One of the most versatile and recognizable voices in rock music today, the prodigiously talented, prolific and highly productive American vocalist/songwriter Jeff Scott Soto is using his time in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic to great effect, as he continues to create, while also promoting the release of his new solo album, Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) which came out recently on Frontiers Records.
Soto fit in the writing and recording of this, his seventh solo album since 1994 in between his other studio projects and guest appearances, including his annual Trans-Siberian Orchestra shows as well as prepping for Sons of Apollo tour dates.
“The recording of it was done way before the pandemic hit. I was done with all my vocals by January. I wrote all the lyrics and got all my melodies structured while I was on the last Trans-Siberian Orchestra tour. That way, I could actually knock out all the vocals by January before we started all the rehearsals and getting ready for the Sons of Apollo tour. So, everything was done, as far as I was concerned,” he said.
“The only positive I got from Covid and from the lockdown is that I felt I was a bit rushed in getting my vocals done for this album, because I only had such a small window to get it down. So, I was able to come back and revisit a bunch of stuff and redo a few things. I was happy that I had that luxury of extra time to do it.”
Soto perhaps is best known for his work in the hard rock and metal world, starting with his time in Yngwie Malmsteen’s band in the late 1980s, on through literally dozens of impactful guest vocal/songwriting appearances, to his current work with W.E.T. and the aforementioned Sons of Apollo (alongside Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan, Derek Sherinian and Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal) and the TSO.
His solo work often incorporates other influences and musical lessons learned from his dynamically broad career and pedigree.
“We, to be honest, being an avid and extreme Queen fan was always both a blessing and a curse for me because a band like Queen, they made artists feel like they wanted to do anything and everything and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. Clearly, an artist or a band does everything they can to establish their unique sound and brand and get out there and find their audience,” Soto said.
“Unfortunately, not every band can be a Queen, where they can tap into so many different influences and audiences and so many different sounds. As much as it’s a blessing to be influenced by such a great band with so many different genres and sounds and styles, it was also a curse because it made me want to do so much different music and so many different styles with my solo records.
“So, people ask, what is Jeff Scott Soto? Is he a metal guy? Is he a hard rock guy? Is he a pop guy or an R&B guy? Yes – all of the above. So, coming from that mindset all I have to do is listen to a piece of music and I automatically put myself into that mode. I don’t have to say, ‘that doesn’t sound R&B, that doesn’t sound rock.’ To me, if it’s a good song, I want to be a part of it, because my DNA taps into so many different styles of music; I really want to do it all. And that’s what absolutely differentiates the different sounds, styles and genres. I can just into all of them without sounding like I am faking it.”
Soto admitted that he has deliberately taken advantage of all the unique musical opportunities he has had to work with different people, sing and write in a host of different styles and genres, as he’s already discussed, and treated it as an informal music school, soaking up ‘lessons’ with each new creative road he embarks upon, whether it’s just as a guest artist or a full-fledged band member.
“One of the things I absolutely love about being a workaholic is I get to tap into so many different resources and so many different things that challenge me. Even when I started working with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I had never been a Broadway or musical theatre kind of person. I didn’t ever think I would fit into that mould. It was only that I was influenced by so many of the bands that TSO is influenced by that my voice and my characteristics worked for them. And then the other part, the whole stage and musical theatre part, had to grow from there,” he explained.
“Now I can take that experience and add it to the other things I am working on. I never had that in my repertoire before. Now I can take a theatrical outlook and put it into something like Sons of Apollo or put it into something like the current video for Without You from Wide Awake. It’s very theatrical musically and the way I even sing it, I probably wouldn’t have a lot of the approach I have now without something like the TSO. And it’s the same thing with Sons of Apollo. I had never been known as a prog guy. But now that I have delved into that world, I can now take that experience and work it into something else that I normally wouldn’t have had that background for.
“For this new album, like ever situation I work with and I write for, the music itself dictates what the song is going to be about. Which means I have never really been part of or never really cared to be a part of a concept album so to speak. And not everything I write about is biographical; it isn’t necessarily things that I am living out. But on this album, there were a lot of instances, a lot of things that I am writing about personally, especially the song Love’s Blind.”
He went on to explain the genesis behind this evocative and engaging track.
“The lyrics and theme were based on my step-daughter, who is going through a lot of angsty teenaged things, which anyone who is a parent of a teenager or remembers when they were a teenager themselves knows about. I basically brought forth what she was going through into a song. I wanted to write something that was kind of therapeutic in the sense of letting people know they are not alone in this – we’ve all been through it. It’s basically about what all teenagers are going through finding their importance in themselves and how they have to love themselves before they can love anything or anyone else,” he said, continuing to discuss the themes of and connective tissue between the songs on Wide Awake (In My Dreamworld).
“If there was an overall theme, and I guess it relates to the title of the album, it was based more on what we’re all living through in society, around the world, in your own country, in my own country, politically, socially, racially, gender wise. There is so much going on that makes your brain explode and you ask yourself, can this be real? ‘I gotta be asleep and this is all a dreamworld, or a nightmare.’ But guess what? I am wide awake and living through all this. That’s what is reflected on this album more so than anything else. But it turned out, coincidentally, to be representing what we’re all dealing with right now.
“The title track was one of the last ones I wrote and recorded actually, and I saved it for the end of the record because it just fit there so well. For me it’s almost impossible to find the right sequence when I do my records because I like all killer, no filler. So, what I try to do with the song order is create peaks and valleys and mix it all up, so you don’t have some things of the same tempo, some things in the same keys or the same genre back-to-back. I like to keep it moving. Paper Wings was another instance where I was writing the song and the lyrics kind of automatically fell into the ‘broken wings’ scenario thematically. But there are many songs about broken wings; there’s even a W.E.T. [a melodic rock group of which Soto continues to be an integral part] song called Broken Wings, so I didn’t want to use that title again. I still wanted to use something that was fragile and what’s more fragile than paper? It can be torn, it can be shredded, burned, crumpled. So, to take the word paper and put it front of the word wings made the actual song a little heavier sounding. And in that context, it’s exactly like someone coming out of their shell and finding that light at the end of the tunnel because we’re all basically flying through life on paper wings.”
Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) also features a second bonus live CD, where Soto’s complete set from the 2019 Frontiers Fest in Italy was recorded.
“When we recorded this live album, Frontiers wanted to release it as a standalone project. I said I had a problem with releasing something you’re going to charge people full price for, a show that’s not a full JSS experience, because it’s not a full, complete show. My set was under 50 minutes because I was one of the preliminary acts and I think just giving people that was a bit of a rip off. I don’t want people to think I am going to release all sorts of things just as a money grab. I don’t want to cheat them out of a full experience of what a full show is like either,” Soto explained.
“So, they suggested they release it digitally, to stream it and then release the physical album as a bonus disc, because, as everybody knows, physical product is not selling any more, so this would be an added incentive for those who don’t like the digital download or streaming format. It gives them a chance to still have this album on a physical format and in pushes the selling of the physical format for Wide Awake.”
Before the conversation concluded, the topic of long-time Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali came up. Banali was the keeper of the Quiet Riot flame for decades, through various reunions, lineup changes, albums and tours. He succumbed to cancer earlier a few months ago and was a friend and fellow colleague on the Frontiers label for Soto.
“I have known him since 1986 when Quiet Riot did some shows with Yngwie Malmsteen: that was pretty much when we met. I’ve also known Chuck Wright and all the guys in the band for a long time. The last time Frankie and I performed together was at my 50th birthday party [in 2015]. We did a big live birthday bash, and he came up and played some songs with us. And God bless him, I loved that man so much. He was a great soul. He was an incredible person who treated me with great respect from day one. He always spoke highly of me, and he did that naturally, without expecting anything in return – he was just that kind of a guy,” he said.
A new W.E.T. album is expected early in the new year, and Soto also recorded some background vocals on Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra’s forthcoming new album. Sons of Apollo are slated to perform all the shows they had to cancel in 2020 in 2021, pandemic permitting. After those dates, Soto said, they would reconvene to start writing new material for a third album.
For more information, visit www.jeffscottsoto.com, www.facebook.com/JeffScottSoto, or www.sotoworld.net.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for nearly 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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