’80s Rocker Tom Keifer Praises Nashville: ‘This Is the Place to Be’

Rock band Cinderella dominated the air waves in the '80s with songs like 'Nobody's Fool' and 'Don't Know What You've Got (Till It's Gone).' But in recent years, the group's lead singer and founding member, Tom Keifer, has chosen to live in Nashville, instead of Los Angeles or New York City, which he says was one of the wisest decisions he has ever made.

"This is the place to be to write and record a solo record," he tells Rolling Stone Country. "I liked a lot of the country songs at that time and thought they were very well-written. I started writing with [songwriter] Kostas [Lazarides], who wrote a lot of Patty Loveless and Dwight Yoakam hits. I loved that traditional country sound -- but I wasn't trying to make a country record."

The Pennsylvania native, who lived in New Jersey while Cinderella was in their prime, says Music City is a logical place for him to live.

"I've always loved country music and I've always believed a great song is a great song," Keifer explains. "In the '90s, for the first time in many years, I found myself not part of a band anymore, and South Jersey, while it has talented people, isn't such a hotbed for songwriters and musicians like here."

The 53-year-old says it makes perfect sense that so many heavy metal and '80s rock fans also became die-hard country music fans at the same time.

"Two things attracted the '80s fans immediately to country: The big shows and amazing songs," Keifer says. "Garth Brooks was blowing up, and he was flying around on ropes, and Shania Twain, with Mutt Lange [who produced Def Leppard], made an album that sounded like an '80s rock record.

"Country was doing songs that made you feel good," he adds. "At the end of the day, the song is what matters to people's soul and heart. So rock fans were gravitating here because the songs were fun, and they reminded them lyrically of the songs of the '80s."

Keifer isn't the only rock artist who made the move to middle Tennessee. He joins a long list of band members, including Aerosmith's Brad Whitford, Motley Crue's Mick Mars and John Corabi, Slaughter's Mark Slaughter, and Winger's Paul Taylor, among others.

"I can't speak for the reasons why everyone moved here, but for me it was the songwriting and musicians, because I was trying to do something new," Keifer says. "I was in the Cinderella bubble for years. As big of a drag as what happened in the '90s was, it also shook the foundation, and we were forced to move on."

Keifer hasn't been idle while in Nashville. After battling numerous vocal problems, stemming from paralysis of his left vocal cords, he released his own solo record, 'The Way Life Goes,' which was written and recorded in Nashville, in 2013. The album was a project he worked on for almost 10 years.

"The idea for a solo record started in the '90s when the band parted ways and we left Universal," he explains. "From the beginning, the attitude was, 'Let's have fun and just make a great record, and it'll be done when it's done.' ... We went through some crazy stuff and mixed and remixed and reworked things over and over and probably made a lot of mistakes along the way, but finally got it where we were all happy with it."

Download 'The Way Life Goes' here.