Also this issue:

Searching for Zen
Local electronic label Zenapolæ will not go looking for you.
-Sean O’Neal

Summer Monster
The package tour -- something wicked this way comes.
-Patrick Rapa

DJ Nights
-Sean O'Neal

Sneaker Pimps
-A.D. Amorosi

Aereogramme
-Paul Burress

July 5-11, 2002

music

Tom Keifer

Second Wind: Keifer (third from left) and Cinderella are coming home.

by A.D. Amorosi

Cinderella did not invent the power ballad (though they did a neat job of it on “Nobody’s Fool”) or come up with hair metal (as ugly as they were, blame Quiet Riot and Motley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx). They were not the first to slip growling, howling slide-guitar blues or raunchy Rolling Stones references -- musically or vocally -- into their mix. That was Aerosmith. They did not pioneer fusing tart glam guitar heft with overblown melodramatic melodicism. I don’t know who did that, but I’d like to give that motherfucker a sound thrashing for ruining the glitter of my youth. Yet singer/songwriter Tom Keifer’s Cinderella (Pennsylvania/Jersey’s finest blues-pop-metal concern) did it best. And they had the most sleaze-o-licious fun at it whilst going many, many times platinum. They did it better than locals Heaven’s Edge, Le Compte and Britny Fox who spun their wheels at regional watering holes like the Galaxy, the Empire Rock Club and JR’s Rainbow Room, waiting for their next stale beer or stale blow job. They did it better than nationals like Ratt and W.A.S.P. And they even outdid Bon Jovi, the Jon who discovered Cinderella and pushed them to his home, Mercury Records.

Since forming in 1985, along with Eric Brittingham, Fred Coury and Jeff LaBar, Cinderella went from the Andy Johns-produced Valkyrie-theatricality of Night Songs to the hook-laden Long Cold Winter. That LP was not without its grandeur (see “Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone”). But like its snowy white cover, there was something spare, savage and sexy about Winter, best reflected in the sweetly salacious suite “Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin’ Apart at the Seams.” By the time they got to 1990’s horny Heartbreak Station, Cinderella had gone from horror show to honorable, capable of music both lush and hushed. After auspicious sales and audacious music making, all good things fell apart for the band. Kiefer moved to Nashville and continued playing live worldwide to an audience that never ever went away: heavy metal kids. Currently the reunited Cinderella is on tour with Poison and searching for a label to put out the 40-something songs they’ve written since reuniting in ’98.

City Paper: What do Long Cold Winter, Heartbreak Station and, in general, that period between 1988 and 1990 mean to you in retrospect? It’s certainly the biggest moment of your commercial success, but what else? Tom Keifer: That’s the period that we creatively grew into the band we were trying to be from the very first record. The production, songwriting, playing, even the image, came a long way from our debut record. We were very, very inexperienced making the first one, but I think we matured quickly. You know, when you get thrown in the deep end, you fucking learn to swim real fast.

CP: Why did you wait so long between Heartbreak and Still Climbing and again between Climbing and Once Upon A …?

TK: On the Heartbreak Station tour in 1991, my voice started doing some strange things. I lost the whole middle range of my vocals.… To make a long story short, I basically went to more voice centers than I care to remember, and test after test, until finally I was diagnosed with a partial paralysis of the left vocal cord. The cure for this condition, if any, was intense vocal therapy. I basically had to teach myself how to sing again. This has been an ongoing process for the last 11 years. My condition alone caused the delay before Still Climbing. After that, it took a couple years before I had my voice to the point that it was recordable. As for Once Upon A …, the band broke up after we toured for Still Climbing and that record was released a few years later by our ex-record company Polygram.

CP: With heavy metal making big money and an even bigger artistic return to charts and critical/public consciousness, what does that say about you waiting stuff out?

TK: I’ve always played the music that was in my heart. Sometimes, that’s expected of you and sometimes that’s not. Sometimes that works for a lot of people.… That’s not something you have control over. The only thing you have control over is being true to yourself.

CP: Is that why you left for Nashville? That seems an odd move, despite the fact that you used to walk horses at Philadelphia Park.

TK: I had started to write with some people in Nashville and was digging the whole scene there. So then when Cinderella broke up, I found myself for the first time in many years without a band. It was strange not to belong to anything at all, so I went looking for a new scene. Nashville is full of great players, writers and producers. I moved down to Nashville and started work on some solo material. No sooner did I get settled in Nashville, than John Kalodner from Sony called me asking about putting Cinderella back together. Needless to say, I put the whole solo thing on hold.

CP: What’s prompted a tour like Cinderella-meets-Poison? Is there comfort or safety in numbers?

TK: I think in these days, more than ever, people want their money’s worth when they go to a show and that is exactly what they get with a bill like this. You can call it safety in numbers but I prefer to call it a rock ’n’ roll show!

CP: Honestly, between his hanging with Elton John, the Versace suits and the whole acting career -- Ally McBeal in particular -- what do you think has become of Jon Bon Jovi? Does he want to be Springsteen, Sinatra, what gives?

TK: I think more power to him. Jon has a lot of energy and talent. Personally, I prefer the rock star Jon but he’s pretty damn good at the other shit too.

CP: Quite sadly, an old friend of the tri-state metal community, Tommy Carter of the Dead End Kids, passed away. I know you guys used to be friendly. Is there anything you can tell us about him as a gentleman and a player that could be helpful to both those who knew him and those who could never know him?

TK: Tommy was a great guy, a great musician and a great songwriter who was part of a great band that had a enormous impact on the Philadelphia/South Jersey club scene. If you were a musician in that area, you couldn’t escape being inspired by Tommy. We’ll all miss him.

CP: Of all your oldest or newest material what’s that one damn song makes the young girls -- as Bowie sang in “Young Americans”-- break down and cry and why?

TK: You know, I’d have to say “Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone.” I do not know why, but, as Nigel said in Spinal Tap, ‘It makes people weep instantly.’

Cinderella will play “The Hollyweird World Tour” on Wed., July 10, 8 p.m., $39.50, Tower Theater, 69th and Ludlow sts., Upper Darby, 215-336-2000, www.electricfactory.com.

Join the
City Paper
Mailing List