Back in 2017, five of the most talented, most accomplished, most lauded and most respected musicians/songwriters in the reams of hard rock and metal decided to come together to make the kind of music they loved, in an egoless atmosphere of creative freedom, musical excellence and a whole lotta fun.
Initially created at the urging of drummer Mike Portnoy and keyboard whiz Derek Sherinian, both former members of Dream Theater and also members of many other superlative projects of note, they brought in pals Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (Guns n’ Roses, Asia), Billy Sheehan (David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, The Winery Dogs, also with Portnoy), and drafted veteran vocalist Jeff Scott Soto into what would be called Sons of Apollo.
The quintet’s debut album, Psychotic Symphony was released later that same year, and an extensive world tour followed, that saw the band play a wide array of venues, across pretty much every continent.
Wanting to keep the momentum going after the positive response to the latter stage of their first tour and the critical and popular acclaim from the live CD/DVD Live with the Plovdiv Psychotic Symphony released last year, there was always some chatter going around and doing a follow up to Psychotic Symphony as soon as schedules permitted.
“It was basically an all-around decision towards the end of the tour. Probably not even halfway through it we were already discussing it amongst ourselves and we were already discussing it with the label as well, and we wanted to dive in almost immediately. Why waste time? We had to strike when the iron is hot; we had a lot of press, we had a lot of media attention by this point and of course we’ve got a lot of fans that we were able to build over that period of time,” said vocalist Soto, who has also worked with the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen, Journey and many other projects, and also continues to be one of the featured vocalists in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
“It would be stupid of us to sit back, forget about it for a while and go back to all our other things and then get back to it whenever. We knew as soon as we got past the holiday season at the end of that last tour that we wanted to dive straight back into album number two. And, actually, we’re already talking about album number three. So, it’s something that is always a collective ideal and that’s exactly what we’re following through with.”
MMXX was released on Jan. 13 through Inside Outside Music/Sony and gained immediate traction thanks toe the popularity of three videos released late in 2019 for the songs Desolate July, Fall to Ascend and Goodbye Divinity. As of early March, Sons of Apollo was working its way through Europe, with dates in Russia, Switzerland, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the U.K., before a run through South America in early April. The band hit Toronto and Montreal in the first week of February as part of a short North American jaunt.
In an age where there are record labels who concoct so-called ‘supergroups’ and special projects involving a number of well-known musicians, which produce excellent music on record, but rarely if ever tour, Sons of Apollo have worked hard since the release of Psychotic Symphony to dispel the myth that they are simply another cool, but still stage managed musical agglomeration.
“All across the board on this new tour, we’ve experienced better attendances. I attest this to the fact that I think a lot of people expected this to be just a one off, they expected us to be one and done and that if it worked well, we might do it again, but if it doesn’t we’ll go our separate ways. Especially this tour and this new album, this was the proof in the pudding that we are committed to this and we’re going to follow through with Sons of Apollo. So, whether there’s two people in the audience or 2,000 people, we are committed to making this work and winning over each person in each audience every night,” said Soto.
“We are just so satisfied that people did come too, and they actually came out and they know the songs and they are following the band as a real band now. But we had to go through those trials and tribulations on that first tour, which is what the first song on the album Goodbye Divinity is about. When we first got together, internally we all kind of thought that with this pedigree, with these names, we were going to go out there and people would be clamouring to see us, there’s going to be sold out shows, and we’re going to be in arenas before no time. Hell no, not even close. We were basically humbled by the fact that we had to work for this, and we did work for this.
“For this tour, everything was better, and everything was tighter. We already had the seven months together on the first go round, we already had the travel, the ups and downs of touring, the illnesses, the hellish gigs, the low attendances for some gigs and the amazing attendances at other gigs – all of those factors are what build a band. Now that we have all of that behind us, we were able to take that forward with us for this next situation. We’ve now harnessed everything we had to deal with on the first tour and from the first album, and we were prepared for it on the second one, and we’ve been actually surprised and were able to enjoy it as opposed to going, ‘oh jeez, here we go again, people are not showing up, people are not receptive to the songs, people are not believing this is a real band.’ All of that is in the past.”
Soto gives much of the credit for the band’s ethos to the original inspiration for Sons of Apollo, which was initiated by Portnoy and Sherinian, both former bandmates in Dream Theater, who wanted to construct a real band from the outset, and recruited like-minded musicians who not only fitted the proposed musical style, but also shared the desire to make a true to life touring and recording band.
“That’s exactly what Mike and Derek had in mind for this. And that’s also the big difference between a lot of those other manufactured projects. This was their idea of turning this into a real band, as opposed to it being the idea of a producer or manager or a record company saying, ‘hey, if we take this person and that person and that other person, we might have something here.’ We didn’t go into this thinking or feeling or wanting that whole supergroup vibe,” he said.
“We didn’t want to be superheroes wearing capes, expecting people to love us because of who we are together as one. We went into this thing saying, ‘I think we can make a hell of an album. I think this would make a hell of a band.’ And that’s exactly how we approached it and that’s exactly how we still feel about it.”
MMXX sees the band continuing to present its own brand of hard rock music, with great swaths of progressive music infused into every composition. With inspired and prodigious players such as Portnoy, Sherinian, Sheehan and Bumblefoot, the songs have range, dynamism and complexity, but also groove, feel and passages of instrumentation that are truly and potently evocative. Layered throughout is Soto’s vocal prowess and exceptional ability to come up with melodies to fit the musical infrastructure of the songs.
“Because Mike and I are probably the most busy and the ones with the most on our plate, it was about finding a hole or a window where we can actually get going on the writing process. Luckily, when it comes to the creative end of the actual music and the riffs etc., whatever you want to call that aspect, that was in the hands of Derek and Bumblefoot for the most part. They’re the main ones; they’re either writing the riffs or they’re writing the arrangements overall as to what we’re going to be doing musically,” Soto explained.
“They have bits and bobs they would share with each other. And after doing that for a while they got together with Mike at his studio and picked and chose the strongest ideas that they felt they could build on and made those tracks over at Mike’s place. They spent about a week together just honing and crafting, and then they did the final recording of the music portion. From that, once they give me the basic mapping of where I am supposed to be singing, where my parts come in, that’s when I step in and that’s where I can show what I’ve got.
“I came after they had done the music because as a singer, yes I am also a songwriter, but in this genre of what we’re doing musically, I have no place to sit in the room and say, ‘hey guys, why don’t you put this bat of 7/16 over a Phrygian mode.’ Yeah, I have no place in that. I will leave that to the musicians of this band, who know exactly what to do and how to build this band’s sound. My department, and my forte is melody and lyrics.”
As for lyrical content and themes for MMXX, Soto said he didn’t have to dig too deep to get at a core element or thread running through many of the songs – the state of the world in 2020.
“I don’t want to get too politically charged but it’s hard not to base it on how things are going. I don’t remember, in my lifetime, such a division in our country, such a separation of opinions, such a harsh difference in how people feel about what’s going on in our country, much less the world itself. Between the international situation and how people view us, the religious beliefs and between the wars, between the hatred, just the different levels of separation that seem to have happened over the past four years, more so than any time I can remember. I wanted to encapsulate that into the lyrics without picking one side or the other,” Soto said.
“It’s actually talking about what’s going on, kind of as an observer. I am not attacking anyone, I am not talking sides, I am just showing my opinion of the whole situation itself and how destructive it is. Also, I always write in double entendre, so I always make sure my lyrics don’t have to necessarily pertain to religion or politics or about what’s going on in world affairs. You can actually take one of the lyrics and you can either look at it as something like that or look at is as a relationship between two people. It can be a friendship, or you can relate it to how you feel about your boss or how you feel about your neighbour. Whatever the listener or reader feels that it’s about, that’s what it’s about, breaking out of the paradigm of politics and looking at it from an elevated, human level. It goes into territory where I am kind of on the outside looking in, basically. I’ve stepped out of the room and am observing, looking down on it. The songs talk about all these different things and how the world is changing compared to the world I remember growing up in.”
In terms of the tour in support of MMXX, as stated above it’s already begun, and will continue throughout the spring, with more dates coming in from throughout the world, a fact born out by how many nations Sons of Apollo are already booked to perform in already for 2020.
“I think it starts with the fact that we all have our own careers and our own backgrounds for touring in all these different territories around the world. There is a yearning – I guess people want to see us, they want to see whether we’re doing this or whether we’re doing our other things. But you put us together and they want to see us even more, and they want to see what we can actually pull off together in this situation,” said Soto.
“It’s crazy how when we go to South America, it’s insane how many young people we’re playing in front of compared to the rest of the world. When we go down there with Sons of Apollo, the youngest one in our band is 49 but we have tons of young people in the audience, most are half that age or younger. It’s amazing that the youth down there, they grasp on to what their folks are listening to, they grasp onto everything that was or is considered classic rock, and for them its current. That’s anybody’s goal as a musician is that you will be able to bring in the youth as well the ones your own age, your own peers. So, doing a show and looking out into the audience and seeing all these young people it’s like, what the hell, I feel like I am 22 again. It really pushes you to give them everything you’ve got in every aspect of what we’re doing. Over in Europe, they are not ‘here today, gone later today’ fans as it is more in North America. Here, they may like you, and are into a band, but then quickly move on to another genre or another style of music. Or when the band is trying to experiment and trying to go into other places, they say its not for them and move on. In Europe, they grasp onto you and hold onto you for life. I love that loyalty that comes with being a music fan.”
For more information on the band, their current tour and the MMXX album, visit www.sonsofapollo.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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