Complicated Intensity

Complicated Intensity: Jeff Scott Soto Brings Passion & Conviction to a Galaxy of Diverse Projects 

"I didn't start my career with an idea of where I wanted to go musically," says vocalist Jeff Scott Soto.

Based on Soto's success—and diverse career portfolio—perhaps the secret sauce for building a brand in the notoriously grueling music industry is to not have a set plan. During his more than 40 years in the business (and still going), Soto has sung with an astonishing number of influential, groundbreaking, and/or iconic bands, as well as collaborated with many of the world's most celebrated musicians. 

If you plan to study his career highlights and discography, grab a large coffee and find a comfy chair, because you're going to be there for a while. But here's the spoiler alert to save you some time: Soto's résumé includes vocal duties with Yngwie Malmsteen, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Talisman, Sons of Apollo, Lita Ford, Stryper, Soul SirkUS, Joel Hoekstra, Gus G, Michael Schenker, and W.E.T., with more than a few bona fide supergroups in the mix. 

His talent, work ethic, and perhaps a dollop or two of good luck has also brought him experiences many other musicians would consider as unattainable fantasies. For example, after being significantly influenced by Steve Perry and Journey, Soto actually became the hit-making band's lead singer from 2006 to 2007. Some musicians would call it quits right there. Done. Made it. Found paradise. Thanks. (And in a real wacky twist of fate, Soto, in a sense, presaged his Journey experience when he sang on the soundtrack of Rock Star in 2001—a movie where a tribute-band singer joins a tremendously famous metal act.)

But Soto scored another dream gig when he worked with Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, who created their own official tribute band celebrating Freddie Mercury and the legendary group's music that included Soto along with three other singers—a thrill, as Queen had fired up his youthful imagination and forged his love of stylistic diversity.

That's a lot. But as hard as Soto works for others, he toils rather ferociously for himself. He has released more than ten solo albums, including live sets, EPs and best of’s since Love Parade in 1994, and he recently premiered his latest, Complicated [Frontiers Records]—a collaboration with Italian producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Del Vecchio. Impressively, as more than a few musicians took a pause on their careers during the global pandemic, Soto accelerated his productivity during lockdown, appearing on multiple albums and other music projects.

Soto may make rock-and-roll success look fun and easy—and his upbeat, never-say-die manner reinforces that appearance—but the backstory is far more, well, complicated. 

Maintaining a commercial career as a working musician is brutally difficult, even if you're a rock legend. When you're a few steps below mammoth celebrity on the ladder of fame, finding gigs, keeping relevant, and exploiting revenue opportunities that stay true to your artistry can be extremely taxing exercises in frustration—especially during those seasons when rock music isn't as much of a cultural force as it was a few decades back.

So, while Covid fired up Soto's productivity, it also transformed his career strategy for the future. For example, the old-school, rock-and-roll methodology of touring constantly to promote an album now seems broken and less-than-beneficial. But whatever challenges Soto faces as he beams his voice out into the ether, it would be a fool's wager to put your money on him faltering. The guy is a beast. 

Bravo on the video for "Love is the Revolution"—the first single from Complicated. It's super cinematic, and the imagery sticks with you.

You know, a lot of people say they don't understand the message behind the video. I always write in double entendres, but Thiago Kiss, who directed the video, put his own meaning behind my lyrics. For example, I could be writing about world relations, but you might interpret it as a relationship between two people. Thiago added a triple entendre to the song, which was actually kind of fun.

Were you surprised by Thiago's interpretation?

Not really. I gave him creative license to do whatever he wanted to do, because he's such a talented filmmaker. He's not really a music-video guy, which is why I love working with him. He adds a level of drama. He doesn't just put someone in front of a camera and have them mime to the song. Even if he takes a questionable approach to the lyrics or the theme of the song, I feel he adds excitement and gives people something to talk about, instead of giving them what is obvious.

Putting any of your lyrical double entendres to the side for the moment, what is the basic message you are communicating in the song?

It was kind of my version of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." There's so much going on with divisiveness and politics and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, in the end, love is the revolution that will get us through everything. It rises above all the mess. I did explain that to Thiago, but he wanted to go deeper and darker. I just let him take it and run with it.

Did you develop an overarching theme for Complicated, or is the album a collection of songs you wrote piece by piece?

There wasn't a theme or a concept. The only thing I tap into conceptually is musical direction. I often approach albums as more genre-based than around some kind of theme or storyline. I might say, "Well, I've already gone in this direction," or "I'm doing a lot of this particular style with another band." So, conceptually, I might want to switch things up and make a funk or R&B album. Basically, my solo stuff is more about tapping into things I'm not already doing with other artists.

For Complicated, I wanted to get back to the music I had done years ago in the band Talisman. We lost our bass player and co-founder Marcel Jacob to suicide in 2009, and, recently, I've been missing the musical end of that project in my life. It is fortunate that my co-writer and producer Alessandro Del Vecchio is a very big Talisman fan. In fact, Marcel produced a record for one of Alessandro's bands in 2004—Feeding the Fire by Edge of Forever. So, Alessandro kind of got to learn how to create the Talisman sound and vibe directly from Marcel. It seemed perfect—I wanted to tap into the Talisman side of things musically, I wasn't presently doing that type of music in my career, and Alessandro was influenced by Marcel.

So, the album doesn't revolve around a set lyrical theme, but the Talisman influence certainly provides it with a sonic concept.

Yes. The title of the album is a bit conceptual, as well. For my solo albums, I like to throw all of my influences into a blender and give people little tastes of all of my interests. I try to find titles for those records that reflect on where I am at that moment in time. 

In 2009, I released an album called Beautiful Mess that was me tapping into another well of music I hadn't done before, which was funky soul mixed with rock. I had always wanted to do something like Lenny Kravitz, Seal, and Prince. I titled it Beautiful Mess, because I knew my diehard fans were not going to like it. They'd say, "This album is a mess. It's nothing I'd expected from Jeff." 

As expected, Beautiful Mess didn't sell so well, so the next album was targeted at my general fan base. I called it Damage Control, because that's what it was—I was doing damage control for what I had done by releasing Beautiful Mess.

Complicated is no exception. When I was doing interviews for The Duets Collection, Vol. 1 last year, a journalist asked me, "If I had to introduce Jeff Scott Soto to someone who had never heard of you, what would be the best way to describe you as an artist?" The first word I thought of was "complicated." I'm complicated. My career is complicated. My decisions are complicated. My musical direction is complicated. I mean, when you grow up loving a band like Queen—and being influenced so much by them—it's impossible to just find one lane to stay in as they made their own highways and byways. That band had so many lanes—they were the masters of all trades. I wanted to be multi-directional, as well, but it's hard to do that and be successful at it. I also didn't want to just experiment with different genres and styles. I wanted to do everything with conviction—just like Queen did.

The music industry is interesting these days, because on one level, genres have been de-emphasized as many artists tend to explore different sounds and styles. But, on another level, there are fans who get comfortable with the identity an artist forged with their initial hits, and they don't like surprises.  

Absolutely. There's a positive/negative to the way that things are done today. For example, while it's currently very rare for rock music to be represented by the big, corporate record labels, what came from that situation is rock artists are no longer stuck trying to give a record company something the label executives think is marketable. A few years back, the label would tell you what they wanted out of you, because they were paying for everything. You had to comply. These days, Sony and Warner Brothers are not really signing rock artists anymore, and you have smaller labels where people are doing things on their own. 

I'm only speaking for myself, but to me, it's more important to create without that mind-numbing, dream-killing mentality that was triggered by a big label spending so much money on you that they pretty much controlled what you had to turn in. You and I came from that world. We knew the rules. We knew what to expect, and we learned from it and how to work within the creative limitations and label politics.

But the funny thing is that even though I have more freedom today, I still want to work very closely with Frontiers Records. I want the label to like what I'm doing. Imagine if I kept them totally in the dark and then sent them my album and said, "This is it. It's done. You have no say in anything." They might listen to it, and go, "This is crap. This isn't what we paid for." And then they wouldn't get behind the record or promote it. So, I want their blessing, but I also want the creative outlet to be able to do what I feel like doing. So, I try to take a tidbit of what the label is looking for, and mix it with my imagination into a beautiful blend of what's expected of me with something that's not expected of me.

How does the actual process of creating an album unfold for you?

On my solo records—especially for the past four or five albums—I've handed over the keys to the people I'm writing the songs with. It has been a long time since I've sat down with a guitar or at the piano and wrote a song by myself. The reason being is that, at best, I'm a mediocre musician. I can craft a song. I can even come up with something really cool and interesting in my head that I could never play. But I feel the music is way more exciting when I work with accomplished musicians who are very good at playing their instruments. I would rather the music end of things come from an incredible guitar player who can play amazing riffs and come up with great ideas that I could never play—or wouldn't even think of playing.

Alessandro is so accomplished as a musician and composer, and when I work with him, he'll usually send me two or three songs at a time, and say, "Let me know what you think." I'll listen and I'll usually go, "This is great. I absolutely love this." Perhaps two-percent of the time, I might ask him to chop something in half or move a part somewhere else. For the most part, 98-percent of a song is Alessandro's creation before I write the lyrics and the vocal melodies.

Just to be clear, you two are not collaborating simultaneously on the parts of a song. Alessandro will send you a complete musical track, but without a vocal melody or lyrics, and if you dig the track, you'll begin writing your melodic and lyrical parts for it. 

Exactly. The closest I get to the compositional side of things is in terms of style. I'll send him a folder of songs and ask, "Man, can we write something in this vein, with this kind of groove and feel?" That's as far as I go. I let him run with it, and he has never given me one thing that sounds like he plagiarized or tried to copycat something I sent him as a reference song. He writes something completely different from the references I've given him, but he also manages to give me things he knows are what I'm looking for to create the songs for the record.

Do you have a specific workflow for coming up with lyrics?

I just try to keep my lyrics interesting enough that if somebody is reading them, they'll think they are really cool words that actually say something. But, on the other hand, there must be a hook. There has got to be a tagline that connects with people—that they can sing along to, that sticks to their bones, so to speak. The chorus is going to sell the song, so I make sure the chorus lyrics are simple and very clear. I can get away with more complex stuff in the verses. 

I also find that I can write about my personal ideals and feelings without provoking anything from either side. I even get away with saying, "Oh, no—that song is not about Trump or Biden, or this conflict or that conflict. It's about my dog, or my relationship with my wife, or something I saw on TV." There are so many different ways you can relate to the things I write about. I mean, if you write a song with lyrics like, "I want to rock and roll all night and party every day," you pretty much know what it's about. You're not mincing words. It's black and white. I like to work in the gray areas. 

Are you constantly refining your lyrics, or do you often take them just as they sneak into your brain while you're developing a feel for the song?

Nowadays, I just let the song dictate. I let it come to me. I will listen [to the chord progression or riff] and I'll hum a melody that works over the song. At this stage, I'm rattling off lyrics that make no sense—just so I have something to relate to in terms of remembering the melody lines. I never plan to keep any of those throwaway lyrics, but sometimes you get stuck with them. There are times when a nonsense lyric really sounds good over a melody line, and you can decide whether to keep it as is or refine it with another line that has the same sounds and syllables. For example, one of my bands is Sweden's W.E.T., and guitarist Erik Mårtensson sent me a song with the lyric "Rock me, Caroline." I would never write a lyric like that, but it worked so well with the melody he wrote. So, I came up with "My heart is on the line," because it sounded like "Rock me Caroline."

The funny thing is the working chorus for "Love is the Revolution" was "Love is the real solution." But that line didn't have a ring—I didn't feel it was memorable enough for someone to sing. I finally found "Love is the revolution," and I used it for the hook. But after singing that line over and over at the last chorus, I added "love is the real solution" in there to break up the monotony. So, I did get to use the original line—which I felt was nice, as it inspired the actual title of the song.

Do you edit your lyrics or melodies after you finally hear them recorded with the music track, or does the initial direction from your writing sessions still hold strong?

It's a bit of both. If you gave me a song and the last two minutes were, "Nah, nah, nah, nah. Hey, Jude," I'd probably say, "You're crazy. Let's chop that down." Of course, it worked brilliantly for the Beatles [laughs]. But I wouldn't necessarily be sold on doing something like that. So, it's feeling things out from experience, but it's also knowing I can't live with something after I hear it.

As someone who has had a long career through various stages of the industry, does it bother you that music streaming is seen as unfair to artists from a revenue-generating perspective? 

It's a catastrophe. I'm not going to use that title for my next album.

And yet, artists still feed the monster. I interviewed Tommy Shaw and James Young of Styx after The Mission was released in 2017. Tommy was all old-school thrilled about getting the record out and playing it for fans. J.Y., however, was like, "No one is going to buy this album, but I don't care. We're musicians. We create. That's what we do." You would not have heard that statement pre-streaming, but today it's so difficult to monetize music—especially whatever is categorized as classic-rock music. 

I fall right in the middle. I absolutely agree with Tommy and I also agree with J.Y. I love those guys, and I know they don't expect big sales, don't expect massive promotional campaigns, don't expect radio, don't expect a lot of hoopla for a new record, and don't expect people to want to hear those new songs live—just like J.Y. was saying.

But I also am like Tommy. I need that creative outlet. I cannot live off my past. I can't rest on my laurels. I need to create to feel like I'm doing something—even if it's just for myself. All of that gives me the incentive and the excitement to go back on the road. And even if I'm doing an entire show of rehashed, legacy catalog stuff, I still get to work on new stuff and get that creative end out. 

Now, if people don't want to hear the new material, at least I'm not at a stalemate or just living in the past. I mean, I still have the hunger I had as a young artist—that excitement I had when nobody knew me, and I was trying to carve out my path. I still have that in me, and I still hope that someday, somehow, and somewhere one of my new songs or new albums will penetrate the masses. In the meantime, I just trudge ahead, and I keep reaching for that brass ring. But, all the while, I make sure I also give the people who have been loyal to me what they're expecting when I go out and perform for them. 

With all of the industry emphasis on young talent, do you feel it's more challenging today for a mature artist to build or expand upon their career?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm still a new artist. I'm still somebody the majority of the world doesn't know about in a big way. So, I'm just going to keep doing what I do. But there's not a lot of wiggle room for older musicians or veteran artists. At my age, I'm not trying to achieve a dream that's not attainable. It's very rare that someone like Tony Bennett can have a big career into his 80s and 90s. I know I'm not going to get to that point. It's just not going to happen. I know what I've done. I know what I can do. And I know what's expected of me. So, all I'm doing now is running alongside the train, so to speak. I'm not sitting on the train, but I'm not giving up, either.

Speaking of not giving up—you were on fire during the pandemic. Some artists just stopped and took some downtime. You took the opposite path. 

I went into overdrive. I probably did more work in the course of the year-and-a-half lockdown than I've ever done in that timeframe. I'm not patting myself on the back—this was simply how I dealt with it. Music became my therapeutic way of dealing with Covid—dealing with the fact we were locked down at home, that we couldn't tour, or do pretty much any of our normal musician things. I wasn't a fan of doing some virtual, Facebook Live thing with an acoustic guitar once a week, so I went into creator mode. I think I turned out the equivalent of seven albums during that year and a half.

This wasn't necessarily my plan. I was simply saying yes to everything and anything that came my way that I felt I wanted to do. There were some things that weren't necessarily my cup of tea, but under those circumstances, I not only had to look at my earning potential, but I also had to keep myself from binge-watching Netflix. I need to do something. I need to keep my brain moving. I need to keep the whole thing functioning, because, otherwise, I would die. It would be like somebody taking all of my skills away. What would I do? I don't know how to do anything else. 

So, working is what kept me alive. It kept me going. Some of those things ended up being released, or will be released soon, and others were shelved—possibly never to be heard. But, from all of that, I was able to get through the pandemic financially, creatively, and even mentally.

It's tough to view Covid as a benefit, but perhaps one of the beneficial aspects of lockdown is that ambitious musicians found ways to earn and/or stay relevant without touring. 

Absolutely. If there's a negative, you have to find a positive spin, because negatives will weigh you down. They're going to depress you. Covid came on as a major negative. The cycle of album, tour, album, tour, album, tour was broken. I did that for years. Covid stopped it. But the positive that came out of that was that Covid made me rethink the cycle. I thought, "I don't want to force myself to go on tour just because I'm putting a record out. I don't want to go out there and spend six weeks away from my family, from my bed, and from the things I've worked so hard to achieve and attain—all so that I can maybe sell 100 records." My answer changed. Covid made me reinvent the idea of how I'm going to go out and promote things.

Other than the effects of Covid on the industry, would you mind being more specific about what prompted you to reinvent your promotional strategies?

It's much like what we've harped on quite a bit. The idea of how things used to be doesn't exist anymore. So, how the hell can the same old ideal of making a record and then going out on tour for a year or more to try to break that record even make any sense at all? How is that model going to work when you don't have big money behind you? When you don't have tour support, or radio support, or MTV? When you no longer have all the things that were necessary to help you along while you're trudging away in front of small crowds and crappy venues and shitty hotels? You don't have any of that behind you now.

You also don't have that massive debt to the record company that's providing those things to you, but at least that money gave you something to work with while you were out promoting your album. So, if somebody said to me tomorrow, "I'm going to give you $300,000 to go on the road," I'd be happy to do it the old way. I'd be able to pay for tour expenses, pay my bills, and have some money in my pocket. But all of that financial responsibility is on you now. If you're going out there and you can't cover the costs, you're just going to come home and say, "Why did I waste all of that time and money?" For me, that kind of deal makes no sense anymore. It can't make any sense.

But barring an angel investor with a few hundred grand to toss your way, how can a mid-level artist pass on the revenue opportunities a new album and tour can bring to the table?

Again, I can only speak for myself. But I feel that if an album is meant to be, the demand will be there, as well, and proper offers will come. And those offers mean that there's going to be enough people in the audience to make the show worthwhile for everyone. That's what I want to focus on now. I want to do things that have a little more demand—a focus on larger and more-enthusiastic crowds—as opposed to 80 people in a venue expecting me to sing the old hits when I'm trying to embrace something new. I won't do that anymore. I can't spend a boatload of cash on hotels, buses, flights and fees for the band to play to 80 people a night and sell about the same amount of albums as if I had stayed home and promoted the record with interviews and social posts and so on.

Well, let's get back to the streaming-revenue equation for a moment. Would it make sense to tour without label or outside-investor support if the digital distribution of your album—considering that it was delivering significant streams and selling downloads—brought in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, rather than a few hundred?

Of course. But I also have a take on album promotion that has pissed off record companies and managers even way back in the cassette era. People used to ask me, "How do you feel when somebody makes a cassette copy of your album, passes it around, and everyone is getting copies of your album for free. They're not paying for it, and you're not making any money from it." I'd say, "You know what? For an artist at my level, who has had little peaks and valleys in their career, if somebody's sharing my material with others, that's a bonus for me if I'm going on tour. It's a bonus if somebody is talking about me and my music." 

That's an interesting take. 

You know, I understand it for the big bands that want to get bigger, richer, and more famous. But I'm not selling the huge numbers of albums or downloads that bands on that level do, and I want more people to be aware of Jeff Scott Soto than I care about selling a million units of one album release. So, I'm fine if some people are getting my music for free, because, in the end, I simply want people to know my music. I'd rather have a lot of different people tapping into my entire catalog than worrying, "Oh, man. I'm not making any money on this or that album."

Early on, what elements were important to you while developing your personal style?

When I was growing up, I listened to Motown and bands such as Earth, Wind & Fire and the Temptations. I hated rock. It was like caveman music, and it was noisy. I wasn't reading between the lines when I was that young, so it just felt like singers without any soul or feel were playing in rock bands. But then Journey became such a pivotal band for me, because Steve Perry was one of the reasons I started listening to rock music. He was influenced by some of the exact same music I loved, and he injected that soulful vocal style into Journey. So, I'm going, "Hang on a second. You can sing in that Sam Cooke and Otis Redding style with a distorted guitar underneath it. Okay. Now I'm interested and intrigued." As a result, Journey was an extremely important part of my creative growth. I soaked it up. I sponged as much as I could from that band. And you can hear that influence through all of the different things I've done musically.

And then, in one of those "dreams come true" moments, you actually become a member of Journey in 2006.

Yes. But when I got that gig—I'm telling you right now—I knew I was not going to sound like Steve Perry. I'm not Steve Perry, but I was going to sing those songs with the same conviction that Steve put into that sound. I was going to honor the way he sang those songs. I even tried to grammatically sing them the way he did, because, to me, that's the way those songs should be done. It's not being the singer in a Journey cover band and being able to sing lyrics and melodies. You really have to feel those songs, and they come from a deeply rooted soul and R&B base. 

That's something even really excellent singers on the tribute-band circuit often miss—that it's not just hitting the notes and remembering the lyrics, it's getting inside the song and making it mean something to someone out there in the audience.

Listen. God bless any musician who is out there trying to make it—whether they're in a cover band, a tribute band, or their own original band. But, yes, I feel a singer should be more than a replica of what is heard on the record. In the past, I was disappointed when a major band replaced its singer with someone who was a carbon copy of what they had. There's a reason why Van Halen worked with Sammy Hagar. They didn't want a carbon copy of David Lee Roth. There's a reason why Iron Maiden worked with Bruce Dickinson. He wasn't a carbon copy of Paul Di'Anno. These bands found ways to move forward without necessarily having to find somebody to mirror the look and sound of the guy they achieved a major portion of their success with. 

Today, I can understand why a classic band would get someone to be more of a soundalike. When a band has a body of hits that are expected to sound a certain way, and they are not so interested in carving out a future body of work, it makes more sense to give the fans familiarity.

How do you typically look back and assess your tenure in Journey?

I was so thrilled to have the Journey gig, and I really wanted to grow within it. It was something I was excited and proud to have, but, unfortunately, whatever the reasons were, they made the decision for what worked for them. And God bless them for it, because I think Arnel [Pineda, current Journey vocalist] has been crushing it. He was able to give that band even more life than they already had.

This might sound strange, but the decision to let me go actually paid off for me, because I got to do things I would not have done had I remained with the band. It worked out for everybody. 

I'm proud to say I was a part of that whole machine. That's the only way for me to look at things. I can't look at the "what ifs?" At this part in my life, I'm so happy I have the chance to do everything I'm doing, and that my diehard fans are still there allowing me to keep doing it.

What do you feel is your secret weapon as a vocalist?

I'm really proud that I'm the kind of singer who can sing for Journey and the movie Rock Star, then sing in more of a rock-theater style for Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and also be able to work with some more extreme and heavy bands such as Sons of Apollo. I'd like to think I can validate all the genres and influences I've had in my life—starting with my love of Queen's musical diversity—and sing everything with equal conviction.

Speaking as a successful artist with a significant amount of industry experience, do you see other musicians often making choices that bum you out?

I've met so many musicians who have kind of carved their own path, and they've told me things such as, "I'm not going to follow the footsteps of what came before me anymore. I'm going to make my own footsteps." There's nothing wrong with that, but why would you choose to stop evolving as a musician? I get inspired by new artists all the time, because I want to continue growing and building my creative arsenal. Influences are critical to any artist, and you should never stop listening to and being influenced by someone or something.

By Michael Molenda