RockEyez.com's Brian Rademacher has issued an interview with JEFF SCOTT SOTO (ex-TALISMAN, JOURNEY, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN). The following is an excerpt from the chat:

Q: Tell me what JSS’s room was like as a child? Did you have posters on the walls like sports stars?

A: "Yeah, it was baseball cards and sports stuff before music. I was a huge Mets fan, being from NY you either like the Yankees or Mets and Tom Seaver was it during that era. I didn’t do the posters on the walls until I got into high school and that was even difficult because we were so poor. I had to share a room with my brother and then along came a cousin who my mom took in. So it really wasn’t my room for my pleasure. I had two others in our room.

It wasn’t until I got my own place where I started putting up VAN HALEN posters and JOURNEY and QUEEN and that kind of stuff. It wasn’t until mid-junior high school that I actually started getting into rock because all my life was always pop stars like THE BEE GEES, EARTH, WIND AND FIRE, that whole disco era. I actually could not stand rock back then. I hated bands like KISS and CHEAP TRICK and all that stuff that was popular back then. It wasn’t until TOTO came along that it appealed to me. They were the band that could put a soulful and R&B; guitar riff within the hard rock type of thing. I had to ease into the rock thing; I just didn’t jump in liking JUDAS PRIEST and MAIDEN. Toto was the first one then Journey was next. Then it was STYX and Queen. Then from there I moved onto the Priest and Maiden thing, that’s when I started to really appreciate the heavy stuff."

Read the full interview at RockEyez.com.