With a brand new album out now (download only for the moment at iTunes and CD BABY.COM) called 'Beautiful Mess' and a busy schedule ahead, including a Firefest performance, Ian Johnson thought it was high time Fireworks hooked up with one of melodic hard rock's most beloved singers and ask him what was going on. So over to Jeff Scott Soto.

First thing Jeff, do you think that the new album is going to surprise some people because, if you don't mind me saying, it's quite a departure from the previous Jeff Scott Soto albums.

Well Ian, that is one of the reasons why I tried to do quite a bit of press and get information out there before the new album was released. I didn't want fans of my melodic rock stuff looking at the new release and wanting it to be something it's not, I wanted to make sure that anyone who bought it wasn't disappointed in purchasing it, then taking it home and saying this isn't what I was expecting. So I dropped hints for so long about what I was doing and with so many ways to retrieve the soundbites, you really can't go wrong in knowing it's going to be completely different from what your used to from me.

Some of the songs on the new album remind me of the Eagles from their last album.

Wow, I haven't heard that one before Ian. What I'm really aiming for is a more contemporary sound, like the Lenny Kravitz and Maroon 5 side of things, and not neccesarily the AOR and hard rock stuff I've done before. I've done so many things over the years that you have to understand that aside from some of the disappointments and the lack of success, however you want to put it, I still want to tap into things that interest me but haven't got around to trying yet. Although I wouldn't compare this music to the Eagles because with these songs I'm aiming more for a youthful interest and I can get away with that for a few more years. I look alright for my age but people look at the number and go hmmm, wouldn't have known that.

I've noticed on 'Beautiful Mess' that your voice sounds deeper that usual. Is this deliberate on your part.

Well a lot of the songs were co-written or pre-written for me and obviously the writers of those songs tend to write in a lower range anyway. I personally enjoyed it because over the years you kill yourself on tour, you get to the point that if you're doing three or four nights in a row you have to live like a monk ... you know, it's no drinking, proper sleep, proper diet, exercise and if you don't get that and you get sick then your show is going to suffer. But with this kind of material and the material I'm aiming towards, I can do this music seven days a week even with the worst cold. But even that's not the real reason, it's just that when these songs were written they just sounded better in this range. We tried things in different ranges higher keys, higher baritones, lower tenor but it just didn't sound right. It sounded more personal, more warm and more masculine in the tone I sang in if you will. I don't want to put anyone down in the hard rock genre or anybody who sings higher but it kind of tends to date the music if you're singing in a higher register, it will put what you're doing in a certain genre and I didn't want this album to be stereotyped. I just wanted to do something that defined where I was at the time.

The songs are lyrically very emotional. 'Broken Man', one of my favourite songs this year, 'Gin And Tonic Sky' and 'Cry Me A River' are really heartfelt. So are you getting something off your chest? What's the story behind them?

Well the answer to your question is yes and no. You see some of the songs that were already written, ones that I didn't have a hand in, accidently had lyrics that hit home with me, with some of the things that have happened to me over the years. That's why I named the album 'Beautiful Mess' because in general my life over the past three or four years has been just that, a 'Beautiful Mess'. You know, with what went down with Journey and going through a divorce, everyone has their ups and downs and I'm no exception and the bottom line is the way life can be beautiful and messy, so it's a play on words like saying it's the same difference, or jumbo shrimp, 'Beautiful Mess' kinda describes everyone's lives. So yes, a lot of the lyrics do pertain to some of what's gone on in my life over the past few years and so for me I found it a very fitting title/theme for the album.

Who's on the album with you this time, Jeff?

For the most part it's me and 90% my friend Paulo Mendonca who plays keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and he sings most backing vocals with me as well. There's only one other guy on the album, a guitarist called Ben Carey who co-wrote 'Testify' and 'Kick It' with me and we presented them to Paulo, who really liked them, so we gave them the treatment so they would fit on the album. Again, for the most part the drums are done by Paulo, and all the keyboards. I played a few notes here and there but for the most part it's all him.

Will Paulo be playing with you at 'Firefest'?

Unfortunately no, Paulo is probably as, or more busy than I am at the moment. He's got his hand in a lot of cookie jars at the moment so he's pretty hard to lock down but I'm sure if I waved a hefty pay cheque under his nose he'd drop everything and come running, but he has lots of things on his table, and bless him for it.

Can I ask why the new album is download only at the moment?

Well I basically went that way because I was reading an arcticle that said iTunes and digital downloads have overtaken the sales of CDs and other forms of buying music. So since I was doing this on my own and I don't have a licensing deal or a proper distributor I decided to do things my own way and go with the digital download first, get the buzz going, see how much noise I can make with it and see if I can create a big enough buzz so a major record company will want to come in and license it and put it out properly on CD. And if I'm not able to make a big enough noise with the downlaods then I'll release on CD myself. I have had this album in the can for so long but I still wasn't ready to release it on CD just yet as I have a lot of other commitments I want to fufill, so I wanted to get the album out there, get the buzz happening and whether it's with a major or me releasing it myself it will be out on CD around January time.

Why is the album under the name of JSS rather than Jeff Scott Soto?

It's funny. It's yet another thing I got from the fans, Ian. I remember reading an interview about Jennifer Lopez and Puff Daddy and others who had abbreviated their names to J-LO and P-Diddy because that's what their fans were calling them on chat sites and fan forums. And I've yet to see in the past year and a half the name Jeff written out in full because everywhere I look it's always JSS, so I'm referred to more as JSS than I am as Jeff; my hardcore fans know me as Jeff and JSS but with the new album I can go out under the JSS name and be a new artist for a lot of people. The older fans also might hear the new album under the JSS banner and go wow, this is good and not even relate it to me because it doesn't sound like Yngwie, Talisman or Rockstar or the hard rock path I have been on. So it is a reinvention of sorts but it is basically what everybody calls me now and you know what Ian? I kinda like it because I have always had the JSS logo and it feels like I have a new persona to work with.

Firefest is only a few weeks away, are you looking forward to it?

Ian, I have been looking forward to it ever since the mad Irish man Kieran rang and asked me to play this year. The crazy part is that I'm working with the Trans Siberian Orchestra and when I got confirmation that I was going to be working with those guys they asked if I could start rehearsals mid October and I went ohh, because my first show with the TSO is November the first, so I thought I was going to have to pull out but we've arranged it so I leave rehearsals Friday morning, fly over to London, drive down to Nottingham, do the show Saturday night, drive back to London Sunday and fly back to continue rehearsing on Monday. It kind of reminds me of when Phil Collins played those two gigs at Live Aid, though of course he flew first class on Concorde and I'll be in coach, but I wouldn't miss it.

What's the set list at Firefest going to be like? Lots of the new album played?

I'll be doing quite a few selections that fit the format and genre of what I'm doing at the moment and because we're given a limited amount of time I had to restructure the set so that things worked and because we're filming the gig I have to make sure everything fits musically and I don't want it to sound like to much of a jump from hard rock to the Eagles [laughs]. Usually I do things at my live gigs that on paper don't seem to fit but live they do, so I'm not worried about it. I think everything is going to go just fine.

At this point I ask Jeff if he's OK with me asking him about Journey, the answer is yes with reservations. I read him the question and answer given in last issue's Journey interview with Jonathan Cain, where Phil Ashcroft says that after the comments from Neal about Jeff after he joined the band, people were expecting his stay to be longer in Journey and Phil also asked if something wasn't right about Jeff. Jon's answer was that that after he'd recorded some songs with them it just didn't sound like journey. (See issue 33 for full interview). I ask Jeff for his comments.

Well Ian, we actually only did one song together and it was written for what ended up being the last show I did with them. It wasn't a song we considered using in the future. It wasn't considered the new Journey sound, it was something pieced together by Jon on the road and I remember comments from within the band that is sounded like a Jonathan Cain solo record. So yeah, it didn't sound like Journey and wasn't meant to. I gave it my best effort to try and bring out, for want of a better word, the 'Perryisms' of the song because people will and do have expectations of what a band should sound like. When Brian Johnson joined AC/DC he didn't stray too far from their legacy, he just redefined it and gave it a bit of his own style. Same goes for Hagar and Van Halen; he didn't change them to suit himself, he just put his own stamp on things. So I wanted to do a little bit of that without straying to far from what was supposed to sound like Journey. And when they were saying this sounds great, well done and patting me on the back, I felt that they were deadly serious about it all. So saying it didn't sound like Journey or their legacy, I'm not sure what that means or what the real reason was for my departure from the band and to this day I still don't. You see Ian, when I finished the track we're talking about and everyone had heard my vocals, Jonathan sent me and e-mail that said "I love the vocals, love the 'Perryisms' and look forward to working with you on future songs" so there was nothing but praise, so it's ironic when you hear about things like this when I have an Email that says I gave the song the proper treatment and got it right, which made me feel great because I was nervous as hell about working with these guys. Neal was a little different because he thought the song was rather weak and smaltzy. I'd like to say that we also got along really well had lots of fun, loads of antics and laughs. I had the best time with those guys, like hanging out with my brothers. And when I returned from the Talisman tour it was like that time had never exsisted. What I will say is that I never saw it coming.

So what do you think of Arnel?

He's a great AOR singer and has great voice but I think it's more a pure AOR voice rather than what Steve Perry had. Perry was raised on the Motown/Stax, Sam Cooke, Otis Reading, music of the 60's and 70's like me and has tons of soul in his voice. I think I could have brought a little bit of that soul back to Journey, maybe not as easily as Arnel who hit's notes I haven't seen in years with ease but I think that little bit of soul Perry brought to the table is missing. Though lets face it, there are few, if any, who can emulate what Steve Perry has and those who get compared to Perry just don't have his soul and his touch. Though I think that I have a little bit of that soul in me and could have maybe brought it to Journey.

Thanks for your honesty Jeff, and what's next for you?

My God, where do I start? I have the new album out and I'm on the promotional trail as we speak, then its the TSO thing and I'm just wrapping up an album for Frontiers that has to be titled. It's got a working title but the guys I'm working with and myself don't like it much so we'll change that. It's an album with two guys from the Swedish bands Eclipse and Work Of Art, two excellent AOR bands who have co-written the album together and it's the album when I listen to it, I feel I could have done with Journey. I'm singing up in the high heavens and all the songs have big catchy hooks, but they don't sound like copies of anything the two guys have done before. It's very AOR very melodic rock and I think it could be one of the melodic rock albums of 2009. There's Firefest of course, then I'd like to round up the guys and tour 'Beautiful Mess' maybe sometime around February/March time next year. So bottom line I'm pretty busy until summer of next year.

Thanks Jeff. Have you a message for our readers.

Well it's going on 24 years since I started this crazy and sometimes confusing ride, and so I have to say a massive Thank You to everyone who reads the magazine, has an interest in me and my music and everyone for keeping this genre, this music alive. I can't say enough thank you's to everyone for all their support. All the best to everyone.