CINDERELLA Frontman Talks About Solo Album

Classic Rock Revisited recently conducted an in-depth interview with CINDERELLA frontman Tom Keifer. An excerpt follows:

Classic Rock Revisited: I want to talk about something that not all rock fans know about. You actually lost your singing voice.

Tom: "During the end of the 'Heartbreak Station' tour my voice vanished overnight. For a couple of years I went to doctors, psychics, faith healers and hypnotists trying to get an answer for what happened. The doctors all told me that there were no nodes or cysts on my vocal chords that they could see. They told me that they thought I just forgot how to sing. I knew that I didn't forget how to sing overnight.

Classic Rock Revisited: They were saying it was like what happened to Meat Loaf?

Tom: "Yeah, he had a similar story. I finally went to another doctor who sat me down and told me he had good news and bad news. He said the good news was that I wasn't crazy but the bad news was that I really did have something wrong with me. He diagnosed me with paralysis of the nerve that controls the left vocal chord. It is a very subtle change but it changes how that vocal chord comes together and functions. He told me that if I was ever going to sing as well as I used to that it was going to take a lot of work. I had been doing some work with vocal coaches but I was not getting it all back. This all happened in 1991 and since then it has been an ongoing journey to rope my voice back in. By 1994, I got enough back that I could do the 'Still Climbing' record piecemeal. I had to stop and keep punching my vocals in a line at a time. I was strong enough to do a little touring on that. I have been working with coaches and speech therapists, and over the last ten years, I have gotten it back. I have actually gotten more than I ever had before. The negative is that there is a lot of maintenance required to keep my voice there. On the last tour, we did an hour show and I probably averaged two hours of exercises and warm-ups a day to be able to do one show that is an hour long."

Classic Rock Revisited: Did the nerve stay paralyzed?

Tom: "It is like the amount of energy that nerve is sending is diminished. I don't totally understand it myself. The weakness is there but you can retrain it to compensate for the weakness. That being said, the maintenance is obvious. If I take time off from doing the exercises and I go a couple of weeks and then try to sing, then it is just not there. I have to work a couple of weeks to get it back to where it needs to be. During the off season, I don't do it religiously. I have got enough back that I can start a month before I go on tour and have everything back to where it needs to be."

Classic Rock Revisited: I heard 2005 will see the release of the solo album.

Tom: "I am mixing it now. I hope this is the year. It is a straight up, hard rock and blues album. It is somewhere between 'Long Cold Winter' and 'Heartbreak Station'. It is really kick-ass and it has a lot of dynamics. There is also some acoustic stuff on it. I don't have a label in place for it. After it is mixed I will have to look for a label. While I am out on tour this summer then I will probably be out trying to find a home for my record."

Classic Rock Revisited: If the album features your writing, your voice and you describe it in the style of those albums then why not just release it as a CINDERELLA record?

Tom: "Because the whole Sony thing took the wind out of our sails. They worked us for three years straight and beat us up over our songs. Finally, they approved the songs, approved the producer and signed off on it and a week later called back and told us, 'We are not going to make this record. By the way, we are not going to pay you either.' There are legal ramifications to it. CINDERELLA really can't do anything until it is settled so I am going to just do my own thing."

Read Tom Keifer's entire interview with Classic Rock Revisited at this location.