Cinderella still having a ball

Cinderella’s Jeff LaBar may not care for the ‘hair metal’ label, but is proud that the original line-up is still going strong 25 years down the line

Reported by Eric MacKinnon

Published: July 22, 2011. © Rock AAA.

Hair Care

Cinderella guitarist Jeff LaBar admits the ‘hair metal’ tag which his band has been tagged with is irritating especially considering they based their sound on the British rock scene of the 1970s.
The Philadelphia rockers are famous for their bluesy hooks and singalong choruses and this year marks a whopping 25-years since their debut record ‘Night Songs’ was released and the band are still on the road with the original line-up – a rarity in rock n roll.
In an interview with the Bellingham Herald LaBar explained:
“The funny thing is that at the time, what we did was actually called rock ‘n’ roll. All of these terms you hear about came later. ‘Hair metal’ and ‘glam’ – we didn’t get called any of that at the time. We were a rock band.
“I guess we could have been labelled heavy metal. But then Metallica and Anthrax came out, and it was like, ‘Now, that’s heavy metal.’ We were a hard-rock band. So, no, I don’t care for the ‘hair metal’ label. I don’t care for any of the labels that came out later. But I accept them.
“If you interviewed me back in the ’80s and asked me, ‘Now that you have a hit record out, now that you made it, what would your goal be?,’ I would say my goal would be to still be doing this, to be in a supergroup like Aerosmith, 25 years from now.’
“I don’t know if the ‘supergroup’ tag applies. But we’re still all the same guys doing the same thing 25 years later.”
The rockers actually owed their big break to another rising star of the time who recommended them to his own band’s label at the time and helped them get signed as singer Tom Keifer revealed back in 1987.
“Jon Bon Jovi saw us in a club a few years back in Philadelphia,” Keifer said.
“He liked the band a lot. Basically, he went back to PolyGram Records (Bon Jovi’s label at the time), told them about our band and then helped set up some showcases for the label guys to come down and see us.”
Cinderella’s influences can be traced to the UK where LaBar was inspired to follow his dreams by the likes of Led Zeppelin while Tom (Keifer) was a fan of fellow UK rockers the Rolling Stones.
LaBar continued: “I grew up mostly on the British rock of the ’70s.
“I grew up on (Led) Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and even some of the keyboard-dominant bands like Genesis and Yes. Me and Tom grew up about five minutes from each other, although we didn’t know each other as kids. He comes more from the music of the (Rolling) Stones, Kiss and Alice Cooper.
“So people talk about ’80s bands and the genres Cinderella comes from. Well, it was these bluesier bands from the ’70s like Zeppelin that we set out to be like. We got labelled as glam because everyone kept referring to the cover of the first album.
“By the second record, we stopped teasing our hair and stopped wearing makeup and spandex.
“Obviously, we get lumped in with the Motley Crues, the Poisons, the Bon Jovis and even bands like Warrant and Firehouse. And that’s great. They’re all friends of mine. I just think we’re still a little bit different.”