{"id":27137,"date":"2024-05-16T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27137"},"modified":"2024-05-17T07:52:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T11:52:46","slug":"after-forty-years-and-counting-for-tesla-its-still-time-to-rock-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/16\/after-forty-years-and-counting-for-tesla-its-still-time-to-rock-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"After Forty Years and Counting, for Tesla it\u2019s Still \u2018Time to Rock!\u2019 (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

They fixed more than a few<\/em> things on that album\u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n

I remember saying, \u201cOh, man, you\u2019re killing me!\u201d So they said, \u201cYou have to re-play and re-sing some stuff.\u201d And we stuck to our guns and said, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to do it. You either put it out completely live or just put it on the shelf.\u201d And you know what they said? \u201cWe\u2019re going to put it back on the shelf.\u201d then if you\u2019re not going to redo it. And you know what? When me and Tommy and Frank wouldn\u2019t play that at that radio station signs. And the phones were ringing off the hook back when phones were on a hook, right? And the phones were ringing off the hook, Jeff. And records goes, we got this whole evening of it, but they won\u2019t redo some parts. And you know what they said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to be sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

But you know what? It turns out we\u2019re not<\/i> sorry for it. And they put it out completely live. And that\u2019s what the people appreciate, and that\u2019s what, as a band, we<\/i> appreciate about it. It was from start to finish, completely live. And then it turned into our biggest selling record to date. It was a total fluke.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tell me about the band\u2019s mid \u201890s breakup and reformation several years after.<\/b><\/p>\n

Tommy left the band in \u201895. We went on as a four piece because we wanted him to see that the position was open. We were not trying to replace him. But it never worked out. And we broke up in \u201896 as a four piece.<\/p>\n

I started a band with Tommy in \u201897, \u201898 called Sofa King. Then we changed to Bar 7. And I was still friends with Brian, Frank and Troy. And eventually, in 2000, we got back together. We played Arco Arena. People flew from all over the place. We did that show, then went, \u201cWell, the next commitment is playing three shows in northern California, like Fresno, a few shows like that.\u201d Then, \u201cOkay, that was great. Now let\u2019s commit to doing a whole leg.\u201d Then we did a leg, then we did another<\/i> leg. And finally we got to 2003 and we go, \u201cWe need to make another record. That\u2019s the next commitment.\u201d And that\u2019s when we wrote, produced and mixed Into the Now<\/i> ourselves.<\/p>\n

Then in 2004 or \u201805, that\u2019s when went out with the Scorpions. And the requirement was that Tommy had to go clean and sober. And that\u2019s when I said, \u201cYou know what? If he\u2019s got to go clean and sober, then I am, too. Because how can I ask somebody to jump over the moon if I can\u2019t?\u201d And the rest of the band followed suit.<\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t work out for Tommy. He left in 2006, and that\u2019s when Frank found Dave Root. And you know what? We\u2019re going stronger. Now we\u2019ve got Steve Brown as our drummer because Troy [Luckketta] needed more time for his family after Covid hit.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the only lineup change you\u2019ve had change since Tommy left 18 years ago! I read that you lost your voice temporarily at one point in the mid \u201890s. What do you do these days to protect your vocal cords? <\/b><\/p>\n

I ended up losing my voice in Reno because I was going through a lot of stuff. But it\u2019s happened more than just in the mid \u201890s. A voice is an instrument that\u2019s built-in. So if my voice dries up or the vocal cords get swollen from overworking it, we\u2019ve just got to push the show back and make it up. The other instruments, you just change the strings, tune them up, and you can still go. But when your instrument is a voice that\u2019s built-in, there\u2019s nothing you can do. So back in the days when I used to, let\u2019s say, party a lot, there was always that pressure of, \u201cDid that party four days ago that went into three days ago, that went into two days ago have anything to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Now when I write songs, when we put songs together, I don\u2019t sing all that high stuff on 20 cups of coffee and a case of beer, smoking two packs of cigarettes a day\u2026 I don\u2019t do that stuff. And I write melodies that I can sing today, because some of the stuff I did in \u201886 I can\u2019t sing anymore. So the guys will tune down. And anywhere where I have to readjust something, I just do a little different melody. And the people still love it! Because they know that, \u201cHey, okay, so you tune down. You can\u2019t hit those<\/i> notes, but you\u2019re doing some other notes in place of them.\u201d The people love it, and we\u2019re having a blast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tesla has largely steered clear of the glam posturing that a lot of other metal bands adopted. Was that something that you consciously avoided? <\/b><\/p>\n

What we\u2019ve always been taught by our management was this: \u201cEvery song you write, write it from the heart, because you may never sell one record, and you may be playing in front of five drunk people that don\u2019t care. But as you write songs from the heart, you\u2019re going to be up there on stage playing those songs. And that might be all you ever get. It turns out that worked out for us; things did work out for us. And we became successful playing songs from the heart.<\/p>\n

Musical styles and fashions change. When grunge became popular, how did that change the band\u2019s fortunes? <\/b><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I say. When grunge came in, their image was \u201cno image,\u201d which is still an image. Wearing jeans and plaid shirts and letting your hair grow long and not dressing up is still an image. It\u2019s like Geddy Lee says: when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.<\/p>\n

When grunge came along, the grunge movement kind of immediately said, \u201cYou who are dressing up and dolling up, using all the hairspray: You\u2019re out. No matter how good your songs are, you\u2019re out.\u201d But we never worried about how we were looking. My belief is that Tesla got to stay around because the grunge movement looked at us and thought, \u201cYeah, you didn\u2019t really play to all that, so we\u2019re going to let you hang.\u201d But what really kept us hanging around was that our fans were with us. And they\u2019re still with us today. That\u2019s what ultimately lets you stick around. No matter what the movement or fad is, when we have a fan base like ours, we\u2019re going to be able to play until the wheels fall off.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… They fixed more than a few things on that album\u2026 I remember saying, \u201cOh, man, you\u2019re killing me!\u201d So they said, \u201cYou have to re-play and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[5372,5371],"class_list":["post-27137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-jeff-keith","tag-tesla","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27137"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27557,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27137\/revisions\/27557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}