RockRevolt Magazine: Lets talk about your debut solo album coming out in early May, Sonic Healing. I gave it a listen and fans of classic rock should be very excited for this record. There’s no questions bands that had a major influence on you such as Boston, Rush & Foreigner influenced the direction of this album. Sonic Healing could plug right into this era. Tell us how it all came together.
TODD MICHAEL HALL: I have wanted to do an old school rock album for quite a few years now. Something I talked with Joe at Rat Pack Records about. I knew Joe because he negotiated with my band Riot and the last Riot album almost got released on Rat Pack Records. At the time Joe asked if I might want to do a solo album. He was thinking something in the metal vain, I was thinking more old school rock. It didn’t end up going anywhere at the time. Then after being on The Voice, the song “Juke Box Hero,” which I did and I consider to be in the classic rock category. I don’t consider it hair metal like Blake Shelton did. Not sure why he jumped to hair metal, apparently when people hear me they think of hair metal. Anyway it was kind of hitting, it had like a million views on YouTube. So then I call up Joe and said I’m telling you I really want to do something in the classic rock vain. I have a bunch of songs written, can you hook me up with someone that can help me transform them into hard rock. The thing is when I write as a songwriter I write by myself. I play on acoustic guitar so what tends to come out is more singer/songwriter type stuff. He said I have this guy, and it happened to be Kurdt Vanderhoof from Metal Church. He said let me see if he’s interested. He talked to him and got back to me and said Kurdt loves classic rock, it’s a big influence on him also. He wants to talk. We got on a Zoom call and talked about what each of us had in mind. I told him I was looking for that riff oriented, melodic vocal, catchy chorus kind of stuff, feel good rock. He and I joke that we are both old enough to remember the KTEL commercial about freedom rock. With the hippie looking dude who says what’s that? The other guy is like that’s freedom rock. Well turn it up. (both of us laughing as I remember the commercial as well – classic). To this day Kurdt and I will be joking, turn it up dude. Kurdt’s a great guy, we just had a lot in common. Funny thing is I loaded up like 20 of my songs and suggested we just use some or all of it. He said it was great stuff and we can come back to that but why don’t we start with me just pouring out and writing some stuff and see what happens. Which was his polite way of saying Todd we’re not going to use your crap (joking). I get where is coming from. I never really experienced this before, he had to finish up something in Seattle and he got to his place in Southern CA and he called me and said I’m going to start writing now. A few days later he sent me five songs. Then he’s just sending like a song a day. I got another one then another. Over a period of like 21 days he sent me 18 songs that happened to be during the shutdown. I put total focus on it. I would walk around, listen to the songs and they were just singing to me. It was like he and I were having a battle. I would be like I just loaded one up to Dropbox and he would be like, yeah I’m loading up one tonight. Just back and forth. Literally these songs were written over the course of four weeks, last March into April. Then we did the final recordings not long after that. The album has been in the can since June it just took a long time to get all the promo material together with all the shutdowns. We really liked what he was doing and what we came up with. We just never got around to the songs I brought to him originally. It ended up being an all Kurdt and Todd thing.
How about the other parts on the album such as bass and drums? How did you handle that?
We recorded during the shutdown. Kurdt had his own home studio and I had the same thing. Kurdt basically played the bass and the drums on this as well, it’s all us. Of course for the video we wanted to have an entire band and the videographer, Jamie Brown, is the one that found people for us. The bass player is a fella named Drew Heart, he’s actually a singer from Las Vegas. He has a few different bands that he’s in. He’s also a singer on an album with Kurdt called Vanderhoof I think from the 90’s, he had some experience with Kurdt as well coincidentally. He’s not a bass player by trade but was in the video. It turns out he’s from Michigan and we got along really well. We have a lot of the same influences. It was fun to have him around, I would love to have him in a band, he would be great backup vocals. I’m not use to having singers in the bands I’m in. The drummer in video was a guy named Abel. It’s kind of a funny story. The “Overdrive” video was the second video we filmed. Day one we filmed a video for “Let Loose Tonight” and the drummer in that video is a different guy named Dustin and he wasn’t feeling well so the night before the second video Jamie called up Abel and asked if he could show up the next day and learn the song. He did an incredible job and really helped make the video great as he put on a great show.
Do you plan on touring behind the record?
Kurdt and I both have a lot of excitement behind the album, we both say it’s something we’d buy. We are excited to present it live but the challenge is if there is enough demand. From my time on The Voice a lot of people in my hometown would like to see that. Then maybe book some other shows locally over the course of a weekend. I know Kurdt has some people in mind to play with us if we were going to do something. But right now we are not sure we’ll have to see as things open back up.
Do you think you and Kurdt will work together again?
I would love to and I believe he feels the same way. We’ll see what happens. I remember the first album I did with Riot V, it felt magical. Then the second album we did felt more like a labor. That’s what I wonder, this first album with Kurdt was magical, so I’m curious to see how it would happen the second time around. I would say I’m definitely down for doing something again. I very much enjoy this style of music. But before then I have to record vocals for the next Riot album.
Getting into your experience on The Voice how did that come about and then of course you worked with Blake Shelton how was that?
I had seen shows like that over the years and was always somewhat interested. Then my sister got an email and said I should try out as they were having an audition in Chicago. I figured what the heck. I think there was a couple thousand people there. After I was done they said come on back tomorrow. Of course I wasn’t prepared, no change of clothes, toothbrush or anything. So I drove 5 hours back home. Then I had to prepare, I never did karaoke or have any tracks prepared so I had to get that together. So I ended up getting the “Juke Box Hero” track and Judas Priest “Another Thing Coming,” I think I did Bryan Adams “Someone Like You” and Journey “Don’t Stop Believing.” I did all but the Bryan Adams song the next day for them. It was a weird experience. Then I got a call back for a blind audition and when you are doing those you’re still in a group of 80+ people so you don’t know for sure. But I did get my shot. For me you sometimes fantasize, I wonder what could happen. But for me I didn’t think I would win or have a career in music only and not have the day job. I was going more for fun and a great experience and it was. Experiencing television and music production at that level it’s hard to describe, it’s amazing. And the people associated with the show were very friendly, nice to the musicians. Not like you are best friends, once the show is over they move on and have a new group to work with so it’s not like Blake and I are buddies. But everyone is really nice. No intent to slag the show but you don’t spend much time with your coach. Your time with the coach is on camera so there’s not a lot of interaction. Even with the song selection it’s not something you talk to them about. You’re more dealing with producers on that. Hopefully I’m not bursting anyone’s bubble on that. I would say as far as disappointments from the show, this is very minor compared to the lessons I took away. I just had this fantasy that Blake and I would sit down, have a beer together and just have a half hour to discuss influences and what we wanted to do and that wasn’t a possibility. But he’s a busy guy so I understand that.
I bet most people do have that fantasy, I’ll get on The Voice and will sit around talking music and work a plan together. But the reality is they are there for filming and drawing the audience but beyond that there’s no interaction. But it was a cool experience?
Yeah definitely. And I think if I got further that would be more the case. Before my knockout round they had to prepare me for my next song, “More Than A Feeling” by Boston if I had been back for the knockout round. If I had been back I would have been performing for Blake with the band. But we were doing it via video chat. We did chat it up a little bit. I think if you’re Todd Tillman who won for Blake’s team you probably got a little more chat time with Blake. I imagine the further you get the more personal time you get. It was a great experience. And great exposure.
Did things change for your music career or was it more of a blip and you move on?
To some extent it is kind of a blip. But you do gain followers on social media that you didn’t have before the show. That helps. I think the pop culture is a bit fickle. You see over 4 million views on my “Juke Box Hero” video and you think if I come out with a new album in a similar style I should really be able to key into this because there are so many people that liked it. Doesn’t necessarily translate that way. But I think there is so much noise and inputs and some many distractions. So I think The Voice has a certain apparatus that allows you to get a lot of attention but most of those people are more The Voice fans than your fans.
You mentioned you are working on a new album with Riot V, how’s that going?
It’s going well. I think the COVID situation had potentially two different effects on bands. One is I have all this free time for music. On the other hand it’s oh man we can’t go out and tour to support this album so why bother. And with no deadline you can kind of slack a bit and that’s kind of where the Riot album has been. We’ve had the songs written but let 2020 get away from us. We are just on hold to release the album until we can tour behind it.
Anything else going on?
I reached a point last year that my business, I run a manufacturing company for restaurant equipment so that had an impact which was stressful. Even now that orders are starting to come back it’s still tough with lack of materials so there is a ton of stress. Not a whoa is me thing, it’s just that music is a passion thing I pursue in my free time so it’s difficult to say yes at this time. It’s hard to find time for anything. At this time I don’t see me taking on any other projects. I did have the question did any famous people want to work with you because of your time on The Voice but no that really hasn’t happened.
Have you met any of your idols? If so what was that experience like?
What’s weird for me if you meet someone in like a meet n greet line I don’t consider that really a meet. I think for me getting to meet someone is to meet them as a fellow musician. That is much more along the lines of what you are asking. When I was on The Voice and I walk out and James Taylor is there, granted it was on film and we only had 10 minutes to sit and talk. To have someone like him throw a compliment your way feels pretty incredible. Also what is weird for me, for example Geoff Tate was incredibly influential to me in my younger days. There is a part of me, a little boy that still craves Geoff Tate to say hey Todd good job. I actually met him, my brother Rick had a record store and Queensryche did an in store for Operation Mindcrime. I met Geoff and I gave him a copy of my Harlot CD we produced in 1988. I told him he was a huge influence on me. Back then most independent bands like us didn’t have a CD so I figured that should impress him. Now that I’m in a band and people hand me CD’s often I get it that he was a busy guy and why does he give two shits about me. But I had this fantasy that he would listen to that and write me a note saying good job. Obviously that didn’t happen. To this day if I get approached like this, I’m not saying I’m a great person or anything like that, I’m sure I don’t get as much as Geoff Tate does but I make it a point to give it a little listen and find a way to compliment it. First of all if it’s not my taste they still went through the trouble to write and produce the song and I know how much goes into that. Getting back to it I still have this fantasy of bumping into Geoff as a fellow musician and we could talk and get to know each other. At the same time who knows maybe we have completely different views and maybe we wouldn’t get along. Sometimes you hear stories about people in general. At this point I’d say the closest I had with that was touring with Primal Fear, Ralf Scheepers is an incredible singer I had bought an album of his back in the 90’s that I really liked. It was interesting and cool to meet him. I got to know him really well and that to me is a little more along the lines of what you are talking about, a unique experience. As well as the experience with Kurdt. But in general when we are playing these festivals and Judas Priest is headlining, they have their own little dressing room and pathway. And they have people to make sure you don’t walk in there. I haven’t had much experience with the big dogs.
We all have this perception that you are all hanging out backstage but that’s obviously not that way it is.
Some of them will hang out in the normal food tent and they are around and if you are brave enough you can walk up and bug them. For me that’s not quite the same. I remember the drummer from Judas Priest was in there and our drummer is like I want to get a picture with him and he was cool but there’s a part of me that’s like you just interrupted him, you’re not really meeting them. I tend to be like I don’t want to annoy someone. Although I did with Michael Sweet and Biff Byford from Saxon and Jeff Scott Soto. So I have done that but I don’t post it to social media for me it’s more of a private thing. More of a personal memory.
Top five albums everyone should own?
Oh man that is so tough. I really loved Malice and Warrior. There was a band called The Front I really loved. But I would say if you are in the hard rock genre it would be tough not to say an Iron Maiden album like Piece of Mind, that’s a classic. Certainly in the Riot catalog you could throw Fire Down Under, not because I’m in Riot but I feel it’s a great album. I think for me it would be hard not to put Holy Diver from Dio in there. He was so incredible. I would say something by Queensryche, Operation Mindcrime.
I wish you nothing but success on the release of your first solo record. As I mentioned for a classic rock fan this is an album you should check it. Any final words?
Thanks for helping spread the word. Anyone that gives me any type of attention or shot I appreciate it. This is a passion thing and I’ve got so much joy from music over the years and just want to return the favor and bring some joy to others.
