Some of you may have missed this? I dunno? Enjoy!:
What is Soul SirkUS and why has their website (
www.soulsirkus.com) received over 100,000 hits in only two days from fans all over the world?
Soul SirkUS is a group of melodic hard rockers born out of the ashes of Planet US, a band originally featuring guitarist Neal Schon and drummer Deen Castronovo of Journey along with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony of Van Halen.
When Hagar and Anthony left the band to return to their roles in Van Halen, Schon and Castronovo joined forces with singer Jeff Scott Soto (Yngwie Malmsteen, Talisman; also provided lead vocals for the feature character in the movie “Rock Star”) and bassist Marco Mendoza (Ted Nugent, Whitesnake) to create Soul SirkUS and pick up where Planet US left off.
Thanks to the Internet, word about the band is spreading like wildfire and those 100,000 people from around the world are already eagerly awaiting the band’s forthcoming debut album, which should be released by early 2005.
The album was recorded at Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain’s home studio (Wild Horse Studios) in San Francisco, CA in only two days. Cain engineered the project and Schon and Soto sat at the producer’s helm.
Interview with Jeff Scott Sotto from Soul SirkUS
Q: You’ve got quite a background.
A: I’ve done a lot of music that most people don’t people really know about. Then they start digging through my website, and go how come I’ve never heard of this guy?
Q: I know – 17 pages printed out dude. You’ve been around how did you hook up Neal Schon and Soul SirkUS ?
A : It was during the NAMM show, which is a big music convention that they have every year in LA and we just happened to both be attending and he was doing a guitar presentation. Like jamming it’s a party for Gibson, a company that he endorses. And he asked if I wanted to do a little jam with him because we’d just spoken for the first time a couple of days before that. And that’s where our official meeting place was going to be and he said we might as well knock two birds with one stone and we ended up jamming and checking out the vibe instead of having to wait and doing it the following week and trying to feel it out and sitting down and writing. We actually got the most important part out of the way, which is – is there any chemistry live? Because obviously you could work with anybody in the studio and get all that and get them on stage and go whoa – that’s not going to work. So we were able to knock that one out of the ballpark first. And then the rest was cake.
Q: I can see you play piano also.
A: Yeah. I dabble. When I'm writing, and when I’m goofing around and playing cover stuff or whatever. But, for the most part, I wouldn’t consider myself a piano player.
Q: I heard you during the sound check playing some of the classics.
A: Yeah. That’s all I know. I just know what I knew back in the day.
Q: So you’ve been together about a year now?
A: Just over a year.
Q: This new CD “World Play” – the one that’s out now with the 12 songs. Is there anything else you’re going to be adding to your show? This is the last day of the tour.
A: Yeah. Well we did a live shoot at the Fillmore the other day, so we got all that basically in the can. And we’re going to check that footage out and wrap it up with this and see what kind of live DVD we’ve got our hands on.
Q: What’s your goal after this? I understand that Journey’s going to be taking off and doing their own thing.
A: Yeah. They're going out for about three or four months, starting in July. We’ve got to kill some time in between then. But the idea of the plan is, on paper so far, is to go back out there in the fall as soon as he’s done. Maybe he can take a little break and we can resume. Because by then we should have the distribution thing down as to who is going to be putting it out in the states and then the album will be officially released. Right now it’s still so unofficial. The first version was only available on-line with a limited amount of people that bought it. And the only other people that are able to get it are at our shows. So, it’s not really officially in stores right now and until that is, the album still is brand new.
Q: I listened to the CD several times all the way up from San Francisco to South Lake Tahoe here. It really sounds great.
A: Thanks man.
Q: I especially like some of the real mellow songs. The last one that you were doing under lights there.
A: Oh “Soul Goes On.” Yeah. It’s one of my favorites.
Q: You have quite a range to your voice .
A: It’s all the years of just emulating all my heroes. I grew up listening to a lot of soul black music all my life. R&B stuff. I didn’t get into rock ‘n roll until I was in high school. Most of my friends are singers and people that I know that are rock singers, that’s all they ever liked. They never really ever saw the other side or discovered the other side and added that to their influence. Or vice versa, the only other guys that I knew that had that influence couldn’t do the rock stuff. I never wanted to be jaded as to just one style, one type. I always try to emulate everything from the Motown's to the Judas Priests out there. I wanted to do it all. I wanted to have a wide spectrum.
Q: That takes quite a wide vocal range though.
A: I guess it just comes from emulating it. Realizing that I could copy all that stuff, made me realize that I could on my own voice when I was doing rock stuff, use those influences in all aspects.
Q: I find that lacking a lot nowadays – a group having somebody that has a good voice. That’s what really carries you through your whole career.
A: I’m old school. I’m from the school where you had to have a good voice to be in a good band back in the day you know. I’m almost 40, so back in the day when we were in the 80’s, everybody was always looking for the guy – they wanted a Steve Perry or a Lou Graham or one of those guys.
Q: Did you sing the soundtrack for the movie "Rock Star" ?
A: Yeah. I did the voice for the original singer that was in the band, not for Mark Wahlberg’s character. I did the one when Wahlberg was in the audience watching the band on the stage while they were doing “Stand Up and Shout,” that’s my voice. That was another singer that did Mark Wahlberg’s voice after that.
Q: Did your voice hurt after that loud “Stand Up and Shout?”
A: You know, that’s probably the easiest stuff to sing.
Q: No kidding.
A: Yeah. Because it’s all throat. You just let it go. Where the other stuff is more controlled in the diaphragm. You actually have to work at that.
Q: I’ve seen Axle do that also. Axle changes his voice and starts shouting. When you were with Talisman, was that your longest gig with a band?
A: Yeah. That was my longest term band that I’ve been involved with. And still to this day, we have this ongoing relationship with the band. It’s never over. We’re always taking a hiatus, but we never actually break up or never say that’s it, we’re done.
Q: What does that do for you, being in so many sectors of bands stuff? Does it make you more creative?
A: It definitely gives me other creative outlets. It doesn’t help as far as audiences locking in and trying to find out who I am and what I’m all about, and so I’m kind of putting a strangle hold on that now. I don’t want to keep confusing people and making them think “Well, what is he really into. He’s doing this, he’s doing that.” Now it’s Soul SirkUS and my solo career. That’s all I’m really concentrating on.
Q: People can get confused easily.
A: Not only that, I spread myself too thinly too and I don’t want to bastardize anybody’s situation – especially Soul SirkUS. I mean this is something we’re trying to build. I don’t want to be jumping into another band and working with another artist that’s going take away from this.
Q: But it is more acceptable now. You see a lot of people do solo things.
A: The solo thing, there is no confusion there. But if I’m doing something with another artist or another guitar player, that type of thing. They’re like; well what does that mean you’re supposed to be doing this with Soul SirkUS. It’s best to just keep focused right now.
Q: I don’t mean to stay on such a serious tone here but it seems like being your last show – I’m just curious, where are you going to go now?
A: I’m contemplating actually just working on another solo record just to get it in the can. Not necessarily to release it right away, but just to get it done. That way when I find out what’s happening in the distant future for Souls, I guess I can either release it then or I can just hold on to it for whatever period of time.
Q: There were other members of the band too before right? .
A: Well when it was Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, that was Planet Us.
Q: Did that make any changes when Neal came along?
A: Absolutely. I mean it was a whole different idea and a whole different band altogether and once he got me involved, he realized the whole focus changed and he was able to actually go to other areas and other arenas that he wouldn’t have been able to go with those guys. I mean with this band, the sky’s the limit. With those guys, it would have been a great Rock ‘n Roll band, but with us, we’re a great rock ‘n roll extreme. Because we can go funk, we can go soul, we can go punk, we can go country, and we can do anything with this band.
Q: I noticed with this CD “World Play” there’s a very good consistency to the whole thing.
A: Yeah.
Q: What I like is you break it into a couple of nice mellow songs...
A: We just want to show everybody the versatility of the band and the fact that you are indeed coming to a SirkUS. You’re coming into a carnival of sounds so to speak. For the most part, it’s all very soulful, whether it be the Rock ‘n Roll side or whether it be the heartfelt side, it’s all very soulful.
Q: You did something in Japan and Germany with some other people?
A: Yeah, I’ve done a lot of different things with other guitar players. Since my stint with Yngwie Malmsteen back in the mid-80’s, a lot of people lumped me in with the guitar players’ singer, so I ended up doing a lot of those things through my years.
Q: I was just trying to figure out if Sotto, your last name, if it is Japanese?
A: No, I’m Puerto Rican. I’m Spanish.
Q: You were raised in New York?
A: No, I was actually raised in L.A. Born in New York.
Q: I guess being in L.A., you were around all that music.
A: I always naturally gravitated to hang out with other musicians and people that loved music and as I got to school and started hanging out with all the guys starting up bands, it was a given – I got right in there.
By Randy Cohen