CINDERELLA frontman Tom Keifer spoke with Gus Griesinger from Backstageaxxess.com recently about a number of topics including his new solo record and of course a long-awaited new studio album from the entire band. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Backstageaxxess.com: What is going on with your solo record?

Keifer: "It’s pretty much finished. I’m booking a mastering date, probably in May sometime, before we hit the road for the summer. Then I will be looking for a label for it."

Backstageaxxess.com: When can we expect a possible release?

Keifer: "It’s hard to say. I kind of predicted that in the past and have been wrong. I didn’t really want to do that again."

Backstageaxxess.com: When the CD is released, will you be doing a tour in support of that?

Keifer: "Yeah, I definitely would want to support it and that’s one of the reasons why I’m kind of putting it on the back burner... because of the voice situation. I didn’t want to sign a deal for it and not be able to support it when the record came out."

Backstageaxxess.com: Compare this record to a Cinderella record. Are there similarities? Are there differences?

Keifer: "There are differences, but a lot of similarities because I was the songwriter who did a lot of guitar work and was the lead singer in Cinderella. It has a lot of my sound in it. If I had to describe it, I would say it’s somewhere between Long Cold Winter and Heartbreak Station. Hopefully with a newer twist too."

Backstageaxxess.com: Cinderella’s last studio record Still Climbing was released in 1994. When can the fans expect a new studio album?

Keifer: "Right now it’s been so long since we've just been a band and on the road and that’s what we are looking forward to. To just get out there and play and see where that takes us."

Read the entire interview here.