{"id":69123,"date":"2021-01-10T09:19:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-10T14:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=69123"},"modified":"2022-02-20T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T15:44:47","slug":"interview-with-jeff-scott-soto-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2021\/interview-with-jeff-scott-soto-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Scott Soto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Alexandra Mrozowska
\u2014 Senior Columnist \u2014<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

You can always see a glass half empty or half full, and no one seems to know it better than songwriters. The task they face is, after all, not only expressing their personal feelings and viewpoints in song lyrics but also communicating on the emotional level with their respective audiences. Upon a drastic turn of events happening in the world \u2013 be it 9\/11 or 2020 pandemic \u2013 some contemporary songs tend to focus on reflecting the fear and grimness of the times. Others offer their listeners a chance to escape the reality by creating a safe parallel world and sharing the message of hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swedish-American Melodic Rock ensemble W.E.T. definitely sees a glass half full in that sense on their upcoming album Retransmission<\/em>, the band\u2019s main songwriter Erik M\u00e5rtensson confirming it as he checked in with Hardrock Haven in late 2020. But W.E.T.\u2019s lead singer Jeff Scott Soto claims it\u2019s always been the case with them. \u201cWe always try to be a positive, uplifting entity,\u201d says Soto, a view many of the song lyrics on W.E.T.\u2019s albums echo indeed. With Retransmission <\/em>scheduled to be released on January the 22nd<\/sup>, 2021 via Frontiers Music SRL, we caught up with Jeff Scott Soto again to talk about the album and the creative process behind it. But as the last few months were nothing but dynamic for this singer extraordinaire, we also went to discuss other recent endeavors he was a part of, from his own project Revision <\/em>to the Prog Metal ensemble Octavision to Trans-Siberian Orchestra\u2019s livestream \u2013 and more…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hardrock Haven: In our previous interview in October, you mentioned the new W.E.T. album. Now that it\u2019s coming out in less than two weeks, what do you think it is that makes you and the rest of the guys keep on coming back to W.E.T. again and again for what\u2019s more than a decade now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Well, I have a serious answer and a funny answer (laughs). The funny answer is that we have a contract with Frontiers Records, so that\u2019s what keeps us coming back (laughs). But the serious answer is that if we didn\u2019t enjoy doing what we\u2019re doing together and if we didn\u2019t enjoy making this music together, of course there would be no interest in doing it any further. And every time it is time to do a new W.E.T. album, it\u2019s just a natural process on how we create the music and how everything comes together. The biggest component for W.E.T. is Erik M\u00e5rtensson. He\u2019s become such an incredible engineer and producer that a lot of what you\u2019re hearing is because of him in terms of how the album sounds, in terms of how the overall production comes together… Erik is a huge component \u2013 major component \u2013 in this. As far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019m just a singer for W.E.T. I\u2019m not necessarily a creative force as much as Erik is. And then we \u2013 Robert [S\u00e4ll] and I \u2013 add our contributions, but overall it\u2019s Erik in everything. The recordings, the mixes, the performances… everything. So, again, as long as Erik is interested in doing this, we love making music together and we love working together, so this is why we continue doing these records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: In the beginning, did you actually expect W.E.T. to continue for so long as it does now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Well, it\u2019s the same with anything I do or anything we do. We always go to every single detail we do musically with hopes that it\u2019s gonna be successful enough that people will allow us and want us to continue doing that. So it\u2019s the same as any of my bands \u2013 SOTO or JSS or Talisman. We always have the intention of hoping that our music is resonating with people, that there\u2019s interest to keep us doing this. And that\u2019s exactly the same thing with W.E.T. It\u2019s the fact that people continue to like what we\u2019re doing and that they allow us to grow without changing the sound \u2013 we\u2019re never trying to change the chemistry and the foundation of what people expect from these albums. But we also need to show growth, because then it just starts sounding like the same stuff, over and over and over. So, we find that there\u2019s enough interest for us to continue going, and from there we find the interest to find new ways to make this music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: You\u2019ve just mentioned Talisman, and after the first single off the new W.E.T. album, \u201cBig Boys Don\u2019t Cry\u201d, was out, many listeners pointed out to it having a Talisman-esque riff, or being somewhat a reference to Talisman musically. Do you think they\u2019re right in a sense that the three components \u2013 the bands you came from \u2013 are still present in W.E.T\u2019s music?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Absolutely! And when Erik presents me something that I think sounds or feels too much like Talisman, I take it as a compliment. Number one, because I realize that he was very much influenced by this music and by my band. But also \u2013 because Talisman doesn\u2019t exist at the moment \u2013 it\u2019s also a great thing to be able to do music that follows the same path, the same kind of sound and general direction, and also takes it to another place… For me, I\u2019m proud to be able to do that with W.E.T. because Talisman is not existing at the moment \u2013 it\u2019s not creating any music. So, it\u2019s a kind of a way to create a Talisman sound without Talisman, and for me it\u2019s a beautiful tribute to the body of work that I have done with this amazing band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Do you think after a few albums W.E.T. is more of a band for fans of Talisman, Eclipse and Work Of Art or can it also serve as an introduction to your respective catalogs for people who discover Melodic Rock right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: I think a little bit of both. It\u2019s naturally a little bit of both, because of the influence, because of the fact that you have a member from Talisman in the band, because of the fact you have a member of Work Of Art or Eclipse [in the band]. Of course we\u2019re gonna have these natural influences \u2013 especially with the drummer [Robban B\u00e4ck] who\u2019s a former drummer of Eclipse, and Eclipse\u2019s current lead guitar player [Magnus Henriksson]. You have all these elements that you can hear where each individual one comes from \u2013 these separate bands. But I think at this point we have absolutely developed our own sound with our own fans and we don\u2019t have to worry about trying to just get the fans of the other bands that we\u2019re in. W.E.T. has finally its own legs to stand on and we continue to keep building that audience and that following because we happen to share the same audiences \u2013 of Eclipse, Work Of Art and Talisman. So, it\u2019s kind of a double answer that yes, we do have the same fans and the same following \u2013 but no, we don\u2019t necessarily have to go for the fans of these bands and the fans of Melodic Rock music because we are creating our own fanbase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: As I talked with Erik in November, he mentioned that the pandemic made it obviously less possible to write the new W.E.T. album together. How does this fact reflect on Retransmission<\/em> if you compare it with Rise Up<\/em> and Earthrage<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, again \u2013 we all know where our contributions lie and we let Erik run with the majority of things… It\u2019s like you take the ball and you roll with it. We let him roll with the ball, because we trust his overall vision on this. It has nothing to do with us not having enough creative process. I mean, I\u2019m not co-writing all my lyrics and melodies on the album \u2013 on all the albums. A lot of that is pre-written and comes to me and I just basically have to put my voice on it. And I\u2019m fine with that, because the W.E.T. sound was developed without me and all I\u2019m doing is adding to the W.E.T. sound. My contributions lie on how I deliver the vocals. And if you get another singer doing these amazing songs, they won\u2019t sound the way they sound with me singing them. They wouldn\u2019t sound the same way if somebody else produced them as well… So, it\u2019s a chemistry and a formula that works and we don\u2019t really need to go in there and say, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not writing enough…\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m not creating my own things…\u201d I don\u2019t wanna do that just for the sake of my own ego. I have enough things on my plate and enough things in my life that I get to do these kinds of things with. And I\u2019m happy to kind of step back a little and give somebody else that role to make these decisions and make the call of how and what we\u2019re gonna be doing and when we do it. Of course, I have my say \u2013 if Erik sends me a song where the lyrics and the melodies are already completed, of course I\u2019m not singing it like him. I\u2019m not the same singer and he\u2019s not the same singer. But this is where our characteristics come into the situation \u2013 if somebody else writes the song, you put your own stamp on it and this is how this band sounds like this band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the current situation, I think Erik answered that question based on the fact that he\u2019s the primary songwriter in this and he does work with a lot of other co-writers. He works with a lot of outside writers and people that he does many things with. So the process for the W.E.T. album might have been a little different in terms of the way he\u2019s used to [work], but as far as I\u2019m concerned, I\u2019ve always been doing it this way with him, with Talisman and anybody else that I\u2019m in a band with that\u2019s overseas. Because we have the technology and the tools to create from afar, it\u2019s not like the old days when you had to sit in the same room to write a song together and then you start recording it. I don\u2019t live down the street from the guys in Sweden and they don\u2019t live down the street from me in Los Angeles, so we\u2019ve utilized technology and the tools that we have today to be able to do this anyway. Regarding the songwriting, if Erik is writing with a songwriting partner in Sweden, of course that\u2019s was difficult for him to get together with these guys where he normally does. But again, we know how to adapt to this. It\u2019s not something that\u2019s anything different or new to us. We\u2019re used to recording and creating from afar and we discuss things as you and I are discussing now \u2013 either Skype or messages or e-mails or texting \u2013 and we\u2019re able to get everything done in a professional way without having to always be in the same room together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Still, Erik\u2019s mentioned you\u2019ve been involved in writing some of the lyrics on Retransmission<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, of course. For every album I am \u2013 for some albums, I\u2019m more involved and for some albums, I\u2019m less and again this has nothing to do with, \u201cJeff is not a good enough writer…\u201d or \u201cRobert doesn\u2019t write the riffs the right way…\u201d It has nothing to do with that. When Erik is looking at the overall map of putting an album together, maybe he\u2019s been working with other writers and they came up with songs that don\u2019t work for other artists. And then he\u2019d say, \u201cHey, I remember that song I wrote with this guy or that guy\u201d and all of a sudden he\u2019s presenting us with a song that we didn\u2019t write together but I think would absolutely work for us. And yeah, that\u2019s a process that we utilize as much as possible if there\u2019s a song that he \u2013 or somebody else \u2013 feels would be a great song for us to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Erik has also mentioned that there\u2019s this uplifting vibe to this album even more than it was with the previous ones \u2013 he called it a \u201cparty rock\u201d album at one point. Do you agree and would you say that such an album is what we need in the current situation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: I think more so this album, but I also think in overall we always try to be a positive, uplifting entity. There\u2019s enough of things like I\u2019m doing with Sons Of Apollo and SOTO that kind of emphasize on the darker side of things that are going on in our world and our lives. Of course, that\u2019s necessary as well because I need to emphasize on some of the negative that I could possibly either use as a therapy or somebody else can use it as a therapy to find a positive. But a thing about W.E.T. is that we\u2019re always going into it and trying to make sure that we\u2019re conveying a message of hope and positivity and even sometimes humor. We feel it\u2019s important that W.E.T. is looked upon as something that\u2019s not gonna remind you of the negative that\u2019s going in the world. We\u2019re just gonna try and give you the positive and put a smile on your face \u2013 but also in the meantime give you songs that are easy to sing along to and that you want to sing along to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Definitely. As we talked back in October, you\u2019ve shared your idea of reworking some songs from your career with us here at Hardrock Haven. The material ended up being released digitally under the moniker of SOTO as Revision<\/em> in December. Did you find reworking any of these songs particularly challenging in any way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Not at all. The only thing that was challenging for me was trying to find the way to reinvent the songs \u2013 but give them an emphasis as strongly as I did on the original versions. I didn\u2019t wanna do them in a different way just to do them in a different way. I wanted to hear them in a way that it could still work as strongly as the original \u2013 and sometimes some of these actually came out stronger than the originals as far as I\u2019m concerned. Because when you strip it down and there\u2019s less going on and less ear candy, you can truly focus on the lyrics and you can truly focus on the singing and the melodies. And this was the most important part of redoing these songs, because as far as I\u2019m concerned, a lot of those songs have some beautiful melodies and some beautiful lyrics and messages. A song like \u201cFriend\u201d [originally included on Jeff Scott Soto\u2019s first solo album Love Parade <\/em>released in 1994], for instance, that I wrote for my son when he was six years old. I moved away from California then and we were separated for six months, but then I realized I can\u2019t be without him so I moved back to Los Angeles because I needed to watch my son grow up. That lyric is so powerful to me as a tribute to my son when he was six, and now he\u2019s only thirty two (laughs). And when I sing this song, I can remember every emotion of how I felt when I wrote it, so I put all these emotions into the new version. So it\u2019s something that gave me the chance to reflect \u2013 or re-reflect \u2013 on the things that I\u2019ve done on these original versions of those songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Were there any other songs you previously considered for the album but dropped the idea for whatever reason?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Not really. I mean, there are still a lot of songs that I wrote as the idea of this release was that every song on it had to be something I wrote a hundred percent of, whether it\u2019s music or lyrics \u2013 everything had to be a hundred percent JSS composition. I could\u2019ve easily done a Talisman song or other songs from my life and my career, but the idea of this was that I wanted to take something that\u2019s a hundred percent me where I didn\u2019t have to share the emotion of somebody else in the actual songs, whether it\u2019s the writing or the melodies or whatever. And there were other songs that I could\u2019ve done but these were the ones I really wanted to do. I just wanted to do it \u2013 I had the extra time and I was sitting around the studio and the first one I did was \u201cIf This Is The End\u201d [originally included on Jeff Scott Soto\u2019s solo album Lost In The Translation <\/em>released in 2004]. And I just loved the way it\u2019s just came across so beautifully without having to have all the other layers of instruments and drums and all those things. So that\u2019s basically where it started and I continued from there. And when I looked at the list of songs that qualified for this album, these [were] the ones I chose \u2013 especially the a capellas [\u201cSomebody To Love\u201d, a hidden track on the Eyes\u2019 debut album released in 1990 and \u201cMy Love, My Friend\u201d originally released on the 2005 album World Play <\/em>by Soul SirkUS] that were like maybe one and a half minute or two-minute songs originally and then I actually turned them into songs. That to me was the most rewarding and the most challenging because there was no music \u2013 no reference of music \u2013 before when I wrote these songs. They were built and created as a capellas. And now to actually reveal them as full-bodied songs \u2013 it was amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Do you think you\u2019ll continue this project and revisiting your catalog in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: I don\u2019t have any plans regarding it right now. If it\u2019s something I do, it\u2019ll be something later down the line because I have the time or maybe I\u2019m bored or maybe when I retire from touring completely and I\u2019m just sitting at home recording until I take my last breath \u2013 I don\u2019t know. At this point I have no plans of doing something like this further. It is something I wanted to do while I could. And I\u2019m hoping that the world gets back to normal again so we can get back to the things that we\u2019re normally doing \u2013 in which I won\u2019t really have time to do something like that later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Another album that you were involved in recently is Coexist <\/em>by a Progressive Metal project Octavision, also released towards the end of December. What do you think is so special about this project that actually encouraged you to contribute to it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Well, it was that Billy Sheehan was already a part of this and he basically reached out to me, saying that this guy would possibly like to have me collaborate with him on this album because there\u2019s only two songs that have lyrics \u2013 two songs that will have singing. And it was only because Billy is a dear friend and a colleague that I accepted the offer. It\u2019s because I thought that if Billy\u2019s doing it, then I have to do it; if Billy\u2019s doing it, then it must be that good that I have to do it. But once I met Hovak [Alaverdyan, Octavision\u2019s mastermind] and once I got to discuss the whole project and the premise behind how long he\u2019s been doing this project and how much passion he had behind it, I absolutely wanted to do it because I love what he does musically. It\u2019s Prog music, but in a different way \u2013 it\u2019s different world influences. He\u2019s Armenian, so he\u2019s doing music and he\u2019s using modes and things that I\u2019m not familiar with. He\u2019s doing things that come from another world \u2013 another land \u2013 and I always pride myself in being involved with other influences and other traditional sounds and things that I don\u2019t already normally have in my arsenal. So as far as I\u2019m concerned, it only does me good to add these extra influences… to add these things that I normally don\u2019t have in my life already. It\u2019s only gonna help me later in channeling other things that will make my sound a little more elaborate \u2013 a little more international and worldly itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And in general, how do you think all those side projects and guest appearances \u2013 which in your case have always been plenty, to say the least \u2013 contribute to your overall career?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: From starting my career with Yngwie Malmsteen, again \u2013 not only he\u2019s from Sweden, but also he\u2019s had a huge background in Classical music. I had no knowledge whatsoever of the Swedish music scene outside of ABBA, which you can\u2019t compare that to, and I had no influence whatsoever in Classical music. So starting my career with Yngwie Malmsteen was the first shot in the arm that gave me a new channel and something new to try to contribute to \u2013 and understand that you can\u2019t just do the normal Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll and the whole \u201880s Hair Metal scene in L.A. That would not fit into what Yngwie was doing. So I had to find my own way \u2013 a way based on the music that was presented to me \u2013 and make sure that I fit in, because I was a guy from Los Angeles and I was just an eighteen-year-old guy at that time with no experience and no influence of that world. And so that was the beginning of learning how to channel other aspects of music and other music worlds and start adapting to them. And then I would start working with Italian guys, Japanese guys and all these different cultures that added to my arsenal. And I\u2019d even add something like Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which is also very strongly on the musical theater side \u2013 Broadway side. I don\u2019t have that world in me, but now I have all these different worlds that I can channel from in the different things that I do. And throwing Hovak and Octavision into that is yet another [proof] that even at my age, even in my fifties I\u2019m able to channel something new that I\u2019ve never done in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And speaking of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, there was a TSO livestream in December. What kind of experience was that, especially with the scale of the performance being understandably much smaller and no audience involved in it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, we knew exactly how to pull that off \u2013 I mean, with Trans-Siberian Orchestra every year we go into the production two to three weeks before the tours begin. And this is for the past, I\u2019m gonna say, fourteen years now that I\u2019ve been doing this. When you go into a two- or three-week rehearsal and every time you get onto the microphone you\u2019re expected to perform like you\u2019re performing in front of the audience, you have to get that comfort zone… You can practice and practice and practice, just sing the songs and read the lyrics. But when you get in front of an audience, if you\u2019re not believing it \u2013 if you\u2019re not showing that you believe every word you\u2019re singing or every note you\u2019re playing… It\u2019s a very visual thing, it\u2019s like a musical theater Broadway thing \u2013 so you have to perform at rehearsals the same way as there are people in the audience. That\u2019s the only way to channel every nuance of those vocals and that story. So, as far as we\u2019re concerned, we\u2019re used to that. We\u2019re used to performing every single detail without an audience before we get to an audience, so it was no difference for us as far as just having cameras and having to look around and see cameras and staff people around you. As far as I\u2019m concerned, that was our audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: You\u2019ve mentioned TSO stories again, and when discussing this aspect in our previous interview, you\u2019ve stated they\u2019re what keeps people interested in the TSO experience year after year. These stories obviously involve different characters. As your experience with TSO characters is really diverse, have you ever found it challenging to adopt emotionally to the character to get into it and become convincing when singing a specific part?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Absolutely. It\u2019s one of the things Paul O\u2019Neill [the founder of Trans-Siberian Orchestra] taught me. Again, I didn\u2019t have this coming into TSO. I didn\u2019t have any musical theater experience \u2013 or even interest. And one of the things Paul O\u2019Neill taught me is how to emote and how to find that emotion… what to think about and what to put yourself \u2013 your mind and your placement \u2013 to before you sing those songs. So of course, when you\u2019re doing it, in the general sense of doing it \u2013 you\u2019re singing the song and emoting those emotions. You\u2019re finding a place to actually bring those songs so they sound believable, so you sound and you look like the character of the songs that you\u2019re singing. But sometimes \u2013 and it\u2019s happened to all of us on those tours \u2013 things happen in life, emotional things, personal things… and they can happen during the tour. There were times when I\u2019ve lost somebody close to me, or a family member \u2013 there are certain parts and certain lyrics that actually do make you feel what you\u2019re actually feeling outside of singing those songs. So you go onstage and all of a sudden a new emotion comes out. I\u2019ve seen somebody going through an emotional, personal time and they go onstage and not only do they sing the hell out of the song but you see tears in their face. That\u2019s when you know that means as much to you at that moment as it means to somebody else in the audience who\u2019s hearing those songs and reflecting that to their own lives. So again, that\u2019s something I had to learn how to do, how to channel that. But now life is imitating art and art is imitating life when you get out there and you\u2019re dealing with a personal loss, and that lyric comes out in a different way that you\u2019ve ever sung it before. That\u2019s when you know you\u2019ve knocked it out of the ballpark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And how did the same process look like with a TSO character that was probably the most detached one from your life experiences \u2013 I mean, Mephistopheles in the live rendition of Beethoven\u2019s Last Night<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, that was fun. Jon Oliva and I had a lot of conversations about this, because Jon sang the original versions on the album and he has a very sinister, menacing voice. And we talked a lot about how to dig into that character, because I\u2019m basically the devil. So it was a lot of fun. Everybody loves playing the bad guy. If I had to play a good guy \u2013 \u201cAhh, that\u2019s so boring, I wanna be the bad guy\u201d. And I was able to really throw myself into channeling myself as I was the devil and singing those songs. It was a lot of fun doing that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: In the past, artists were seen as distant figures so to speak. Do you think it\u2019s better these days that fans have almost direct contact with their favorite artists via social media, chats and so on, or is it more like in SOTO\u2019s song \u201cCyber Masquerade\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, it\u2019s a necessary evil, unfortunately. I do enjoy certain parts of the direct contact and social media and things, but then there\u2019s [the fact] that I grew up in the world when there still was mystique. When we did interviews such as this, they would be done on a phone and they wouldn\u2019t come up for two or three months later because by the time they\u2019re transcribed, by the time they go to print with everything being done on magazines… you know. So there was a mystique with the audience that\u2019s completely gone now. You know everything right away. An interview you do today comes out maybe an hour or two hours later. And there was a certain level of trying to guess more about the artist, what they do and how they do it, and I miss that. You can\u2019t have that anymore, because everything\u2019s so immediate now. But on the other hand, there\u2019s other parts to that which are great, because if you have something you wanna say, you know you can get it out there immediately and it\u2019s not old news by the time people hear and see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Speaking of this immediacy, it\u2019s become a norm these days for music fans to suggest different ideas to their idols, and one of such ideas from the fans was, for instance, for you to record a duet album with Joe Lynn Turner. If you were to consider a duet album sometime in the future, who would you like to share the microphone with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Oh boy, there\u2019s a huge list of people that I would wanna do that with. And to be honest with you, there are talks \u2013 there have been talks \u2013 for many years about doing something like that. One of my dearest friends who I love like a brother is Johnny Gioeli [Hardline, Axel Rudi Pell, Crush 40], and we\u2019ve been toying around with the idea of doing kind of like the Three Tenors kind of thing \u2013 finding the third singer we both mutually respect and love, and do something like that. And I think I would love to do that with Johnny and another [singer]. I have a list of personal favorites, of singers that I would like to use, but it would have to be someone we both agreed on. And I think this will eventually happen because I love Johnny\u2019s voice and I think we could come up with something that we agree on musically. It would be so much fun, but it would also be very good. So that\u2019s an easy answer. I would love to do something with Joe Lynn Turner too; he\u2019s another dear friend that I absolutely love and respect, so I never know. But I\u2019m just keeping all these options open and I\u2019m just blessed that I have a career where people wanna see me continue singing and they wanna see me dueting with other people that I love and respect. So I couldn\u2019t be happier than I have this side of my life where I just get to continue doing what I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: And as a honorable mention \u2013 a kind of bonus \u2013 among all the other things you\u2019ve done in 2020 is your somewhat underrated involvement in True Rockstars Don\u2019t Hate and the song \u201cBefore Too Late\u201d written and recorded together with the keyboard player Todd Waites, Bill Leverty of FireHouse on guitar, Wagner Gracciano on bass and Guillermo Santana on drums…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: I met Todd in 2006 when I was in Journey. He was a friend of Rick Allen\u2019s [Def Leppard], because they share the same… I guess, affliction, but I don\u2019t wanna call it affliction, because he\u2019s turned his handicap of only having one arm into something that\u2019s amazing \u2013 to be a keyboard player. And I met him there, because obviously he was friends with Rick Allen who\u2019s also a person living and performing as a working musician with one arm. We\u2019ve never worked together until that point, and he brought me onto this thing because I really love the song and he was very influential in the lyric theme. He didn\u2019t have lyrics for me, he\u2019s just said \u201cI want it to be about this [bullying], and I want to be very positive and uplifting\u201d \u2013 as well as, you know, what we\u2019ve been talking about with W.E.T. And it was just a pleasure to finally get to work with him and get this done finally after talking for so many years of possibly doing something together. And of course, it\u2019s difficult to get every single thing out there on the level that you wanted to, but you know \u2013 baby steps, you get your stuff out there, more people know about you and you start building your repertoire from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardrock Haven: Exactly. We\u2019re running out of time at this point, so before we wrap it up \u2013 what does the future hold in store for you and can your fans expect 2021 to be as active a year for you as 2020 was, regardless of what happened and will happen to live music industry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Scott Soto: Yeah, I haven\u2019t really planned anything for 2021, because I was hoping that we would have a little more insight to be able to get back to work. It\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s gonna be a little longer, so I will start looking into other projects and things. But on the other hand, I also have to be careful that I don\u2019t give too much Jeff Scott Soto overload, because I need people to be interested in me for a long time to come and I don\u2019t want them to get sick of me (laughs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit Jeff Scott Soto online: http:\/\/www.jeffscottsoto.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Mrozowska\u2014 Senior Columnist \u2014 You can always see a glass half empty or half full, and no one seems to know it better than songwriters. The task they face is, after all, not […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":69126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[203,185,2428,13727,11349,15146,3755],"class_list":{"0":"post-69123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews-recent","8":"tag-interview","9":"tag-jeff-scott-soto","10":"tag-solo","11":"tag-sons-of-apollo","12":"tag-soto","13":"tag-trans-siberian-orchestra-2","14":"tag-w-e-t"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69123","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=69123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}