{"id":25325,"date":"2013-01-25T07:01:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T12:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=25325"},"modified":"2013-01-25T07:02:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T12:02:21","slug":"tom-keifer-of-cinderella-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2013\/tom-keifer-of-cinderella-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Keifer of Cinderella"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exciting news is arriving this week from Tom Keifer\u2019s camp announcing his first ever solo tour. In this interview I talk to Cinderella\u2019s frontman about his influences and the notion of cultural succession in rock, but also about wider subjects such as artistic freedom and spiritual beliefs. <\/p>\n

Tom Keifer is rightly regarded as one of the best songwriters of his generation. To this day he remains not only a unique singer but also an eloquent composer of vast emotional range. Keifer\u2019s well-documented vocal problems which have put his career on hold for much of the Nineties have been overcome with great determination, which has recently led to the revival of his career. <\/p>\n

We at Hardrock Haven are very excited to learn about Kiefer\u2019s upcoming solo tour. After all, he has always been the not only the frontman, but sole songwriter within his band. Now seems to be the right time to share this previously unpublished interview conducted in June 2011 just a few hours before Cinderella\u2019s performance at Shepherd\u2019s Bush Empire in London \u2013 their first London show in 20 years. <\/p>\n

\"Keifer02\"Alissa Ordabai: Were you ever in a position where you had to choose or compromise between making your music as accessible to an as wide audience as possible, but at the same time expressing your true entire self?<\/p>\n

TK: We were lucky in the sense that we were not. When we signed our first record deal with Polygram Records, they gave us as much freedom as we wanted to do our thing, and we never really had this \u201cYou need to do this in order to have success.\u201d We were never steered that way. So we\u2019ve always done our thing, we\u2019ve always had our freedom to do that, and we were very lucky because some bands don\u2019t. The record company made suggestions: \u201cOh, that\u2019s great,\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s not us,\u201d so nothing has been ever imposed on us. I felt like we\u2019ve always been pretty true to making music that we love and what\u2019s inside of us. <\/p>\n

AO: But you relied heavily on tradition and on the generation that came before you \u2013 Seventies big visionaries like Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi, but at the same time you really captured the spirit of your time. How did you manage to combine tradition and to give a voice to your own generation?<\/p>\n

TK: I guess it starts with a song, and I\u2019ve always written about things that felt real to me. I come from a really heavy blues and roots background. My first exposure to that was through people like Jimmy Page and Keith Richards. They were what I call the second generation blues. They got it from the original place and kind of made it their own thing. I always tell the story that my first exposure to real blues was through a friend of mine who I was in the band with when I was a teenager, and he was a drummer, a few years older than me. He have me BB King\u2019s \u201cLive at the Regal\u201d, and I\u2019ve never heard the real blues, but I\u2019ve heard Jimmy Page, and I was playing blues, even though I didn\u2019t know it was called blues, imitating my rock heroes, and I put the record on, and I listened to it, and I turned to him, and said: \u201cBut he sounds like Jimmy Page!\u201d And he started laughing at me, and said: \u201cNo, actually Jimmy Page sounds like him.\u201d I was probably 16 or 17 then, and that\u2019s when I really got that first realization that heroes have gotten it from somewhere else, and then, of course, I was very curious to go back, and I started digging back into all the roots music, into everything from R\u2019n\u2019B, blues, and gospel. I think it\u2019s good for a musician and a songwriter to go back to do that. Not to just be influenced by your heroes, but to go and look what they liked too, because your vision gets broader and you can interpret in your own way. A lot of people call us a metal band. I guess some of ours stuff borderlines that, but to me we\u2019ve always been a rock n\u2019roll or a blues-based rock band. Not only musically, but lyrically, because our lyrics are about everyday life things. We are not singing about fantasy dragons or something. I am not making fun of that, I am saying that a lot of side that is more on the metal side \u2013 there is a lot of fantasy and stuff, and our lyrics are real day-to-day good times, bad times, love\u2026<\/p>\n

AO: Lust\u2026<\/p>\n

TK: Lust [Laughs], so that\u2019s I think comes from that blues foundation, because that what all roots music was about. It was about real things. They may be singing about different real things, but they were real things.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

AO: Do you think it is easier being a rock musician these days than when you were growing up?<\/p>\n

TK: No. I don\u2019t think so. I think it\u2019s harder as time goes on to have something new. [Laughs]. They try to come up with a unique sound because everything has been done. Trying to be original, I guess, gets harder as time goes on because there has been so much ground covered. And the industry has changed so much. I feel bad for new artists because record companies don\u2019t support them. It\u2019s kind of like you get one shot and there is no artist development because there is no money. Because they have lost so much through the internet, and download, and that kind of thing. They\u2019ve lost billions of dollars. So that affects how the record companies do business and how they look at developing artists, and that\u2019s sad. It\u2019s kind of sad. Because you think the art as a whole is going to suffer from that in the long run.<\/p>\n

AO: And the genre as a whole.<\/p>\n

TK: Yes.<\/p>\n

AO: I have my last question, and it\u2019s a bit goofy, I hope you don\u2019t mind. <\/p>\n

TK: [Laughs]. Well, I\u2019ll tell you after I hear it!<\/p>\n

AO: [Laughs]. OK, deal! If you were granted a true answer to any question in the Universe, what would you ask?<\/p>\n

TK: Wow! [Laughs]. After a 30-second pause: Wow! You can ask any question and you\u2019re gonna get THE answer back?<\/p>\n

AO: A true answer, yes. <\/p>\n

TK: You\u2019ve stumped me. <\/p>\n

AO: A lot of musicians somehow usually ask if there is god, or what happens after you die.<\/p>\n

TK: Well, that\u2019s the first thing that\u2019s come into my mind: \u201cWhat\u2019s next?,\u201d you know?<\/p>\n

AO: What do you think is next?<\/p>\n

TK: Something awesome\u2026 [Smiles].<\/p>\n

AO: We\u2019ll all sit around and jam with Hendrix?<\/p>\n

TK: [Long laugh]. I believe that there is something else. I don\u2019t believe that we just hang here. I think that there is a spirit or an energy in life in each of us that just goes on into something else. I guess what I would want to know if I could have that answer, is \u201cWhat is that? Where is this energy gonna go?\u201d. Because I don\u2019t believe that it\u2019s over when\u2026 I would imagine that it would be the question that most people would have. I would think. I mean, it\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n

AO: \u2026 fundamental. <\/p>\n

\"TomTK: Yeah! \u201cWhere am I heading?\u201d [Laughs]. <\/p>\n

AO: But your music will live on regardless of what happens to your body or your particular soul. You\u2019ve been blessed in this way.<\/p>\n

TK: But you still want to know where your energy is going! [Laughs]. Maybe what we\u2019ve created lives here, but where is the rest of us is going? I\u2019d like to know where the rest of me is going! [Laughs]. That\u2019s a good question. Very good. <\/p>\n

AO: Thank you. And thank you ever so much for your time.<\/p>\n

TK: You are welcome and thank you. <\/p>\n

[Live photos by Alissa Ordabai]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai – Senior Columnist — Exciting news is arriving this week from Tom Keifer\u2019s camp announcing his first ever solo tour. In this interview I talk to Cinderella\u2019s frontman about his influences and […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9052],"tags":[118,203,2774,2604],"class_list":{"0":"post-25325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcint2013","7":"tag-cinderella","8":"tag-interview","9":"tag-london","10":"tag-tom-keifer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}