what influenced them and I guess that’s just one extra arsenal in my whole career and my whole being as an artist.
And also, the majority of my career has been abroad in terms of people that I’ve worked with and the sounds and even the music that I was able to create – especially early on. I was very influenced by the whole European culture in terms of music and how they approached music, compared to the US. And maybe that’s partially why I do have a stronger hold of my career and a stronger fanbase abroad than I do in my own backyard, here in the US. There was a certain embracing that came about, starting my career with someone like Yngwie Malmsteen, and truly tapping into the way Europeans approach music and metal especially, and everything that they were doing – compared to the way that I was trying to approach it after I was no longer with Yngwie. I realized just how influential and how important that European reference and influence was for me when I was moving forward and moving on with my own career and life. So from that, I think it was a valuable tool that I needed in moving forward, because I kind of got a different perspective of things than I normally would have gotten, had I made it with an American band from the early stages of my career.
Hardrock Haven: So, looking forward, what does the future hold in store for Jeff Scott Soto right now, once the new album is out?
Jeff Scott Soto: Taking it day by day, one day at a time – there’s no hurry to do anything in particular. The one thing I’m absolutely cutting down on is touring itself. I’m not really interested in going out and touring for six weeks or two months at a time anymore, unless it’s a big demand and unless it makes sense, both financially and for the amount of people that wanna see it and will attend. Then, I would actually go for a tour. But now, I’m more about appearances and quick rounds and you-go-in-and-you-go-out kind of situation, because I’m just not built for six weeks on the road, sleeping in really terrible conditions and my voice not getting a proper rest and be strong enough and willing to work [laughs] as I want it too. At this point, I really wanna focus more on quality than quantity.
Hardrock Haven: And is there anything you’d like to add in the end?
Jeff Scott Soto: Well, the one thing I wanna add is how I love a lot of questions – a lot of your inquiries. I love when I get to do something like this with somebody who’s got the kind of questions that you’re asking because I think it’s a little more interesting than just talking about “me, me, me…” and “I, I, I…,” you know… [laughs] So I thank you for taking the time to research on what you’re gonna ask and finding more interesting things that kind of break up the monotony of talking about the obvious things… about what this song means or who would be my dream artist to work with. I mean, it seems cliché at this point, but this is the majority of what I’m dealing with when I’m doing interviews…
Hardrock Haven: You’re just too kind! Thank you so much!
Jeff Scott Soto: You’re very welcome. Thank you!
Photo credits: Lexie Boezeman Cataldo
Visit Jeff Scott Soto online: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
Check out new singles off JSS’ upcoming album Complicated:
“Love is the Revolution”
“Last to Know” ft. Spektra
