“This album has been six years in the making”, says Sulton from his Staten Island home, “I’m a real perfectionist so I labor over every chord, every line ….but there comes a time when I had to say ‘enough is enough Kas…… just release the album’. Putting a song ‘out there’ to me is like releasing a child into the world.” Sulton has laid down all the tracks at his home studio and initially planned to release it via his website and CD Baby but he’s signed with Sphere Sound Records from Rochester, NY. “This will give me a chance to increase my reach outside of my usual circle of fans. Scott Van Dusen has some great marketing ideas and we'll be holding a release party so I’m feeling very positive about this”.
A tour to promote the CD will have to wait though as, after a run of Tommy James gigs and a few of his own solo shows, Sulton is heavily booked with Meat Loaf for the coming months but not opening for him as was advertised. “No, that was a total misunderstanding”, laughs Sulton. “A fan of mine managed to get me listed on Pollstar.com and they took all the Meat Loaf dates I was playing from her site too, so the next I knew was that venues listed me as opening for Meat! A nice dream while it lasted but no!” However rumors of Sulton opening for Celine Dion may be true. “We’re in the early stages of discussions with her management so it’s too soon to say as I have a heavy schedule, but the exposure would be awesome.”
Sulton cut his recording teeth in the 80s prog-rock band Utopia, the brainchild of Todd Rundgren. “Todd is a genius, pure and simple. All I know about recording…laying down tracks….arrangements, I learnt from Todd…I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor than him.” Was he easy to work with? “Which genius is?”, answers Sulton diplomatically, “Steinman is the same….when things are going well, it’s great. When chords sound wrong, tempers become frayed.” And Meat? “Meat is a true professional, he puts 110% of himself into his show, comes off the stage exhausted and then still finds the energy to play an encore!”
How does it feel for one month to be playing in arenas and the next playing for crowds of 50 or less? “That’s what I love about this industry, the amount of variation in the work. One week I’m with Meat with techs to tune my bass and it’s ‘Mr Sulton this and Mr Sulton that’, a week later I’m carrying my own guitar into a bar to play and the next week I'll record a VH1 interview or something! But playing my own music is what this is all about. As much as I like the five star treatment and travelling first class everywhere, MY music is what is important to me. I’m planning to go out with a band in the Fall but the gigs the past few months have been an incredible learning curve for me….as well as scary, I feel very exposed with no support on stage.”
Like most musicians, Sulton can name the day when he decided that music was for him. “It was seeing the Beatles performing on The Ed Sullivan Show, I was just blown away and immediately wanted to learn the guitar. Music became my whole life…skipping lessons…skimping on homework as it took up my rehearsal time, thankfully my parents encouraged me right from the outset. But I certainly never expected that I’d still be playing music at the age of 46!”, laughs Sulton.