TOM KEIFER Discusses His New Album “Rise”

It’s fantastic to see Tom Keifer still going strong.  I spoke to Tom about new his record, “Rise.”

How long did it take you to write “Rise”?

TK: That’s an interesting question because ideas for songs I collected along the way over some time. They were new songs when this band started touring back in 2013, and I’ve been stashing away song ideas, lyrics, and titles for the last six years. We’ve been on the road, and when we got off the tour last year and finished up our dates, we decided it was time to make a record. It just felt like the time is right and the band’s chemistry had grown at that point.

Would you say your music is more blues-rock as you’ve progressed through your career since the Night Songs album?

TK: I think that my writing and guitar playing style has always been based on the blues. I grew up on the blues-based hard rock. Not even just blues-based but American roots music like the Stones and Zeppelin.  They had influences in their music influenced by blues-influenced gospel.  I grew up on those bands and at some point realized that they had impacted Johnny Winter and me B.B. King and James Brown.

From a personal perspective, I think the Andy Johns produced Night Songs does showcase some blues-influenced riffs, but I believe it was straight-up hard rock then future albums went in the direction of the blue.

TK: All of the guitar riffs and vocal melodies are all based on the blues scale. The lyrics are about kind of real everyday things struggles to fall in love, falling out of love, overcoming adversity, or challenges that celebrate good times and overcoming your problems.  That’s what the roots of the music were about.  Purely from a songwriting standpoint, Night Songs was based in that blues melody, scale and lyrically was that the production was a little more flavor of the day. It was a little slicker, and we moved away from that. I think with each record, we made things a little more organic.

Some of the bands from the 80’s era are performing an album in its entirety to celebrate its anniversary or fans requesting it.  Would you consider playing a Cinderella album in its entirety with your current band? 

TK:  No, I don’t think so. I think at this point I’ve started a new band and it’s a hybrid between the Music I’ve been involved in and created in the past and two new records now that we’re playing. It’s a whole different band, and this is the path that I’m on, and It wouldn’t make sense to do that with my new band.

Do you speak to any of the guys from Cinderella?

TK: We still talk. I actually just saw Fred (Coury)  at one of our shows out on the West Coast.

With your voice condition, what is your preshow ritual to warm up your voice?

TK: I like to be by myself so I usually take over the back room of the bus for about an hour before the show.  It’s nice to have a little bit of a break between the warm-up and to show to kind of let everything settle in.

It’s a necessity with the condition that I have. It really centers me and gets me ready to walk on stage and gets my vocal cords in the right place.

For more information on Tom Keifer please visit the Tom Keifer Official Facebook Page