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Very few musicians are as prolific as Jeff Scott Soto, even fewer can match the quality of his output. Soto’s latest release sees him reuniting with Erik Martensson and Robert Saal in the band W.E.T., They are about to release what could be the best record of their career entitled “Retransmission” and Jeff recently joined me once again to talk about this record and much more.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Jeff Scott Soto:
On how W.E.T. formed – It’s basically three Swedish bands (Work of Art, Eclipse, & Talisman). I’m not Swedish by any stretch, but as many know, my career started with Swedish musicians and Sweden in general with Yngwie Malmsteen. That being said, I’ve had three decades of different associations with Swedish musicians starting with Yngwie, then going to Talisman, and then going into W.E.T.. (W.E.T.) was one of the first-ever brainstorm ideas that Serafino Perugino, he’s the CEO and owner of Frontiers Records, he came up with his idea of the supergroup. Now, none of us were necessarily household names, but we were the best of what he felt musically represented the label at the time. So he wanted to put us in the same room and see what we would come up with musically. And that was the first W.E.T. album. This was basically something put together by Serafino, it was an experiment that works so well in his eyes, both financially and in terms of people really dug the music and like the band a lot. It also turned into a beautiful working partnership with Eric and Robert through these years. And we’ve created some really fine stuff through the years. And we just continue to do so because, as I always say to anybody, as long as there’s demand for something, I wanna do it. We always go into anything we do musically as hoping it resonates with people that we can continue doing it. And that was no exception with W.E.T.. 1:51
On the approach to making a W.E.T. record – It was always about the song first. It was never about “Well, I’m Jeff Scott Soto and I have a history, a body of work, that I need to be the main primary songwriter. I have to write my own thing.” It’s never been about that with this band. The song was always king, and because Erik works with a lot of other people with many different processes. He’s doing the writing for or even his own band, Eclipse because he realizes it’s always about the song first. So if they come to me with something that’s ready to be sung, soup to nuts, with melodies and lyrics, if it’s a good song, I’m not gonna sit there and go, “Well, I have nothing to do with it. I didn’t create this. We can’t do it.” That’s one of the things that’s evolved about this band. Erik writes with other people that are very pop-oriented, a certain type of style, genre laden, and when we finally do our version of that song, it still sounds like W.E.T., that could sound the same as something I would have written or been a part of as not being a part of it. That’s the key to making sure that we’re not looking at each other going, “Well, Van Halen and Queen didn’t have to go with outside writers to make a great song.” If Erik writes a song with somebody just without anything behind it like writing it for W.E.T. or writing this for Eclipse, they could just write a song together, if it’s a good song, he’s gonna present it to us and say, “Guys, I wrote this with so and so, I think we should try it ” And that’s how we go into this band. 4:09
“Big Boys Don’t Cry”
On creating W.E.T. songs remotely – That’s how this band has always been. Even when we did the first album, I was actually living in England, and that’s a lot closer to Sweden than it is from Los Angeles. We were using that ideal and the technology and the tools given to us already even on the first album just because it was more convenient, it was cost-effective. Especially today’s day and age of the budgets aren’t what they used to be back in the day and the label’s crazy to spend what they used to spend on the albums. They’re not gonna spend $250,000 anymore on hotels and flights. So you have to utilize what you’re given and we were already doing that with those early records. Even as far back as my Talisman years and the Axel Rudi Pell years, we’re doing it this way for cost-effectiveness. So yeah, we already mastered that side to be able to create and deliver quality within the parameters of what’s thrust upon us. 7:42
“Got To Be About Love”
On working with Erik Martensson – With W.E.T., I rarely ever get into the melody writing. I’ve written many a lyric. Erik type of writer that doesn’t just write music to have a body of music behind it. When he’s writing a song, he naturally comes up with melodies and music at the same time. So when he sends me a song or a demo, he’s already got an idea of what the melody should be, and I respect it because I love his melodies. But number two, I love being able to take somebody else’s adaption and put my own spin on it, because in the end I could take any Eclipse song or any song written by Eric or Robert and it’s sung by them or some by somebody else, it’s gonna be a completely different song, the way it sounds, when I’m done singing it. I don’t necessarily have to be a part of the melody creations for it to sound like W.E.T. because that’s just gonna happen when I’m done singing it. And the same happens when Erik sings a song that’s written, all the melodies written that I just basically have to put my voice to it, when he sings it, it doesn’t sound like W.E.T., what makes it sound like W.E.T. is all of our contributions and what we do, how we do it and that’s what creates that sound. I love Erik’s timbre and his frequency when he’s singing backgrounds with my voice and then I think he takes it to the next step. A song like “Gotta Be About Love”, the very beginning when it’s starting off, you hear this kind of dissident echoey, high voice going out like kind of an angelic. It almost sounds like a keyboard or some kind of synthesizer, but it’s his voice singing this really nice melody and it’s pulled back with a lot of reverb. And those are the kind of ear candy things that Erik is fantastic with. These little nuances that you would miss unless you’re listening to the album with headphones or if you’re listening to it in a low volume where you could kind of separate all the different things that are going on in the song. Most people don’t listen to music that way, but that’s what I love about music. He adds all these nuances and ear candy that I wouldn’t even think of or come up with myself. It’s like, “God damn it, why did I come up with that?” 9:16
“Learn To Live Again”
On the prospect of W.E.T. playing live – Probably not. And I’m gonna be an open book about this. Most people would come up with whatever excuse or another, “Oh, we’re too busy” or “there’s not enough time”, “And there’s not enough months or days in a year for us to be able to do it”. I’m gonna be completely candid about this. That material is so difficult to sing live. When I’ve had to do a W.E.T. show I’ve had to make sure I have nothing going on the week before or the week after because it’s so demanding and at my age and where my voice lies right now, I could be completely rested and knock out a great show. But it’s probably not gonna be as good the next night and it’s gonna deteriorate from there. I wouldn’t wanna go out and do W.E.T. live on an actual tour because it would probably destroy me vocally. And I say that as I’m just being completely honest about that. We make songs, we make records and we create what we do based on not having to perform live because there’s so much going on and I would feel like we’re cheating the (crowd), I would feel like I’m cheating myself if I couldn’t pull it off the way we do it in the studio. So W.E.T., for all intents and purposes, is a studio project, and this is why our performances are scarce and we don’t have that many of them because it really is too demanding for me to be able to pull that stuff off live. I wouldn’t want to detune or compromise the material, that stuff is too important to sound like it’s been compromised just be able to pull off a live show. 12:13
“One Love”
On using backing tapes live – I’ve always tried to be candid, I don’t wanna bullshit anybody. If I’m doing something, we’re using some kind of assistance, I would be the first one to say, “Hey, of course, all those big backing vocals you’re hearing, of course, they’re being played behind us because we feel the songs sounded naked without them and because we don’t have an arsenal of a choir behind us to be able to pull them off.” And even if I’ve ever used backing tapes live, I never ripped them straight from the album so it sounds too fabricated. I’ll make it so it’s just a few voices or a few pieces and a few drum loops and things to kind of to give you a feel of the main record, but not to sound completely false, like we’re just miming it up there. Why are you playing live if you’re gonna be doing that to every song?
I’ve done that with SOTO, I’ve done that with JSS because there are certain songs that might have a groove under them that without that, like a loop or something that makes that thing swing, it’s just gonna sound too straight. It’s not gonna have the same feel. So, of course, I have the drummer count off, and you have this kind of movement of a group that you can’t really emulate unless you have those things underneath. Of course, I’ve done that in the past, there’s stuff where there are keyboards in a song but we also need two guitar players, so I put the keyboards within the context of that loop just to make it sound and swing more. Of course, I’ve done it, but I’m not gonna lie about it. And if you’re at a show and going, “Wait a minute, there’s nobody playing the keys and I hear keys”, I’m not going to go, “What are you talking about?” You’ve got to be an imbecile to think your audience doesn’t notice that stuff. 14:00
“Comes Down Like Rain”
On playing in multiple bands – I got crucified back in the day for doing too much and being a part of too many things and not just identifying and sticking with one thing. Aside of the fact that obviously, especially in the earlier days of my career, when it when that was more out of necessity than it was out of the fact that I just wanted to have those creative outlets. Later it became I couldn’t live without those extra creative outlets because I have so much in me that I want to say and do musically, genre-wise. And you can’t necessarily do that with just one band, a band like Eyes, for instance, that I was in the late 80s going into the early 90s, they had a certain level, or maybe I wanna say limitation, of what we could do. And I don’t want to be limited musically. I have such a vast musical arsenal my DNA that if I’m not doing some of these things, I feel like I’m cheating myself, and I’m cheating the audience, (not) giving them something that I feel like I should be giving them. A lot of that also does come from a band like Queen. Queen was a blessing and a curse at the same time because they were able to get away with doing so many different styles and genres of music and getting away with it. I wanted to be an artist like Queen. I wanted to be able to tap into jazz, opera, blues, funk, disco, rock, heavy metal, and they were able to do it. I was jealous. I wanted to be that kind of artist. If you don’t share that same vision with the band you’re in and/or they’re not talented enough to pull that off, you find yourself surrounding yourself with other people who can tap into the different extremes of what you wanna do musically. And that’s exactly what gave me that opportunity, is that I was such a musical whore that I could bounce around with different people. But it was also giving me the chance to express myself as an artist instead of just being a one-trick pony, metal screamer guy. So many people (say), “Oh, my favorite part of Jeff’s career is when he was singing with Yngwie was singing all them high, Dio kind of vocals.” Okay, but that’s only one side of me, man. Now it’s a blessing in disguise and it’s not necessarily out of necessity out of financial necessity now it’s out of artistic necessity. 16:35
On TSO not touring and putting on a live stream – When they announced first that the tour was not gonna be possible, of course, we were all gutted. Not only gutted because we come to rely on something like TSO annually, we look forward to the hang that comes with it, TSO’s a bit of a family. You spend the holidays with your family and TSO has become my family since I can’t be home for the holidays. And so, of course, that side of it was the first hurdle to get over. But then the next one was, there are so many people that rely on TSO as a sort of therapy to get through the holidays, missing a loved one, someone has passed or whatever, especially this year. This year, TSO was so needed and so important. And when they called us, the second call came in that said we’re doing this live stream, I knew inside, I am even getting goosebumps talking about it now,. I knew it was something we needed to do, and I was so happy that they found a way to pull it off. And, of course, it was alien to be dressed in the full dress and perform the way we normally in front of an audience. But on the other hand, it was second nature as well, because when we start a TSO tour, the rehearsals are so long and every day for two weeks, three weeks, we’re running the set from soup to nuts from beginning to end, making tweaks as we go along. But when you’re up behind the mic, they’re expecting you to be performing in front of an audience. You don’t just sing those songs, you engulf yourself into the character into the lyrics and they want to see that with every performance at rehearsals. So we’re already used to jumping into that world, putting those shoes on before we play the first show. Before the first show, we’ve already performed that set two weeks plus, every day twice, and we know that inside and out. And so that’s kind of the same thing. We went into the livestream, we knew there’s not gonna be an audience, but yet there was gonna be an audience. So you pretend that audience is there the same way you pretend when you’re rehearsing. 19:13
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