Cinderella guitarist, Jeff LaBar, passed away at the age of 58 on July 14th, 2021. According to a TMZ report issued at the time, Jeff's first wife, Gaile LaBar-Bernhardt, found him dead inside his apartment in Nashville. He had gone off the grid for a few days, with friends and family unable to reach him. The cause of death remains unclear.

On Jeff’s wild stage persona 

John: "Him and I were very much opposite of each other. I’m very much an introvert and he was very much an extrovert. When I saw him first playing with Cinderella, I couldn’t believe how he was running around, jumping around and kicking his feet. When it came to big crowds like the Moscow Peace Festival, the more people that were in the audience, the more it pushed up his adrenaline. He loved it." 

On sharing guitar duties with Tom Keifer 

John: "Jeff really looked up to Tom and admired him a lot. Whatever Tom wanted to do, Jeff went along with. He was fine with playing second fiddle. I always told him he should be the one up front and the one taking the lead, but he was always more than happy to share the stage with another guitarist." 

On Heartbreak Station and the emergence of grunge

John: "In my opinion, they took too much time off between Long Cold Winter and Heartbreak Station. That wasn’t Jeff’s call, it was Tom’s. Tom is the leader of the band. The Long Cold Winter Tour was a very long tour. So after that, they needed some rest and relaxation and Tom needed to write some more songs. So they took the time off and unfortunately the grunge thing came along and pushed them out of the way a little bit. Heartbreak Station is a great album and did well, but it didn’t do nearly was well as the first two." 

On Jeff becoming a chef and his desire for a Cinderella Reunion 

John: "Jeff was trying to figure what he wanted to do next. Our mother is Japanese and she is a great cook. Jeff decided that he wanted to learn some of her recipes. She would walk him through how to make all these different dishes. He found that he really loved cooking.... so he decided to go to culinary school. He made that his second career. Obviously, Tom was happy doing his solo thing and Jeff was happy cooking. Jeff always said though, if Tom called him to get Cinderella back together, he would have dropped everything and done it in a second...but that never happened."