In a new interview with the “Brutally Delicious” podcast, Cinderella frontman Tom Keifer recalled the incident when he lost his voice on stage.

He said:

“I’ve been asked that many times and I just think it’s because I had been playing guitar and singing since I was eight years old.”

“When I was given that news in the early ’90s, after having success with CINDERELLA and we were on our third album and probably at the peak of our career at the point on ‘Heartbreak Station’, [we were] on tour and my voice disappeared overnight. And I was given that news. It actually took two years for them to come to that diagnosis because all the doctors I went to were looking for more common vocal cord ailments that they can see visually on their scope and laser off a node or that, and they didn’t see any of that. Eventually, a doctor ran a different kind of type of test, and that was a neurological one and said, ‘You suffered a partially paralyzed vocal cord.’ And said I’d never sing again.

He further added:

“It was hard for me. The strength came from me saying, ‘Am I going to give in to this and stop doing what I’ve done since I was eight years old? Or am I going to try and find a solution?’ The solution that was offered to me — there’s no medical cure for it or surgery. They said if you have a chance or prayer of singing the way you did before or singing at all, even, you have to work with a speech pathologist and work you way up to holding pitches and work with vocal coaches who can try and regain the vocal cord. So, I’ve been doing that for a long time. [Laughs]

“There were a lot of years that I was resting my voice, but what I’ve learned over the years, I went to every coach I could go to, I learned as much as I could, I have an exercise routine and a therapy routine for my voice now that seems to make it work properly, so fingers crossed. The surgeries were for all to prepare collateral damage because it was so difficult to sing with a paresis so you’d tear the cords out. I had them lasered back together.”

Tom Keifer is a prolific songwriter and has enjoyed massive success as the lead singer of Cinderella.  Having dominated the radio airwaves for years, Tom Keifer knows how to craft songs and with ‘Rise’, we get 11 songs that display Tom Keifer and his band’s talents.  Tom Keifer’s first solo album, ‘The Way Life Goes”, was released in 2013 and later rereleased in 2017 as a deluxe edition.  So, it’s great to have some more new tunes from the gritty vocal wonder that is Tom Keifer. Having gone through numerous vocal cord surgeries, the fact that Tom Keifer can even talk is a miracle but the true miracle is hearing Tom Keifer sing and belt out those songs.  There are several slower paced songs on this album that ooze emotion and touch your soul as Tom’s raspy vocals rumble out on tunes like, “You Believe In Me”, “Waiting On The Demons” and “Taste For The Pain”.