Jeff Scott Soto - Journey to Art of Anarchy

Brian (00:00:00) - Jeff Scott Sorter. Welcome to concerts that made us.

Jeff (00:00:04) - Cheers. Good to be here.

Brian (00:00:05) - It's fantastic. Now I'm looking forward to diving into some of art of anarchist new music. I had Bumble Photon not so long ago chatting about the upcoming album Let There Be Anarchy. I'd love to hear your perspective on it.

Jeff (00:00:19) - Well, um, yeah. I mean, we have two different versions of how this all came about. Um, apparently they continued writing after the demise of the band, so to speak. I mean, the band, they weren't going to continue after, uh, things fell apart with the second singer. And it was there were two, two moments where I brought the idea of of man, I wish I would have loved to have heard what my voice would have sounded like on this material, because I love the first two records. Um, I wasn't necessarily a big fan of Stapp or Weiland. That just wasn't my cup of tea musically, even though they're both very talented, especially for what they did, they have their own marks of what they did musically, and especially for this band.

Jeff (00:01:01) - But music, the actual music of these songs from the first two records, I love to to pieces, and it was I brought the I brought it up the first time in 2018 on the first Sons of Apollo tour to to Bumble. I was listening to the records and just saying, man, these songs are really good. It's it's so up my alley musically. And I, you know, dropped the hint to, you know, I know it's no longer going to happen anymore, but I'd love to hear what my voice sounds like in this stuff and, you know, just kind of stored in the back of his head. But it was actually the lockdown that it came about. It just came up again and we were just catching up and I said, yeah, man, what a pity that we, we, we couldn't that you couldn't really make this, this, uh, Art of anarchy thing happen and, and, uh, again, I brought up it would have been lovely to know what my voice would have sounded like on some of this stuff, even even to the point where I might have even asked him if they had karaoke versions of the songs, that I could just just toy around with it.

Jeff (00:01:53) - We were sitting around trying to fill time and and, um, it was not even 24 hours later, he reached out to me and said, hey, there's a few songs. We're still working together. We're still writing, not necessarily with any intent behind it, but we're still working on stuff. And, uh, here's a couple of songs if you want to dabble with them. And that was kind of the beginning of where it all started, the kind of return of the idea of returning. And, uh, we ended up writing like two albums worth of material that ended up being the result of Let There Be Anarchy.

Brian (00:02:21) - Oh my God. What was it like kind of stepping into those shoes? You know, everyone knows the history with the previous singers. What was it like for you stepping in?

Jeff (00:02:31) - It was different from for them, I think more so for me. For me, I'm used to starting new things or getting involved with new things, etc. but for them, the first two singers in the band were basically they were asked to join.

Jeff (00:02:43) - They were, I don't want to say paid, but they were given advances and money was exchanged to get them enticed to to come into the situation. I've done many a situation, many a session in my life or many a project where obviously it's the idea of we've got this thing and it pays that and and you agree to do it. Um, that was different. This the difference was this time I went to them saying, I'd love to do it. I'm not looking for a payday. I'm not looking to be paid to sing on this or create music with you guys. I'm looking to actually help put this back together and continue what you guys actually started, because it just, it felt too soon as far as I was concerned. They they let it go too soon. And, and I think that had possibly to do with the commitment of the people who were behind it. And I told them I'm loyal, I'm committed. I would love to follow through with this and, and kind of help you guys turn it into what you expect, expected it to be from day one.

Brian (00:03:36) - Yeah. How much input were you given then creatively? Were you allowed to kind of have some input?

Jeff (00:03:43) - 1,000% of the bottom line is this is the brothers band. This is Vince and John's band. It was their baby from from the get, you know, they they started they were writing songs with Ron for years and, uh, they decided they made a commitment to each other to, for him to be a producer, to play some stuff on the record and songwriter and all that stuff. But the idea was to make their dream record that they just they'd had enough bands and they'd been through all of that through the years. They said, you know what? We're not going to chase this anymore. We have a nice business, we have a nice side hustle, which is our normal daily lives, daily work, and but we still have that yearning to have that the album we always wanted to make. And that's how it all came together. They just they wanted to make a great record with various singers.

Jeff (00:04:29) - Just say, hey guys, look, we finally have something to to pass on to holds and to actually say we did it. And it was that from there, it snowballed into Weiland being the solitary singer for the the, the first version of the band. And when that didn't work out, they, you know, they were like, well, I guess it's over. And it was just kind of like a last minute thing that they brought step in because of other people that work for them. But this time around, it's different because I was kind of the one wrangling together. Okay, come on guys, this this is great stuff. We should do something with this. And that's I think that's the big difference here. There's a different energy regarding the entire overview of what this is supposed to be. And from that I think there's a lot more excitement that it truly feels like a band now.

Brian (00:05:13) - Yeah, yeah, it definitely comes across like that. Now. Would you onboard the new album and everything? How far are you and the guys willing to go? Are you going straight for the top or are you happy to just make music, play some gigs?

Jeff (00:05:27) - You always strive for the top.

Jeff (00:05:29) - You always strive. Every band, every artist. I don't care who they are and what they say. You're always reaching for that brass ring. And if you. Why? Why do all the what's necessary to make the music if you're not going to follow through with it in terms of oh, it's successful. Oh, we, you know, you you want people to listen to your music, you want people to share in your what your creation is. And. It makes no sense for me to say, well, I'm just going to make music just because I have to do it at this point in my life. And it's this stage of my life, I'm doing more so that there are a lot of people that stop creating the music. They don't find the reason or the point behind it because in terms of they look at it as a selling angle, they want to sell their music. I look at me, I have to do music. It's in me. I can't bottle it up. So I'm doing it because I really love doing it.

Jeff (00:06:18) - I'm not expecting it to sell. I'm not expecting it to be, uh, go gold, platinum and diamond and all those things that we all strive for back in the day. This it's it's beyond the the rewards and Grammys and all that. I don't care about that stuff as much as I care about the creation of things. And if it resonates, if it works, of course, great. That's what we all strive for. But the bottom line is, I'm not going to sit back and wonder, what if I'm going to go for it?

Brian (00:06:44) - I like it, I like it. You guys also recently released the single Die Hard. The video I seen some behind the scenes of it looked like a hell of a time to shoot, and it's one hell of a video. What was it like to make?

Jeff (00:06:57) - It was a long day. I mean, the day started at 10 a.m. and I think we left the facility something like 230 in the morning. It was a long, long day because there were so many parameters to be filmed and cut, and the band itself didn't even start filming until, I think by the evening, I think we were there for about 12 hours before the band actually were starting to film, because they were filming all the external stuff.

Jeff (00:07:20) - They had the extras, they had all these things that, you know, people are hired and brought in at certain times. You got to release them by a certain time. But we're the band, we're invested so we can leave when we're done. And it was a long time day. We we filmed four videos that day.

Jeff (00:07:33) - Oh man.

Jeff (00:07:34) - Actually, though, the day before we, we filmed the vilified video. So we filmed three more that day because we, they all tie in and this is something I wasn't aware of at the time. I just thought we were just knocking as many out as we can, utilizing the time and the fact that, uh, Tony and I were on the East Coast, the bass player, Tony, um, but it actually does tie in together the the ending of vilified ties into the beginning of Die Hard, and the beginning of the ending of Die Hard will tie into the next one and the next one. I'm not going to reveal which of the next singles or the next videos, but the bottom line is all four tie into one another.

Jeff (00:08:08) - Kind of thematically, but not it's not a concept album, it's just they wanted the theme to make just sense. So when you watch all four in a row, you kind of see it is a is a kind of a movie version of what we're doing. And yeah, the budget was ridiculous because we, we wanted to we wanted to stand out. We wanted to do something that just goes a little further than just the performance video of the band. And that's exactly what we pulled off.

Brian (00:08:34) - Yeah, yeah, I remember saying that the first one a couple of months ago and I loved it. And you're right, I was kind of left thinking, I wonder what's going to happen next. So with this one again, I can't wait for the next one to come. But I have an interesting question for you. Now, when you complete a body of work such as this album, how do you reflect on it in your mind?

Jeff (00:08:55) - I want it to mean something, especially for the times that we're living in.

Jeff (00:08:59) - Um, I always write my lyrics, especially in double entendre. I love to write things that make you wonder what what I'm actually writing about. But more important to me is I want the listener or the person reading the lyrics to have their own interpretation of what they think it's about that. That, to me is the same way as somebody reading the book versus watching the movie. If I'm going to tell you what the song is about, I'm revealing everything and it leaves nothing to your own imagination. If you're listening to the lyrics or you're reading the lyrics, and I always want them to be somewhat important. I don't just write throwaway lyrics just for the sake of rhyme schemes or or, you know, even if it's a song. Uh, I've written a song about my dog, and it was a little puppy who was really hard to manage, and I just, I got so frustrated, and I wrote the lyrics to this, and this is a long time ago. And suddenly reviewers was, oh, that must have been a tumultuous relationship.

Jeff (00:09:52) - Geez, this this woman who drove you crazy like the song was about my dog. So it's I love that people can get two sides of sometimes even three sides to a storyline or a theme that I'm writing. So I always want to make it, uh, important. I want to make it count as much as possible.

Brian (00:10:09) - Yeah, yeah, I get you, I get you.

Jeff (00:10:11) - I mean, there's nothing.

Jeff (00:10:11) - Wrong with a lyric like fight for your right to party, or I want to rock and roll all night and party every day. We need those as well. We do. But I've done enough of those in my life and my in my career at this stage of my life. It's it's kind of silly for me to personally be coming up with just writing about chicks and writing about rock and roll parties and all that stuff. I try to leave a little more, just a little more mark in what I'm doing lyrically these days.

Brian (00:10:37) - Go a bit deeper. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? The podcast is called? Concerts that matters.

Brian (00:10:43) - So I have to ask you some concert related questions. What was your first concert?

Jeff (00:10:50) - I believe it goes back and forth, but I believe the first one because they were both in 70. Oh no, actually, you know, the one I'm thinking was in 79. So my very first one was in 78 when I went to Dodger Stadium to see the BGS and Andy Gibb. They brought Andy Gibb out to to sing with them on, on quite a few songs. And I most people think just because you do metal and hard rock and all that stuff, that that's all you listen to, that's all you, you, you're influenced by. But Rock didn't come into my life. To my late teens. I was always a pop guy. I was it was the Bee Gees. It was disco, was Motown, it was R&B, soul, black music. It was. It was everything but rock music growing up. And I even remember kind of hanging out with some friends going, oh my God, I can't believe you guys listen to this noise and this noise now, because it became such a big influence and passion in my life.

Jeff (00:11:42) - But it didn't it didn't resonate with me when I was younger. And it wasn't until bands like Journey and Toto and even foreigner, they had they had such a. White soul singers sound that blended with the hard rock guitars. And then it's like, hmm, this actually works to me. And then I started really coming in a little deeper and darker into the the hard rock and metal world.

Jeff (00:12:04) - Yeah, yeah.

Jeff (00:12:05) - So yeah, Dodgers would be the BGS. That Dodger Stadium was the first and not even ten years later, I'm at a Judas Priest Iron Maiden show.

Brian (00:12:14) - I like it actually. Be surprised how many like metalheads and real hard rock guys say their first concert or their first intro to music was the Bee Gees or ABBA or something like that. It's kind of it's shocking.

Jeff (00:12:28) - Yeah, it's back in those days, especially the days before the iPod came along. You, you kind of you couldn't really reveal it was it was kind of your own hush hush. Don't don't tell anybody. I actually listened to ABBA, uh, because especially when you're on tour or you're hanging out with your friends back in the days, even when CDs came out, obviously with cassettes, you had this big box with like, maybe 20 or 30 or 40 cassettes, you couldn't fit everything that you listen to.

Jeff (00:12:56) - So you would bring, let me just put all my rock stuff so people would wow, you're a you're a metal head. You're a true rocker. And then came the CDs. It was the same thing. You had your CD wallet and people flipping through to look for something to listen to. The iPod comes along. All of a sudden it's a game changer. Now you can put thousands of songs. You can include your ABBA and your Peter Frampton and your Metallica and your LED Zeppelin and your, you know, your little River band, all the different things and that you listen to when you were growing up. Now you can actually have it there if you secretly wanted to listen to it. And then all of a sudden it wasn't taboo anymore. You could actually say, I listen to everything from ABBA to Zeppelin A to Z.

Brian (00:13:36) - Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And if you think of all the concerts you attended as a concert core, what ones would you say have made you?

Jeff (00:13:46) - One of my biggest regrets is I never got to see Queen with Freddie live.

Jeff (00:13:51) - I've seen them a billion times with Paul Rodgers, with Adam Lambert. I've done numerous appearances with Brian and Roger, just like, you know, the corporate things, etc. but my biggest regret is not having that live, because seeing all the videos and the DVDs, etc., I got that influence of Freddie as a performer, as a, as a stage performer, but the one that actually resonated, the two that resonated most with me was watching David Lee Roth on the Fair Warning tour back in the 80. I think that was 82. I don't remember what year that I went to go see that and am seeing Prince in 88. Prince is the the ultimate performer to me. And so taking the front man levels of what David Lee Roth, Prince and Freddie that I absorbed all of that. And that's what made me the front man that I am.

Brian (00:14:39) - Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Do you get much opportunities to go to gigs nowadays? Are you too busy with your own music?

Jeff (00:14:47) - Mainly.

Jeff (00:14:48) - Mainly festivals because we I do play a lot more festivals than the latter part of my career.

Jeff (00:14:53) - And from that I get to see more friends, I get to see more colleagues, but I get to see other bands that I know of, artists that I don't know, and that were big influences on me. So that's where I get to see. More of my shows. Uh, I'm working a lot. I'm always on tour. I'm always somewhere around the world. And even on days off, I get to pick up shows here and there. But for the most part, the majority of who and what I see is when I get to play the same bills with them.

Jeff (00:15:19) - Right? Right.

Brian (00:15:19) - Interesting, interesting. And for any listeners, maybe listeners over a decided world that haven't got one of your shows, what can they expect? Give us the full experience if you can.

Jeff (00:15:31) - Well by naming.

Jeff (00:15:33) - Artists like Freddie or Prince. I like all of my shows to be many events, even even at a low, lower club level. I don't just go, here's a song for you. Song is finished.

Jeff (00:15:48) - How are you doing? Here's another one for you. I always try to tie in songs. I try to make. I try to make it more eventful. I always try to make my shows something to remember. And thus far, especially in the UK, I've had some great success for in pulling that off UK, Ireland or Scotland. All of those, those regions. Every time I played there, I've always come up with something that is a little more special than just going on stage and song, song, song. Good night.

Brian (00:16:14) - I like it, I like it now, if you think of all the gigs you've played, I know it's hard, but does one stick out? Or maybe one festival stick out as a highlight of all the gigs?

Jeff (00:16:27) - The ones that always resonate the most for me are the ones that you always dreamed of performing at, and you finally got there, and they're very few. I've still yet to play Madison Square Garden. That's as a child. You just remember kiss and you hear Billy Joel sold it out.

Jeff (00:16:44) - The garden is like the the antithesis to to being an artist to be able to play at the garden, having played there. But the Hollywood Bowl was always one, a huge dream. And when I was singing for journey, I got to play there. We were doing a co-headlining tour with Def Leppard in 2006, and for me to be able to say that I got to do the Hollywood Bowl with my mother watching was that was one of the pinch me moments of my my career, my my life.

Brian (00:17:11) - Oh, man, that must have been so special.

Jeff (00:17:13) - Absolutely. And so I still I still have the the oh to the the arena the I loved it. It's still and of course the, the big one, the one in uh the big one in London. Everybody always dreams of Wembley.

Jeff (00:17:28) - Yeah, yeah.

Brian (00:17:29) - Exactly, exactly. I have to ask, as a musician of your stature, how do you view the whiskey a Google? Because I have this kind of image of it as a Mecca for rock music.

Brian (00:17:40) - You know, you think of The Doors and all the guys that play it back in the 70s.

Jeff (00:17:45) - These local, um, I guess these. Well known places around the world. I kind of felt the same way about the Marquis in London. You you hear so much, you know so much about it. But you actually when you're actually there, you go. Well, that wasn't as special as I was expecting.

Jeff (00:18:04) - Right. And when.

Jeff (00:18:06) - You live, you know, you virtually live down the street from these places. They're not there as I'm not I don't want to say important, but they're not as um. Are iconic as they are to others around the world. To us, it's okay. There's the whisky, there's a Taco Bell, there's a McDonald's and a a shell gas station. They just become as part of our regular life. You don't really think of it that way until you hear others talk about it that way. The same, like the Rainbow Bar and Grill is so world renowned, but for me, it's just a place you can get really good pizza.

Jeff (00:18:41) - So it's.

Jeff (00:18:44) - When you live there and you're when you're around it so much, you kind of you're kind of jaded to the fact that that means so much to other people. But you're reminded of it, of course, when you're talking to people like yourself and you just, you know, you know, that it actually resonates with others. More importantly. And it would be the same thing for me of certain venues around the world, others that drive by it every day. It's just that.

Jeff (00:19:08) - I gotcha, I.

Brian (00:19:08) - Gotcha. That's really interesting, though. I've never thought of it like that. But yeah, makes sense, makes sense. And back to your gigs then, if you think of all the gigs you've played, is there one that maybe sticks out as the worst experience? Everything went wrong and how did you overcome it?

Jeff (00:19:25) - There was one show with talisman. I remember we didn't have our normal sound guy and it was just sound problems from the soundcheck all the way through the gig. And there's a there's a little clip we did.

Jeff (00:19:37) - There was a documentary of sorts released of talisman quite a few years ago. I think it's out of print now, but there's a portion of it where somebody took some, uh, fan footage. Or it might have even been one of our tour manager, somebody filming from the side where I'm trying to talk to the audience. Clearly, nobody understands me. We were in Paris, and I'm speaking, trying to broken slow English, trying to get them, you know, to to respond, speaking to them. But every time I was speaking, the, the mic feeds back. So I'm like, oh, so I'm saying something that I think it's important and then just allowed feedback. Okay. So then I move over a little shift to another position. But the spotlight is staying here. I'm like, uh, can you follow me? And then I'm starting to speak and it's it starts. I got so frustrated after 4 or 5 times it was ringing over and the guy wasn't following me at the light.

Jeff (00:20:26) - I just I threw the mic down and I walked up to the stage. And that little bit is on the documentary. I'm not one of those that will. It'll ruin my night and I won't come back. But at that moment I just got so frustrated. I left the stage and then the band continued. I came back on. We went on with the gig.

Jeff (00:20:41) - Oh man.

Brian (00:20:42) - I wouldn't blame you. That would drive you nuts. Oh man.

Jeff (00:20:45) - Well, yeah, you kind of expected that when you don't have. This is why it's so important. It's it's so difficult for bands, especially on a known level, to travel without their entourage, to travel without the people that know their music, they know how to make their music sound, etc. when you're relying on local engineers and local people that really sometimes don't even care, they're just there to push a few faders and okay, I'm making my 50 bucks, I'm going home. I don't care about this band. You're going to get that.

Jeff (00:21:14) - You you get what you pay for. So it's unfortunate that a lot of bands can't afford to have their entourage always with them. And that was one of the scenarios we decided we don't need to do the extra expense, and then we we paid for it.

Jeff (00:21:27) - Yeah.

Brian (00:21:27) - The price. Yeah, yeah. And when it comes to short time, then how do you psych yourself up beforehand and then afterwards how do you wind down.

Jeff (00:21:37) - I don't really.

Jeff (00:21:38) - Have to psych myself up. My job is to make sure that I'm ready to be as good as I possibly can, even if I'm not feeling all 100%, or if I'm sick, or even if I am 100%. My duty is to concentrate on making sure I deliver what the people are there to, to what they're expecting me to deliver. So my psych comes from the fact that I'm putting everything, all the energy on my voice and my my show and all of that. It's not necessarily I could be playing in front of 50 people or 50,000 people.

Jeff (00:22:08) - It's the same level of energy and the same respect I put behind every show. I don't go and say, this one's more important than that one. They're all as important to me because especially in the day, you know, the days, this modern times, YouTube is forever. Back in the day, you got some guy that snuck a tape recorder in his bum and and is getting a bootleg copies of you. It's not as big a deal as now. It's immediately minutes after you've done it. It's going to be posted in, the world's going to see it, and it's going to be there forever. So you want to try and be on top of your game as much as possible, and always thinking and making sure that you're not just resting on your laurels and you're just phoning it in, so to speak. But yeah, to come down from it, that's that's a whole nother animal, because you get off that stage and you know, you've given it all and you're exhausted and you're just I pretty much rather not speak to anybody or see anybody.

Jeff (00:23:00) - I'd rather just like, kind of be on my own and get my own zen to calm down from it. Because even then you have the after show of seeing guests and, you know, talking to the band. Oh, you messed up that part. Hey, did you see that? You want to talk about the show? But immediately I really need to come offstage and just kind of flop on the floor with a towel on my head.

Jeff (00:23:22) - Yeah, yeah.

Brian (00:23:24) - And before we dive into the last couple of questions, then future plans that are set in stone. I know you guys have some dates coming up with IoT of energy.

Jeff (00:23:33) - Yeah. We, uh, we decided instead of actually trying to force a tour again, we we need to make sure that we we're doing things in baby steps. Because this band has been dormant for so long, we can't expect their fan base that they were able to pick up back then, or immediately going to jump back in with yet another singer. And there are many more people who have no idea who the band is.

Jeff (00:23:55) - So we can't assume just because we've released the record that we can book an entire tour. We have to wait and see if it resonates, if there's a demand for the band. So. But on the same token, we also needed to get out there and kind of get our feet wet. So we decided to put this. This two weeks of shows together to kind of celebrate, commemorate the dropping of the album. And from there, we just kind of feel it out and and see if it resonates and we go from there. It's at the moment there's nothing yet. There's a lot of things being planned, but there's nothing I can talk about just yet. Right? Because obviously some triggers are going to be pulled based on the interest of, you know, when people finally get to hear the whole record and get to see if they like us or not.

Brian (00:24:37) - Yeah, yeah, I know you said earlier there was a couple of the older songs you would have liked to have sang on. Can we expect some of those songs at the live shows?

Jeff (00:24:47) - Absolutely.

Jeff (00:24:48) - Uh, in fact, I this is my 40th anniversary. I started my career in 1984 with Ingvar Malmsteen. And so I have a wealth of material that I've had to write, sing, um, tour with. And my my hard drive is basically full for me to try to remember lyrics for everything that I'm doing currently is impossible, because I still have the old stuff stored in there that I can't remove to make space. So my learning process these days, especially with Art of anarchy, is I have to. I have to sing the songs that I'm learning from the other singers for me to learn them. I can listen to them over and over and over, but until I actually demo them myself and listen to myself singing those songs over and over, that's when they become mine. That's when I can actually remember them. And that's exactly what I'm doing. When I go to the gym, all I listen to is the older Art of anarchy songs with my voice on them, because that's how I'm absorbing and soaking them in to get ready for the tour.

Brian (00:25:43) - Ah, I like it. I like an interesting way of doing it. And as well, am I right in saying you're doing the monsters of Rock tour with sorta?

Jeff (00:25:51) - Yeah, doing the monster Rock cruise. That's, uh, I don't know how many years running now. It's, uh, pretty consistent consecutive. But, um, those people are great. They they ask us my, my other band, Soto to come back every year and I what we're talking about what what do I do on stage to make it memorable? I always come up with themes and things to leave as every show that I do. That leaves a mark. It's not that I never repeat myself. I never just do the run of the mill songs that people expect to hear. I always do something more eventful. So, you know, I'm contending with the bigger bands as well, and it's the same setup as like a regular festival. As I'm starting, one of the bigger bands is finishing and as I'm ending, one of the bigger bands is starting somewhere else.

Jeff (00:26:34) - So you gotta try to find things to keep them there, even if they miss 1 or 2 songs of the other two that I'm sandwiched between.

Brian (00:26:42) - Yeah, yeah, I have to ask. You know, we all know what it's like to go on those cruises from our perspective, but from the musician's perspective, what's it like?

Jeff (00:26:52) - It can be.

Jeff (00:26:53) - Exhausting and tiring because you unless you're the key marquee artist that's basically got the whole top of the ship to yourself. You've got massive room and privacy, and you don't even need to leave the room to get a meal. You're you're pretty much one with the people. And so while that's great, it also can be exhausting where you can't leave your cabin without or if I'm going to go get a bite. And normally that take you ten, 5 or 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It takes me 45 because I'm stopping the photos and, and I want to be as nice and cordial as possible. So I find I find my moments where, okay, I know I can do this within this time, and I just try to try to direct myself to to be in and out.

Jeff (00:27:37) - But for the most part, it's almost unavoidable. So it does turn into a bit of a convention kind of setup, where there's no real privacy or escape from seeing people, and they're excited too. They they're, for the most part, very respectful. They don't they don't assume that you're there to take photos with them when you're trying to put, you know, some pasta on your plate. But for the most part, they want to take that opportunity because they might not get it again. They have you right there and then. So I try to do as much as I can. I'm not rude to anybody. I give them, you know, equal and ample time. But for the most part it is difficult to find peace and quiet in a situation like that because you're just surrounded anywhere you go. You're surrounded by, uh, festival goers.

Jeff (00:28:20) - Yeah. Jeez.

Brian (00:28:21) - I think if I had a choice, I'd stay as a festival goers. No, as opposed to a performer.

Jeff (00:28:27) - It doesn't.

Brian (00:28:27) - Sound fun.

Jeff (00:28:28) - It's a give and take. And it's, of course, has had is has its moments where you need you need that privacy. But on the other hand, it's it's a lot of fun. It's I do like to connect with people. And I do like to show that I'm a human being, too. I breathe and and eat and sleep is just the same as they do, because obviously the rock star has always had this mystique that we're superheroes, that we we live on some kind of, uh, Krypton planet. We're just normal people, too. So I like to remind them and remind myself that we're all one anyways.

Jeff (00:28:58) - Yeah. Yeah.

Brian (00:28:59) - Right. We'll, uh, finish off with the last couple of questions, so I'll start you off with an easy one. What are you currently obsessed with? It can be a book, a TV show or music. Anything.

Jeff (00:29:11) - Is a show called Married at First Sight Australia.

Jeff (00:29:15) - Right.

Jeff (00:29:17) - It's it's it's got everything I love and reality TV but it's it's brilliant.

Jeff (00:29:22) - It's it's a, it's a guilty pleasure that I just can't stop watching and seeing every season. It's just it's great. It's fantastic television. So I'm obsessed with this at the moment.

Brian (00:29:32) - Right. I'll have to I'll have to check it out.

Jeff (00:29:34) - So there's a UK version of it as well that the, the, the original version of it was very boring and very dull. And they've now changed and branded it towards the Australian version. So the last season of the UK, Married At First Sight was very it was much better and it was very much like the Australian version. The one in the US is a snore fest. You watch that. I can watch that at night and they'll need a sleeping pill. Just puts me right up.

Jeff (00:29:59) - Right?

Brian (00:30:00) - Right. I know what to watch next time I'm suffering from insomnia. And if you could revisit any period in your career, what would it be?

Jeff (00:30:11) - Hmhm.

Jeff (00:30:14) - That's a difficult one, because the better parts of my career like the bigger moments in terms of bigger stages and, uh, bigger venues and bigger crowds, weren't necessarily the most positive or the one that the ones that left the most memorable, uh, positive memories for me.

Jeff (00:30:32) - And I'm not talking about recently, I'm talking about even going way back. I, I tend to lean more towards the, the smaller bands, the smaller bands. That meant more to me musically and meant more to the people musically in terms of my career. So I mean, anything from the band talisman, I was saying to even my solo stuff, when I go out there and do my solo tours, they're not the biggest stages and not the grandest conditions. But there's something about when you're with true brothers, when you're with true, with when you truly love what you're doing and who you're doing it with, that tends to resonate more than the ones that were more corporate or business oriented, where you made more money and played to more people.

Brian (00:31:13) - I like it, I really like that answer now. And the final one. So a bit tricky. But what song would appear on the soundtrack to your life?

Jeff (00:31:23) - I know it would appear at my funeral. Uh, I would I would love the song in my life from the Beatles to be played at my funeral or my memorial, whatever.

Jeff (00:31:35) - But the soundtrack. That is a trickier one, because. How is there one song that defines one, you know, defines a person, defines a life or the the? It's easier if you can define if you have to define a life that was only around for seven years or 20 years, but I'm I'm going to be 60 soon. So how do you find the one song that kind of encapsulates. And I probably have to go way back.

Jeff (00:32:03) - Wolf.

Jeff (00:32:04) - That's a tough one. It really is a tough one. Yeah, that's an open ended one, man, I I've got no real, uh, because there's so many that I could choose from, but then as many as there are, they're a bit incomplete. Um, I gotcha, uh.

Brian (00:32:21) - I've stumped you. Yeah.

Jeff (00:32:22) - I'd probably I'd probably choose a song from Queen. You know, it's just something from the earlier records, the ones that got me into this band, the ones that, uh, made me realize. Because, again, Queen is one of those bands that there's just so well rounded.

Jeff (00:32:36) - They just have so many different styles, and it's not like they try to do different things and didn't work there. They kind of bands that were the jack of all trades and they were masters of all trades. So you can take an opera song, a blues song, a rock song, disco song, jazz song. There's so many different styles of music and genres that define one band, and that's what I'm trying to think of, one song that defines me in terms of musically, as a person, as an artist. And there really isn't just one.

Jeff (00:33:05) - True, true.

Brian (00:33:06) - We'll, uh, we'll leave it at that. So listen, Jeff, thanks a million now. It's been an absolute blast.

Jeff (00:33:13) - Cheers. Thank you for having me. And, uh, thank you for having platforms like this to help us continue getting our music heard and watched and listened to, etc.. It's, uh, it's a whole new world where magazines and flyers and radio is just a thing of the past. So we rely on on things such as this podcast and in social media to keep the word going and keep us going.

Jeff (00:33:33) - So thank you.