Before the tape was switched on, I asked Kasim if he has any solo gigs booked but he said that he was unable to book anything as Meat Loaf’s plans kept changing. I also asked him about his DVD but that has also had to be postponed due to his work with Meat Loaf. He said that he’s started writing some songs and he has a new computer because he plans to write in his hotel rooms on the road. Another intention he has is to add some new music to KasimSulton.com the first week in August.

For a fuller version of the interview, please click here

Kasim's Solo Career

What’s your favourite track on Quid Pro Quo?

(A long silence) That’s a really tough question…..I don’t know that I have one. If I had to pick I’d probably have to say Goodbye.

That was the track that you had the most trouble with, wasn’t it?

Yeah, that was the hardest one for me. It took the longest to finish and yet it was probably written before any of them, except for Don’t Hold Me Back. That song has been around for a good three years in various stages of undress. It was one of those songs where I had an idea for it and I liked the initial feeling that I got for it but I could just never finish it. I had the music written, I had the melody in my head but I couldn’t get a decent enough lyric for it so I rewrote it a couple of times. Eventually I just said that I’m just going to finish it and whatever happens, happens. However it comes out is how it’s supposed to be. Because I used a different instrument on it (it has a dulcimer on it), it has some cool quirky sounds on it so I like it! It’s not a great song by any means - it’s a good song but it just means something to me because it took so long to be realised. I guess that’s why it has sentimental value.

Recently on one of the messageboards some fans were saying about which songs mean a lot to them and a lot of them mentioned Sacrifice. How did you come to write that song?

I think it kinda sums up where I am in life really. It’s about making choices and living with them and moving on. Sometimes you sacrifice one thing in order to get another. I’ve always thought that.

How do you feel about We The People being associated with 9/11?

Well, that song was written before 9/11. I wish it wasn’t so trendy to have written a song that speaks to a bigger cause. Like right after 9/11, everybody wrote We The People….even the guy who runs the local deli would write a song like “Lest We Forget Our Fallen Heroes” or something like that. It was just something that people felt that they had to do to show their appreciation or their love for their country and the people who had lost their lives. So I just wish that I could have got a little bit more exposure for it. It was a good song….maybe it took a little long to get to the point but I like it.

So what did you actually write it about?

I didn’t have much to do with the lyrics. I made some changes here and there but, for the most part, the lyrics were written by the wife of the husband and wife team George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam. Shannon wrote the lyrics. When I first heard the song, I think it was September 2000 (a year before 9/11) and we were going into the election. We were trying to write a song for Meat Loaf so they sent me the idea and I kinda finished it and then sent them back what I heard for the song. That was when Bush and Gore started getting into the fighting match for Florida and then we thought “oh my God - this is so perfect. We’ve got to get this song out!” except that I think that by that point Meat had already heard it and turned it down. But we just never managed to get the right people interested….so it ended up on my record!

How do you write a song? Do you have the lyrics or the music first?

I vacillate between a couple of ways. Sometimes I’ll have a title in mind and that will make me think of a song. Sometimes I might just read something in a book that makes me want to write about it. Sometimes I’ll have a chord change and that makes me continue that idea. It’s usually a series of ideas that will come out in various forms - that either come out in music, lyrics or melody. I have the biggest problem with lyrics - once I get a decent enough lyric, I usually stick to it.

How autobiographical are your songs? For example The One Sure Thing is about staying together and Before She Was Gone is about separating - is there a part of you in each of your songs?

Yes, I change my mind every 2 seconds and I reserve that right - different things make me happy at different times and different things affect me every second of the day and sometimes the same thing affects me differently the one time as it does the next so that’s why my songs vary so much. Except for something like We The People, there’s something in every song that I wrote that I’ve felt at some point.

When did you start songwriting?

When I was about 12. My first song was called Rambling Man and it was just a song that a 12 year old would have written.

How did you record the songs on Quid Pro Quo? Do you do the music first and then the vocals?

I did all the music first and somewhere along the line, I would record a vocal because it was important not to have the music dictate what the vocal would be. So I had to make sure that the vocal worked with what was already down. Sometimes after I had recorded a vocal I would realise that it didn’t go with that instrument or this instrument - I would either have to remove the instruments or change the vocal. I really didn’t want to change any vocal work that I do so I would keep what they call a scratch vocal on the tracks and then make sure that everything worked around that. I did a lot of stuff slowly in my basement and for the better part of a year I would work every day on at least one song for the record.

Did you complete one song and then move onto the next?

No, I did bits and pieces all over the place. You see my process is SO slow. When you’re doing it by yourself you’re constantly second guessing (or at least I am). Is this okay? Does this sound right? I’m working at a disadvantage in that I don’t have a million dollars worth of recording equipment just to make things sound the best so I really have to take my time and ensure that what I’m doing is sonically correct as well as musically correct. For instance the guitar on Where Is My Soul took me about 4 or 5 days to do. And then, on top of that, it’s the performance too! I want to get a good performance down so I would be taking anything from 4 to 6 hours to get the correct performance. I’d just keep doing it over and over and over again.

Do you sing the whole song or take a bit from one recording and a bit from another?

Usually what I do is I sing the song maybe about 6 or 8 times all the way through and record each one and then I go back and I decide that I like a particular line on a certain track. So then I go to another track and see if I can find a good one on that. And then after I put together the whole song like that, I try and best that again so then I have track or 7 or 8 vocals that I’ve comped together (they call it comping) that make one complete vocal. And then I sing it again at least one or two times and then I make the decision about whether I keep what I’ve comped, if I use that or parts of that. Plus by then I’m comfortable singing the song and I sing it a little bit.

Do you prefer touring or recording?

I guess that for me one is so entwined with the other when you’re working in a band…..you record to tour to record to tour. I think I’m generally enamoured with both. I don’t have any plans to give up the touring. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people like me to maintain some kind of visibility in the touring aspect of it. There’s always someone to tour with though - I’m sure that I could always find some band and go out with them.

What’s the worse part about touring?

The worst part is about two weeks into it for me anyway. That’s when I think “Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I have to pack? And unpack? And get in the bus and get out of the bus after trying to sleep feeling like I’ve been beat up?”!

Why after two weeks?

I don’t know! There’s a two week wall and once I hit it I convince myself that I’ll never tour again and then a week later I’m like I’m a new man!

What would you say was the highlight of your career?

I don’t think I’ve reached it yet! I think that I have to believe that there is something better for me out there, waiting to happen….and hopefully I’ll get there before I’m too old!

What went wrong with the first time that you tried your solo career?

I don’t think that I was ready. I think that as much as I had a hard time with my first producer Roy Thomas Baker…I had a hard time with what he had said to me in the studio and what he said about my material but he was right. He was really correct in his valuation that I didn’t have enough songs. That I wasn’t ready.

Do you prefer bass or keyboards?

It depends on the gig. If I’m playing with someone like Hall and Oates, I’d much rather play bass than keyboards. I’m playing with Meat Loaf, I’d much rather play bass than keyboards. If I’m playing with my own band, I’d much rather play keyboards than bass because there’s more emotion in keyboards.

Will you be going out with your own band next tour?

I really want to. I really want to have a band, even if it’s only a small band but it depends on where I can play and if I can afford to pay people.

Utopia

Do you honestly think that Utopia will ever reform?

No......no, I think that even if it did it wouldn't live up to what people's idea of it was. It's kinda hard to put it in the context of the band but my feeling is that some things are better left alone and I think that in this case it’s better to have great memories and great feelings about that particular band and the time that we were together and the music that we played than could ever be matched with us getting back together again. Because I think that if we did get back together again, in some way it would fall short…..it just wouldn’t have the magic that it had back then. And I think that’s what made it so special….the chemistry between the four of us and what was happening in the world then, the music that was important to people and where we fitted in. While some people struggle to get their past back, I don’t think that it would be such a good idea.

Do you regret that you did the Redux tour?

No…..no that was okay because that was only 7 years after we had broken up so there wasn’t a whole lot of time for it to be stale. Besides which we only did one gig in the United States and then maybe 6 or 7 in Japan so it really wasn’t a very big reunion. I mean I still talk to Todd about it - when I do talk to him I say that wouldn’t it be great to get back together again and I think he’s a little bit more circumspect about whether or not it would be a good idea. And the older I get the more I come around to his way of thinking that it might not be such a good idea …… it might be better to let it be what it was instead of what it could be.

Do you speak much to Todd, Willie and Roger?

I don’t speak to Roger at all…just because we travel in different circles. I speak to Willie regularly and I speak to Todd once every 6 months. Willie and I have always been close, when we were in the band together and now later, so I speak to him a lot. But Todd has been busy with his solo stuff and Roger works for Macintosh.

Do you think of Todd as a genius?

Well, they say “Genius creates and talent delivers”. I don’t like to use the word “genius” - Thomas Edison was a genius, Albert Einstein was a genius, Michelangelo was a genius. Todd Rundgren a genius?? He’s a very smart man, extremely talented. Genius? I don’t know that I would be so flip with that word.

Where was your first ever Utopia gig?

I think it was in Binghamton, NY. I remember having to take an aeroplane - I’d never been on a plane before! We were flying from Kingston in upstate New York to Binghamton in two small 4 seater propeller planes. I had a woman pilot and there was a hole in the floor of the plane, plus she had a cigarette and she seemed a little tipsy and it was a rough ride so I was terrified! I think we played about 5 or 6 gigs in the Tri-state Ohio area and then we came right over to Europe and we played places like Groningen and Antwerp and The Old Vic Theatre in London and then we did Knebworth right after that. I remember only being in the band for about 6 months before we played Knebworth. We played two weekends….one with the Rolling Stones and the following weekend with Led Zeppelin.

What was the biggest regret of your career?

Not realizing what I had until it was gone - the whole Utopia years. I took in all for granted. I had a hard time while I was doing it and now I miss it terribly. I had a hard time because I thought the business was run incorrectly…..that I was being manipulated and put upon.

Within the band?

Yes, within the band and business-wise. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to get ideas across, yet and when I did have an idea, it was a good idea. I just never got a lot of credit for it. Although now I think that a lot of fans have come to appreciate my contribution to the band.

Was it because you were the youngest in the band?

It was absolutely because I was the youngest and I had the least amount of experience and therefore I got listened to the least and therefore I rebelled the most. And now I regret it, although I did learn from it - it was a valuable learning experience. Now looking back, there were so many good things about the band….so many things that should have been appreciated instead of being discounted.

How much of a democracy was Utopia?

In theory or in practice?! No…it was Todd’s band.

Who decided which songs you would sing on stage?

That was more or less a democratic process but stuff like album artwork wasn’t really very democratic….Todd would come up with the concept of any given record. More often than not he would come up with a touring concept. It was his idea to do the Back To The Bars and The Beatles Tour. He really did a lot of the visual endeavour and a lot of the creative stuff was him….we kinda just followed…lambs to the slaughter!

When Utopia wrote a song together how did you accomplish it?

What would invariably happen on more than half of the records that we did together was that we would come off the road, we would have maybe a month or two off and then it would be time to record a new record and we’d set a date. So on that date we’d meet at Todd’s house and Todd would have 5 songs written already and he’d say that this is what we’re doing!

Was it really the band belonging to Todd Rundgren?

We tried SO hard to make it Utopia. We would beg him to do the kind of record that was expected of us …….that people really wanted to hear. In the end, people wanted whatever we gave them because they could always find something good in what our records turned out to be. The biggest example was what followed up Adventures In Utopia - the follow-up was a disaster …….. and Todd knew - he knew exactly what he was doing. That it wasn’t going to be a very big record and that it was a mistake to make that kind of record but I don’t think that he wanted the band to be very successful. I think it wanted it to be this kind of quirky side-project ….to keep it in it’s own place and not let it get too big so that he had room to do other things. He was never about doing one thing and one thing only. He was always about producing this artist, producing his own solo records, Utopia, the video studio, writing for someone else and so on. So it was a constant battle for his time.

Do you ever think about what Utopia could have been?

To think that is to be unhappy with what it was and I’m not. It was what it was and it was great. It afforded me a career. I’m working today because of Utopia. I still get recognition today through the work I did with Utopia. Just recently we were in pre-production for the Meat tour and someone who worked at the production facility came up to me and said that he was honoured to meet me because Utopia was his favourite band. I think that’s why I answer all my own e-mail - if people take the time to write to me to say how much the band meant to them and all the songs and tours that we did, then I want to acknowledge my appreciation to them too.

Meat Loaf

Do you know what you’re going to play in your set for this coming tour?

I have no idea! I don’t want to do what I did last tour but I don’t have new material so I’m open to suggestions! I haven’t even had a chance to rehearse anything by myself but that is really just me sitting around with a guitar figuring out what I want to play.

Does that mean that you won’t be having the band play with you?

I think that right now I’m not going to as there’s just too much other stuff that we needed to learn and to be concentrating on rather than my own stuff. It’s a totally new show with Meat Loaf. It’s an extremely theatrical show, there’s a lot of new stuff going on that we’ve never done before….new songs and new arrangements so it would be a little bit presumptuous of me get the guys to learn three new Kasim songs for my set!

Is there a set list for the tour or is it what Meat Loaf feels like on the night?

We learnt 20 songs and arrangements. Meat Loaf kept calling me each day with a different song to learn and in the end we’d learnt 20 songs so I said that we had to start the show now or we won’t be done by Christmas! Normally we do 11 or 12 songs in the show and that’s a 2 hour 45 minute show so we’ve learnt double the number that we need.

How much input do you have in the arrangements of the songs on stage?

I have a lot of input. Before Meat comes into the rehearsals the arrangements are what I want them to be. I think that after this long working with him, I have a pretty good idea of what he wants. I’m a pretty good judge of what’s going to work for him and what’s not. And then he comes in and makes a few changes here and there but the closer I get it to the way he wants to hear it before he comes in makes it easier for him to concentrate on other stuff.

Where was your first Meat Loaf gig?

That was a tiny club in Providence with a very low ceiling that was about 110 degrees in there. I was playing the keyboards and the guitar and I was REALLY nervous. That was the gig that when we came off stage Meat Loaf collapsed and I was convinced that it was all over! I’m freaking out backstage saying that someone had better get a paramedic or some oxygen and everyone else was stepping over him saying “Good show Meat - see you tomorrow”!

How did you get to tour with Meat?

I was on tour with Hall and Oates in Sydney, Australia and Meat Loaf was there on a promotional tour for some softball event. We were both staying at the same hotel so I was having breakfast one morning when I saw Leslie there. I hadn’t seen Leslie in about 10 years so we started chatting. So Meat came down for breakfast (he was a little different back then - he was the mysterious Meat Loaf - he didn’t talk a lot) so we talked too and he told me that they were doing a new record, that they hadn’t done the background vocals yet and that they were thinking of getting Todd in so I said that if you use Todd, you HAVE to use me! For about the next year, I was floating in and out of jobs, looking for some kind of steady work. Out of the clear blue my phone rang and it’s Meat Loaf. He said that he was about to put a band together and he needed a utility guy - someone to play keyboards, a little bit of guitar but most importantly to sing background vocals. So I said that I would love to do it. This past June was 10 years!

How much do you know about the Meat Loaf tour in advance? Do you know for example where you’ll be playing on a certain day?

I do now - I didn’t until last week. People would tell me that I’m going to be in my city on this date and I didn’t know that! Usually on tour I’ll only remind myself about a week in advance.

If you were sick, what would happen to the Meat shows? Are there contingency plans?

I don’t get sick! I would have to be extremely ill not to play. I think that if I was that ill that I couldn’t play, it would probably jeopardise the show.

Do you have a lot of time off during the tour?

In this particular tour I’m busy a lot because there’s two new band members and it’s a bit more involved than the last couple of tours have been. On this tour there’s a lot more responsibility on me to make sure that the band is together. Renee Cologne who replaced Pearl is also playing guitar and keyboards in the band so I had to teach her the parts. We’re also using a lot more peripheral stuff on the tour that we haven’t done before….different equipment. When you see the beginning of the show,, you’ll be amazed - I’ll be on stage but you won’t know it’s me!

How much say do you have over who is in the band?

What I do is that I get a few names and then I select about 2-3 people from that and then usually Meat will make the final decision, although in this case, Meat wasn’t around so I chose. I picked Randy as he was head and shoulders above everyone else. With Renee there were two other possible but we wanted someone who could at least play a little guitar.

Do you get nervous before shows?

Before my own shows I do but not before Meat Loaf shows. I might get nervous before the first show of a tour in the sense that I hope everything goes okay, that the show as a whole goes well.

Will the shows on this tour be good?

Yeah they will. It’s put together well, the songs flow together well, Meat seems to be comfortable, there ‘s not a lot of room for talking within the songs. It should run like clockwork.

Can you tell the differences between the various audiences around the world?

Oh yes, the Americans are very staid…very much we’re here so impress us. The Germans are like “Meat Loaf is great” and the British are somewhere in between…they want to love him (and for the most part they do) but they’re not going to be fooled.

General / Personal

What’s your first ever memory?

We lived in Brooklyn in a huge old Victorian house in what is now the Marlborough Project on Coney Island. We lived right behind Lincoln High School. There was a piano that someone had thrown away that was broken into pieces and I was fascinated with the inner workings of it.

Where you brought up in a particularly musical family?

No. My Dad played the guitar a little bit.

What kind of music do you listen to?

I don’t listen to a lot of music but I’ll listen to stuff that I like. A while back I was on a big Jennifer Kimball kick. I think she’s absolutely fantastic. She was part of a band called The Story who were out in the mid 90s - it was 2 girls Jonatha Brooks and Jennifer Kimball. Jennifer writes really, really cool songs so I was listening to her CD for a while.

Do you ever listen to classical music?

Yes, I’m a Mozart fan…..Mozart, Strauss and Liszt are my favourites, except sometimes it’s hard to get past the depressing Liszt stuff.

How do you feel about being an idol?

I don’t see myself as one - I don’t know that I’m idolized. I mean I appreciate people thinking that much about me but I don’t see myself like that. I don’t know that I’m worthy of such a lofty label.

Which books have you read recently?

I just read a great book on Pontius Pilot and how his life was SO entwined with Jesus Christ, if you subscribe to the theory that there was a guy called Jesus who was around 2,000 years ago….how their lives were enmeshed since the time that they were born….that there had to be a Pontius Pilot in order for there to be a Jesus Christ. It was fascinating book. I just read another great book 'Erasure' by Everett Pinkton. It’s about a research novelist who is thoroughly disgusted with pop culture and the ability of people to write and produce absolute drek for them to become widely successful and hugely famous that he writes his own piece of drek that becomes successful behind his wildest dreams so that it consumes him.

How do you pronounce your name?

It depends on how lazy I am! If I’m trying to teach someone my name I’ll say it correctly - I’ll say “Kas_im”. If I’m lazy I’ll say “Kasum”.

What about your surname? Do you stress the “O”?

I do! But why does everyone think it’s an “A”?!! I don’t understand that!

Does it bug you when people write it like that? I know some of your fans don’t like it.

Yeah it bugs me to no end! It upsets me!

What do you think about people downloading music?

It’s so difficult to come to a conclusion about it because on one hand it’s here and there’s no getting around it. I think that the RIAA’s approach to prosecuting people that they catch downloading music is absolutely barbaric just because they can’t make it so that people can’t steal it. I think that for a minimal amount per track everybody could be happy. They can not decide on a way that everyone agrees on so everyone suffers. And I don’t see it getting any better.

How do you feel about people trading your music?

I think it’s great. I think that if you’re going to do that though that you at least buy a copy yourself and then send a few tracks to your friends. I would hope that at least five out of the ten people that you share it with would go out and buy one too and that they in turn would send it to another ten and so on. Because really when you come down to it, that’s how I make a living.

One last question, do you have any message for your fans?

Yeah….stay tuned!

Many thanks to Kasim Sulton for this interview.

(Photos by Frank Ciapanna and Missy Mannheim)

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