[FEEDBACK]

Rock Hole: Sorry about that… I still want you to have your hearing when you next go on tour or do some recording or something.

Ken Tamplin: What?

RH: I still want you to have your hearing when you next go on tour.

KT: Which is what I’m gonna be finishing when I hang up, haha!

RH: Alright, why don’t you start by telling me a bit about the Wake the Nations project that you’re doing?

KT: Well, it’s a fun project, you know, I’ve got… let’s see here, I was given the opportunity to work with a bunch of players and a bunch of friends, and… You know, it started out being a record that I was approached to do some time back by Z records, which was going to be an album called Crusade.

RH: I was gonna ask you how that turned out to be Wake the Nations.

KT: Yeah, and you know, Mark had a lot on his plate, Mark Alger, the owner of the label, and we just had decided mutually that I wanted to do it maybe in a little quicker time frame than he wanted to. I had waited a year and we still hadn’t moved forward on the album so we were able to move the idea on to Now & Then records, which I’ve had other records on in the past with Mark Ashton and he was exicted about the idea, so… He wanted to move on it rather quickly so we started to move forward on Wake the Nations and what wound up happening was literally after the whole project was almost a finished, a buddy of mine named Niki Baldrain – I don’t know if you know him from AOR Dreamzone?

RH: Nope, news to me. How do you spell his name?

KT: N-I-k-I B-a-l-d-r-I-a-n. Yeah, he’s a good friend, and I had just done a song for his We All Come Together CD which is a big benefit, New York Trade Center benefit CD. I had done a song with Doug Aldridge [Lion/ Dio guitarist], and actually it’s the first song on the CD if I’m not mistaken cuz it’s actually part of the title track of the album. The song is called “We All Come Together” and the CD is called We All Come Together. And anyway, he had said, “Hey, mate, what about getting some of these guitar players to play on your album?” and I thought “Yeah, I did that back in the Shout days on In Your Face, why didn’t I think of doing that for this album?” So, with his help and the help of a couple of other people, I contacted a bunch of other guys and the long and the short of it is we were able to wrangle in some pretty unique talent and I think you probably know Marty Friedman from Megadeth is on there, and Jeff Scott Soto from Yngwie Malmsteen.

RH: Yeah, I got the list off your website of the people that you got.

KT: Oh good. We’ve got Reb Beach, Kee Marcello, Richie Kotzen, Jeff Watson, Mattias Eklundh.

RH: You’ve always been really well connected and had great players on your records...

KT: You know, I think when you strive to try to be the best you can I think that breeds a respect with other people that are also in the same mindset. And so, I think it’s just a mutual respect for talent. I don’t know about being connected as much as just a mutual respect. You know what I mean?

RH: Do you think that’s lacking in other Christian music which is what’s held it back from being more successful?

KT: You know, I don’t know that I can speak for everybody because if you see bands like POD, they’re pretty good…

RH: But they are being successful.

KT: Yeah, and Creed is pretty good, I think that there’s a lot of people that have been incredibly talented that maybe haven’t been quite so successful. Phil Keaggy for example is this absolutely phenomenal guitar player. Did he get the recognition he deserved as far as the amount of talent in equality to his ability? No, nowhere near, you know, he’s stuck in the little Christian ghetto, you know what I mean? So, I don’t know that that’s true right across the board, other than I’ve never tried to be one of these guys that shoves the Bible down everyone’s throat. It’s a personal thing for me. I’ve just tried to be… You know, when I tell somebody I’m gonna do something, I do it, when I tell ‘em I’m gonna pay them something, I pay them on time. When I tell them I’m gonna turn in a project, I turn it in on time. When I tell them it’s going to be great, it’s going to be great. [laughs] You know? And I think if we live our lives that way that speaks volumes about who we are as people, and if we happen to be Christians in the process then I think that elevates the visibility and authenticity of the title “Christian”.

RH: So it’s the way Christianity should be?

KT: Right. But unfortunately it isn’t, for the most part.

RH: Also you’ve had very intelligent lyrics, with references to classics and Shakespeare. Do you think that, you know, actually having a brain helps to increase your credibility?

KT: Well I actually think it’s a deficit in the Christian market and the reason I say that is that it’s really bubblegum Christianity if you listen to or if you look at what’s really successful in the Christian market. It’s incredible superficial. My favourite lyricists of all time, who I revere, are people like John Lennon and Dylan, and Sting, and Billy Joel, and, you know, a lot of these, especially Lennon… Even though I may at a theological level vehemently disagree with his spiritual and/ or ideological ideals, with reference to God and, y’know… For example… I’d like to use an example. The song “Imagine”, which everybody loves to quote. When I think of the song “Imagine”, I think it’s genius. If I were to tell a Christian or a Pastor that, they would think I lost my mind. Well, why it’s genius to me is I remember when I first heard that song as a Christian really contemplating “Gosh, what would it be like if there was no heaven?” You know what I mean? Now, I didn’t necessarily look at it with the same view as he was trying to get me to look at it, however he did engage me nonetheless and forced me to take a theological look at myself, and I just though “Gosh if there’s no heaven…” and I thought that if all that was here was this earth, what a pathetic thing I think I wanna go kill myself [laughs]. This earth is far from perfect and it’s far from y’know ideal and even if he was trying to imply peace, “give peace a chance”, that whole thing I get that, however I think the depravity of man is inhibitive for us and I don’t think that could ever happen. I think the more man get greedy and gets, y’know, it’s gonna get worse and worse and worse. With that said, however, when I heard it from “Imagine” I was just blown away going “This guy has the ability to charm anyone with his lyrics into taking a look at his twisted perception. Now, twisted in my mind as it may be, other people may agree with him. I’m entitled to my opinion; that’s how I feel. However, the songwriting is genius. I thought to myself, if I ever wanna get really good at my craft I must aspire to that kind of excellence in lyrics. Otherwise, it’s worthless, and I don’t even care if people like it or don’t like it, or buy it or don’t buy it. It’s a personal best for me, you know what I’m saying. So anyway, I hope this isn’t way over the top for you right now but with that said, I don’t look to… I look to Shakespeare, I look to CS Lewis, I look to a lot of the great poets of our time as my example and I try not to look to “What’s going on in this market?” or “What’s this guy doing?” or “What’s that guy doing?” Because most people… I’ve started to go on a rant, but if you look at art and culture. Both entertainment… I don’t care if it’s art in paint form or architecture or whatever, the decline of civilisation in the last 100 years is remarkable. I mean if you look at…I don’t care if you look at movies. If you look at movies from the ‘20s, 30s, 40s, 50s even, with Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and things like that you just… It’s amazing. No special effects or anything like that yet you cry at the end of the movie every time you see it no matter how many times you see it. I don’t care how many times you see it. Today, if you look at a Schwarzeneggar movie and you cry cuz you just paid 20 bucks for a pile of crap! [laughs] That’s true in most music. Not all but most music and most art, in whatever form, painted, sculpture or whatever, and it’s also true in architecture. Cruise around Europe a little bit and go “Gosh this is just magnificent!” You know what I mean? And then you look at today and our greatest claim to fame is the World Trade Center that just got bombed. [laughs] You know, so…And I’m not trying to make light of that. I apologise if it comes off that way.

Anyway, what my point is, is that I don’t want that. You know, when I think about great singers I think about Aretha Franklin or Otis Reading or Wilson Pickett. That’s what I want to aspire towards. I don’t… I want greatness. Sorry to go on so long!

RH: That’s alright. It’s quite an interesting combination you know, because you play commercial hard rock and at the same time deep lyrics. A lot of equivalent bands are playing are saying really dumb-rock sex lyrics without a lot of depth.

KT: Right, well, I think a lot of…. I think if you’re gonna write about sex you should write about the complications of it, not just about doing some 17 year old in a bar, you know what I mean? To me it’s just…

RH: Did you mention that to Reb Beach?

KT: No… why, is that what his lyrics are like? [laughs]

RH: Well, like “Seventeen” by Winger…

KT: Yeeeah, but I feel like that was at an era, what I’m gonna call the sugar-gum power/ metal/ pop era, and I know what record labels wanted. They want “She’s my cherry pie”, they want that. They wanted Warrant. They wanted Winger, Cinderella; they wanted that thing. I don’t necessarily hold them accountable if their single is like that. I think I would hold them accountable if their entire record or career was like that. Does that make sense? I get asked all the time to write stupid lyrics for movie soundtracks and things. You know, they don’t want poetry. They want a stupid single that they can have brain-dead people listen to and get for the first three seconds and then listen to and get move onto the next dance. So…

RH: I was going to ask you about the guitarists you’ve got playing on the album because you’ve got tons of them. Are they all on separate tracks or jamming together like on “In Your Face”?

KT: Actually they’re almost all on separate tracks. There are a couple that are on combined tracks. For example Reb Beach and Marty Friedman are on the same song because the guitar solo is 24 bars long.

RH: Raaaawk!

KT: It’s a long guitar solo so it’s split up between the two. Um there’s one other song… on “Hare Christian” Pete Lesperance does the solo in the middle of the song and then there’s an outro that Stevie Salas does. I’m trying to think… there’s one or two other songs like that where there’s a main body solo and then some soloing at the end which might be… Like Howie Simon did a lot of outro solos, where Jeff Watson is doing the main solo or… something like that.

RH: What about you? Are you playing any solos?

KT: Yeah actually I am. I play quite a bit. I actually play almost all of the rhythms and I play two solos. It was actually kinda fun for me because I felt like it was an opportunity to have other guitar players know that a strong guitar player was asking them to play on their record, so I felt like I got out of them what I expected rather than just a cheesy solo. I might’ve been a little… intimidating is not the right word, but… encouraging for them to come up with something cool, which was great.

RH: Who plays the solo in “Wake the Nations”?

KT: It’s myself and Scott Van Zen.

RH: Because I downloaded that off the website and it reminded me of Nuno Bettencourt, and I know he wasn’t on the album…

KT: But you see, I love Nuno’s stuff. I shoulda called him! I didn’t even think about that. He’d have been someone I could have called.

RH: He woulda been wicked. Of course, there’ll be future Tamplin albums where you can do this stuff…

KT: Yeah absolutely

RH: Because Reb Beach knows Andy Timmons [from Danger Danger and also a soloist signed to Steve Vai’s label] as well, and he’s cool.

KT: Yeah that would be a good thing to do. Maybe you and I should hook up and we should brainstorm on other players for the next album or something!

RH: Well, you’ve gotta have me too!

KT: [laughs] Are you a great player?

RH: I wouldn’t say great, but I went to a guitar school last year, so I try! Going back to the track “Wake the Nations”, it’s got some pretty controversial lyrics on it.

KT: Yes. Very. What would you like to know about it?

RH: Well, are you worried about the response?

KT: I’m not really, because you have to understand I just made an album called [Make Me Your Voice], and a lot of people I think if they make statements on their records and they don’t back it up, I think that’s pretty chicken-s---, if you know what I mean. If you make statements and you live it and you breathe it, and it’s part of your life and you put your words to action, then it’s really difficult to poke at someone. In other words, here’s my point: I have a song called “Wake the Nations”, and it hits square in the forehead at Islamic fundamentalism and there’s two songs on the album that are like that. I don’t feel in any way that I’m talking about moderate Muslims and I don’t feel in anyway way like I’m attacking the Muslim religion as a whole, as much as I’m attacking the extremism and what’s happening all around the world. Now, with that said, I don’t care if you look at Indonesia, I don’t care if you look at North Korea, Palestine, Sudan, on and on and on… I could give you some 20 odd countries where this Islamic jihad is happening… all over the world. We just happened to be beneficiaries of that just over a year ago with 9/11 and the Pentagon. With that said, I have made two albums now, both which have done very well on EMI, called Make Me Your Voice. And so what I did… I want everyone to know this is before 9/11. We made these before… the first one was a year before 9/11, and we donated… I have big stars on there like Andrae Crouch who did the Lion King, all the Gospel vocals for the Lion King and Charlie Peacock and all these people, but I personally, personally donated around $100,000 both in hard money, my time, and recording of a stellar record, with I mean an orchestra, four different choirs; just a gigantic album. EMI, I got them to put up another $100,000 to promote the record that was non-recoupable against the record so that we could use 100% of the royalties to go to the Sudan Aid, which is again blacks in the south that are getting slaughtered; they’ve killed over 2,000,000 of these blacks in the south, the Islamic extremist government. So with that said, I have been watching this for some time. This is not some new fandangled thing that all of a sudden I have some neurotic revelation after 9/11. I’ve been watching this for several years now. Why I say… when, I can go out and write a song called “We’ve Jihad Enough”, I didn’t write that only because of 9/11. I wrote that because I have been living and breathing this and literally have donated one half of my life and income to helping people, and I don’t care if they’re Christians, Swahili, if they’re getting slaughtered by Islamic extremism, I’m for their defence. For example, I’ve been helping Jewish organisations with what happened with what’s going on in Palestine and other things, because they’re getting beat up! It’s just wrong. It’s big bully. Islamic fundamentalism is big bully, and they’re doing it all over the world. It’s just a matter of time before they come to your home. With that said, if someone has a problem with that, at least they can see that I’m not someone who’s just blabbing words. I’m putting action to my words.

RH: Will there be another Make Me Your Voice in the wake of 9/11 to do with that?

KT: A whole album you mean? No, not really. There’s a couple of tunes on there… wait, let me back up. I would say yes, it’s a clarion call, but it’s not just a clarion call to that specifically. Let me use an example. I have a song on there called “The Man with the Plan”. It’s a song about who I believe is the antichrist, who I believe someday will come with a plan for peace, and will deceive everyone, but he’ll be a bad guy, okay? I have another song called “Hare Christian” which is a play on the words “Hare Krishna”. The reason I have that on there is because… I don’t know if you remember a movie called The Stepford Wives but it was a movie about zombies; these women, these wives that live in a small town and one by one they become these zombies, out to get their husbands, right [chuckles]? At any rate, I feel like there’s a majority of the Christians out there who… let me quote a couple of the lyrics. For example, I’m an equal-opportunity offender [laughs] because I’m not just going after Islamic extremism, I’m also going after my own brothers and sisters in Christ, and the reason I do this is I feel there’s so much phoney-ness to it. So for example the opening line is:

“I see people putting folks down so they can lift themselves up,

Passing judgement on the world and all their sin,

Well let me tell ya, in heaven sits the judge no king can corrupt,

How about we leave all the judging up to him?

I’m tired of all the Hare Christians.”

And so I’m not just… this is an awakening at a lot of levels.

RH: That’s an important lyric. It’s something that needs to be said.

KT: Yes. I don’t mind if… people can hate me for it. I don’t make records for a living any more. I do this because I like to. My revenue comes from film and television now, so I get to say things and make records because I like to, not because I have to.

RH: So that presumably makes them more kind of artistically… merited?

KT: Mmmhmm… And more critical too because I really wanna… I’m doing it and I’m doing it because I want to make it great. It’s not about spending extra money on the album; I do that anyway.

RH: You’ve collaborated with other musicians over the years and especially this album, but you always produce stuff yourself. Did you ever think about working with other producers and songwriters to bring in a new aspect there as well?

KT: Absolutely. Sure. The caveat or the problem with that is, again, the kind of records that I make, for example this album. If I had hired out, have someone make this record, if I had done it for less than $75,000 I would be surprised. With that said, I own a really nice studio in my home, state-of-the-art everything you can possible imagine, I got killer guitars, guitar amps, blah blah. The reality is, the kind of music that we do and I like to do when I make a record for myself, the money is so low, so ridiculously low, that it barely covers the guitars and the guitar players that I have on the album, much less the recording costs, much less the studio time. My room, for example, I charge $1000 a day and this record has taken me about fifty days to make. That alone in studio time would be $50,000. When you think about that in reality, or in light of that, I haven’t even paid a producer yet, or an engineer, or whatever. So, unfortunately, because it’s inhibitive, or money inhibitive to hire somebody like that, I would love to do that, but again I just don’t see that happening just because the dollars and cents don’t make sense.

RH: Yeah, well, your albums have been well produced anyway so it’s not as if there’s a pressing need for you to get a producer.

KT: No, but it’s fun. I actually get to do it in film all the time. There’s big budgets. I got to work with Stu Goldberg the ghost-writer for Hans Zimmer for almost fifteen years. I get to do that in different areas, just not necessarily in making hard rock records.

RH: Where do your influences in rock music come from? Because when you talk about your influences you talk about Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and soul and motown, but at the same time you’re kicking out rock records.

KT: Right. Well, it’s kinda funny, because if you really think about somebody like John Fogerty [Creedence Clearwater Revival], and from him you think about David Coverdale [Ken does his best impersonation of the Whitesnake singer]. You think about Fogerty and his real distorted, middle-American, and then you think about Coverdale [impersonations of both to show how similar they were]. Now, let’s go back to Wilson Pickett [sings “Mustang Sally” and again, the similarity to Coverdale is remarkable], you know, it’s big, distorted. It’s more than obvious that David Coverdale wanted to be Wilson Pickett. Laugh but it’s really true, just like Michael Bolton wants to be Otis Reading so bad he can taste it. Now why I say that is, if you look into Steve Perry [Journey], right, and then you listen to Sam Cook. And Sam goes “aah-aah-aah” [sings one of Sam’s trademarks] and that’s one of Sam’s famous lines. Now, one of Steve Perry’s famous lines is “aah-aah-aah” [sings the same thing]. I don’t know how you’re going to print that other than I just sang a line that is identical to both people’s styles, but then you hear interviews where Steve Perry says “Yeah, one of my favourite singers is Sam Cook” yeah? Well no kidding! So why I say that is, when I think of my favourites, which is again, Wilson Pickett, Otis Reading, Aretha Franklin just because she’s a wailer, all those things transcend or translate into what we do as rock musicians. It’s like I like a lot of different styles; I like flamenco guitar playing. But all that stuff…. Like Yngwie Malmsteen loves the classical thing. He just brought that into Pagannini on 10, you know what I mean? He just brought that into a metal world.

Anyway, getting back to metal influences, vocals… it would have to be more individual things like favourite guitar players have been guys like Michael Schenker [Scorpions, UFO, MSG], and I love, obviously Stevie Ray Vaughan’s one of my favourite players. I like… you’ve probably never heard of this guy named Danny Gatten who just killed himself a few years back but he was an amazing guitar player. I like Strunz and Farah, two amazing flamenco guitar players. I loved [Al] Di Meola when I was growing up until I learned that he had no soul, and then I wanted to be Jimmy Page and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, and all those guys, and when I grew out of that I light John McLaughlin and I liked Chick Corea and that whole movement. When I grew out of that I realised I could say so much more with just one note and that’s when Steve Ray Vaughan was just [sings one note for an implausibly long time] like “He’s playing one note and it’s saying more than fifty I just played!” So we just go through these things…and you listen to guys like Gary Moore; I wouldn’t say he’s one of my all-time favourites but I like his playing, and this whole kinda similar-genre; I like Satriani’s playing; you know what I mean?

As far as singing, I like early motown stuff, but I like Paul Rogers [Free, Bad Company]. He’s better today I think than he was back in his day. I like… Lou Gramm was another one of my favourite singers… so anyway, they’re all just things that you grow on. It’s music… as far as actual bands and stuff… We all like the Beatles, the Zeppelins, the Rolling Stones, and the Who, and the Aerosmiths. And later on…I mean I had “Yes” tattood on my arm when I was seven years old.

RH: Seven?!

KT: [laughing] I was seven!

RH: Your mum must have been thrilled.

KT: Oh, she flipped, yeah. [laughs] She threatened to cut my arm off!! [erupts in laughter]. At any rate, later bands, there was Van Halen of course, and those kinds of groups so…

RH: And Mutt Lange… is he a production influence? I hear a little bit of that in…

KT: [Hesitantly] I think he was… For me the coolest thing about Mutt Lange, believe it or not, for me, wasn’t Def Leppard, it was AC/DC. I mean, think about it. The Def Leppard thing kinda came and went, and it set new milestones in recording and I really loved it, really loved the vocals, I mean everything strived to sound like a Def Leppard record, but it was kinda like the emperor’s got no clothes, because it didn’t have quite the rawness, like it was perfect for the time, but it didn’t have timelessness to it, whereas AC/DC man, I don’t care what club you’re in in the world, the minute you hear that four hits off the high-hat you, know [sings Back in Black], you just go “I could hear that song ten years from now and still like it!” It just is what it is. For me his [Mutt Lange’s] ingenious stuff was by far the AC/DC stuff.

RH: The record comes out in January right? I like the track “Wake the Nations” a lot. You said the production was going to be more 21^st-century sounding. How are you mixing that with classic sounds?

KT: I say that from a fidelity standpoint, there were a few little drum loops and things like that. I didn’t get too far off the beaten path of what I need to stay true to, which is the straight-ahead hard rock/ hard commercial rock thing. I think that would be really disappointing for fans when they’re expecting one thing and they get something else, but there are some things… For example I have a song called “Cell Phone Freaks” okay? It’s bagging on people that can’t drive… We should have, instead of bumper stickers that say “Don’t drink and drive”, we should have ones that say “Don’t dial and drive”! [laughs] It’s bagging on people that drive around and… almost get in accidents with people. Anyway, it’s kind of a Van Halen vibe but it’s got this really guitar muting things going on that make it sound modern, like if Van Halen had kept going, you know what I mean? Modern, but still has all the BIG elements, you know, big guitar, heavy drums, big guitar solo. It wasn’t like I’m trying to get alternative because I’ve chosen not to live an alternative lifestyle. [much laughter]

RH: Now that is a classic line! I’m gonna have to put that on my website in big print. Anyway, Van Halen… you’ve mentioned them quite a lot. Are they a key influence on the record?

KT: Well they’ve always been, you know, Eddie’s guitar… Not so much his lead playing but his rhythm playing was always a big influence.

RH: That behind-the-beat thing that he does…

KT: Yeah, exactly. I just love that, you know. I can’t escape that. That and AC/DC rhythms have been my favourite kinds of… you know, I just love stuff like that.

RH:  The last big rock record you did was Shout Back. How is Wake the Nations? Does it follow on from that? Is it kind of Shout but…

KT: I would say it’s about five times as good as that record. I think the reason for that is that when we did the Shout Back album, again it was… I felt like I was trying to fit in a mould where I knew that people expected and wanted to hear Shout. You know what I mean? They were expecting to hear Shout making a reunion album. It wasn’t Ken Tamplin going nuts. It was how do I take this paradigm from back then and this mould from back then and still make it cohesive for today. The opening song sounds like Lenny Kravitz rather than Shout, which is kinda cool because it’s a little modern and whatever but it didn’t stray too far away from Shout. Well, then there are other things in there that are like your typical big anthemic things that to me are a little trite now, that I wouldn’t have necessarily have done for myself because I felt like it was a little to trite. But I felt like if I didn’t do that, Shout fans would have been disappointed. Whereas in this record, I just got to do what I wanted.

RH: So you think that going under the name Tamplin gives you that freedom?

KT: I don’t really know, other than I know a lot of people have got so many different styles from me that they probably don’t know what to expect anymore. [laughs] And hopefully that’s a good and a bad thing.

RH: So…

KT: What’s your email address?

RH: [I tell him]

KT: Oh that’s right… oh that’s YOU! You funny guy!

RH: Oh yeah, I know…I’m scum!

KT: You’re the guy that was bagging on me… [Ken is referring to some tough questions I asked him at his website about similarities between some of his songs]

RH: I don’t know, some of it was in bad taste…

KT: Actually I think some of the things you said were appropriate I just think there could be different ways of saying some things. What I’m gonna do is send you… don’t send this to anybody dude, please…I’m gonna send you a couple of little peaks at a couple of the tunes. It’s not final mixes and it’s not mastered yet, but you can kinda see what I’m talking about. Because the “Wake the Nations” on the Tamplin page (www.kentamplin.com) is just a demo, just a poor demo, nothing more than that. These are actual tracks that are basically done. I will send you “The Story of Love”. What’s cool about this song is the lyric is just indicative for me of the story of Christ, but not the way other people tell the story of Christ:

“You came down born from above,

Born in the ghettos of the city,

Your aim was to show the world how to love

So you healed the sick and needy

Did we show our gratitude or reveal our attitude?

We hung you to a cross

That’s the story of love.” So it’s like a dichotomy: On the one hand, all you (Christ) did for us was good, and when people think of Christ they think of [angry, swearing voice] “Oh JESUS CHRIST, JE-SUS-CHRIST”. I’m surprised people don’t say, instead of saying “God damn it!” they should say “Ah, Satan dammit!” You know, they never do that, and it’s kinda interesting, but, how people have such a vehement hatred towards Christ, which is weird because when you read his story he did nothing to cause people to hate him, which is weird, other than help people. I’m sure a lot of what’s been done in the name of Christ over the years which is man’s fault, not God’s fault, is wrong. I just wanted to write a song about it. I’ll send it to you. It’s me and Jeff Scott Soto.

RH: Oh… the voice of the movie Rock Star.

KT: Yeah. It’s a good track. It’s me playing the solo with Scott Van Zen.

RH: Anything else you’d like to say?
KT: Uh, where is this going out?
RH: It’s going on my website. I’ll email it all to you.

KT: Well, let me know what you think of the track. I think you’ll like it. OK bro… have a great day.

[A few irrelevant bits of chit chat ensue before the conversation comes around to Alice Cooper]

KT: Now there’s another Christian, Alice Cooper. He just became a Christian a few years ago.

RH: Yeah, I’m a bit confused about when that was because he was on TV saying that “Poison” was a message of morality [1989] but his first full-on Christian album was The Last Temptation [1994].

KT: That’s a good question. I was thinking back around the “Poison” era too that that was about the time he had a conversion. When was that? 1996?

RH: Poison was 1989.

KT: Oh it was that long ago? No way! You’re kidding. I don’t think he was a Christian back then. I think it was after that because I remember talking to Ken Mary [Impellitteri, Tamplin drummer] who was his drummer back then, and he said he wasn’t. Ken Mary was his drummer in ’91. Huh… okay. Kinda interesting. OK, well I’ll look forward to hearing back from you, hearing what you think about the tune, and hearing the interview. OK man, have a great day.

 

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