Jeff Scott Soto is an American rock singer who’s best known for being the lead singer for Yngwie Malmsteen, Axel Rudi Pell, the Swedish band Talisman, and Journey. Currently, Soto is fronting the band Soto. In March, the band did two shows in Finland, and Metal-Rules.com’s Marko Syrjala sat down with Jeff in Helsinki to discuss his current and past activities. An excerpt  follows:

Q: This question might be a kind of off topic, but Jimmy Waldo was here two weeks ago or something, with Graham Bonnet, and we discussed his working with Vinnie Vincent. He then told me about the recording sessions that you did with Vinnie Vincent, around ’88? Can you say something about that session?

A: “We were recording the second Kuni album, and they were doing the second Vinnie Vincent, Invasion album. If anybody knows his style, where his background comes from, they know he’s very much into R&B and blues and soul and stuff like that. Heavy metal is the smallest on his list of things that he wrote and that he was into. So, he heard that in my voice. He knew even from my conversations that I came from that same background, that I grew up with the whole R&B thing.  He had a publishing deal where he was supposed to submit X amounts of songs per year to pay him to… So, they can pitch them to Celine Dion and Michael Bolton, that kind of thing. And he had four songs; he asked if I wanted to sing on them because they were not metal. They were not hard rock. It was complete pop R&B, and that’s all there is, they were just demos.”

Q: The songs never came out officially?

A: “No. But they were out in different forms of bootlegs of course. But I don’t know if anybody ever recorded any of them in a real way, and all I have ever heard is the versions I sang with them.

Q: That’s something that people don’t know much about, I think?

A: “Yeah. They were just publishing songs that we were doing demos of, that’s why even the recordings they were done in his home and back then home studios were… They were not the greatest quality. So, the quality when you hear it now it’s like really poor. Poorly recorded, poor samples and synthesizers and all that stuff.”

Read the full interview at Metal-Rules.com.

Soto released their second studio album, Divak, on April 1st via earMUSIC. Once again, the album is produced by Jeff Scott Soto and drummer Edu Cominato. It was mixed by long time JSS engineer/associate John Ellis, as well. The band features Soto on vocals, Cominato on drums, lead guitarist Jorge Salan, bassist David Z, and keyboardist/guitarist BJ. They are heavily featured on Divak, with their writing contributions together.

Tracklisting:

“Divak” (Intro)
“Weight Of The World”
“FreakShow”
“Paranoia”
“Unblame”
“Cyber Masquerade”
“In My Darkest Hour”
“Forgotten”
“SuckerPunch”
“Time”
“Misfired”
“The Fall From Grace”
“Awakened”

Bonus Tracks (All Digital Retailers):
“Final Say” (live)
“The Fall” (live)
“Break” (live)
“When I'm Older” (live)
“Stand Up” (live)

Additional Bonus Tracks (iTunes/Apple Music):
“My Life”
“Cracking the Stone”

“Unblame” video:

“Weight Of The World” video:

“FreakShow” lyric video: