The House of Shred Interviews Cinderella's Tom Keifer

As part of the Power to the People tour that also featured Poison, Dokken and Slaughter, Cinderella rocked The Meadows Music Theater with a blistering set of classics like "Shake Me," "Nobody's Fool," "Gypsy Road," "Shelter Me," and others that had everyone in Hartford, CT smiling, rockin' and rollin'. We caught up with Singer/Guitarist Tom Keifer at the after-show backstage party. This is what he had to say:

HoS: The tour just started, how's it been so far?
Tom Keifer: It's been cool, this is the third show and I think everyone's just kinda getting their sea legs back. So far, everyone's been kicking ass despite all the technical problems. But it's been cool man, real good.

HoS: So I hear you're staying out until September.
Tom Keifer: Yeah, through September.

HoS: And what after that?
Tom Keifer: We're probably going to go back into the studio and start working on our record for Sony and hopefully release it early next year some time.

HoS: Major tour after that?
Tom Keifer: Yeah, we'll go out next summer again, with the record.

HoS: I liked what you guys did with Fred playing violin. That was cool. Are you going to feature any of that on the new album?
Tom Keifer: I don't know. We've used string arrangements before. On that tune (Heartbreak Station) actually we used an entire orchestra with string arrangements written by John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. And you know, live we just kind of broke it down to one violin. But yeah, we've used orchestration before and I'm sure that if we have a song that that's appropriate for, we'll do it again.

HoS: Are all the bands getting along? There are internet rumors stating tension between you guys and Slaughter.
Tom Keifer: Really? I don't go on the internet much so I guess I wouldn't know about that. But everybody gets along fine as far as I know. Probably whatever's on the net is just a rumor or bullshit.

HoS: Which is the case most of the time, just bullshit.
Tom Keifer: Yeah, we don't have any problems out here.

HoS: Cool. What are your main influences?
Tom Keifer: Mmm. I got a lot of influences, you know, I listen to all kinds of music. Everything, from Rock N' Roll like the Stones and Zeppelin, Humble Pie, Janis Joplin, Skynyrd, The Eagles, Aerosmith. And then I listen to a lot of Blues and Roots music you know, like B.B. King and Robert Johnson, and stuff like that. I like some Country music and R&B and Classical, I listen to everything man.

HoS: You had throat surgery a while back. How are the pipes holding up? You sounded great.
Tom Keifer: They're good, you know. I had a couple of surgeries and I just had a lot of trouble with my voice during the 90's, almost eight years of problems. My main problem was that I had a paralysis of the left side of my voice box. And that caused me to strain a lot and that resulted in some hemorrhages and cysts and all kinds of things. And those were the things that they actually went in and performed surgery to remove. But you know the bummer was that there's not really a pill you can take or a surgery that you can go under to fix paralysis. You got to teach your voice how to work again. And it's taken me about eight years to do that, I had to teach myself how to sing again.

HoS: Wow.
Tom Keifer: So, if you're wondering what I've been doing with my time for the last eight years... (Laughs)

HoS: But you sounded great man, I think you sounded better than your first tour, which I saw back in '88 or '89.
Tom Keifer: Thanks, man.

HoS: What can we expect from your new record?
Tom Keifer: Well man, it's gonna be a Rock N' Roll record, and it's gonna be a growth for us, we try to get better with each record and have better songs and play better and sing better and you know, it's definitely a Rock album. Right now we're sitting on about 25 or 30 demos that we've done and they range all over the place, from ballads to rockin' tunes to everything in between. And, you know, the tone that the record's going to take on is going to depend on which songs we pull out of that pile. We're probably just going to try and make a real balanced record, that's got highs and lows and takes you up and down and all around.

HoS: Which Tom is going to be singing on the record. Lower register or higher register?
Tom Keifer: Both, and this new middle area that I've been working on (Laughs).

HoS: There you go. (Laughs) Tom, I'll let you go tend to your fans. But thanks a lot for your time.
Tom Keifer: No problem man, thank you...

Expect a killer CD from Cinderella sometime in 2001.

The House of Shred would like to thank Tom Keifer and Byron Hontas for making this interview possible.

Check out the Official Cinderella Website.