The legendary TOM KEIFER has released a lyric video for “Touching The Divine.” Kiefer, along with his #keiferband–Savannah Keifer, Tony Higbee, Billy Mercer, Kendra Chantelle, Jarred Pope, Kory Myers—will release his long-awaited and highly anticipated second solo album, RISE, on September 13th on Cleopatra Records. Pre-orders of the album are available at TomKeifer.com/Preorder on all formats, including CD (digipak), vinyl (in your choice of red, blue, or green) and digital, which includes an instant download of the first single, “The Death Of Me.”
As KEIFER recently explained to Loudwire.com, “The entire RISE record is colored with the adversity that everyone on this earth faces at times, as well as the feeling of victory that comes when you survive those challenges and overcome them. ‘Touching the Divine,’ (written by Tom Keifer, Savannah Keifer and Kendra Chantelle), is about more than just what we go through in life, but what it is that gets us through those dark times and seasons. For us it was an easy song to write, because we all three lean hard on faith when those times present themselves in our lives. Everyone has their own things they draw on that give them strength to keep going. ‘Touching the Divine’ is a glimpse into not only some of what we have been through, but what led us through it.”
KEIFER’s creative renaissance is fully on display via the eleven tough ’n’ tender tracks that comprise RISE. Produced by TOM KEIFER, Savannah Keifer, and Kyle O’Connor, RISE scales renewed sonic heights. From the tasty slide work that stamps “Touching the Divine,” the nontraditionally arranged, heavy, dark jam of “Untitled,” the breakneck thrust of “All Amped Up” to the tender coda of “You Believe in Me,” RISE signifies the ongoing evolution of the former Cinderella frontman as a person, songwriter, and bandleader. It’s the aural portrait of an artist who, to borrow a phrase, is still climbing
“When this band came together, we all felt a bit like broken souls, each with our own unique story,” he explains. “If you ask anyone in the band, they would all say this band came along at just the right time. Every human who walks this planet faces challenges and extreme adversity they have to overcome. As a band, we feel fortunate to be able to face those things together. There is a piece of every band member in the ‘The Death of Me’ as well as throughout the entire RISE album.”
The common thread to each song on RISE is the intuitive interplay between each member of #keiferband, a tight but loose collective that’s spent the last six-plus years on the road honing their live craft together in support of KEIFER’s critically acclaimed 2013 solo debut, THE WAY LIFE GOES. RISE is the studio-bred equivalent of a band just now realizing the full scope of its powers. “We were trying to capture the feeling of what people have witnessed live with this band,” KEIFER explains. “There’s an off-the-rails, real live feel to RISE — and that’s what we were going for. It shows a real kind of angst and reckless abandon that we tried not to polish too much. And when we pull it back on the ballads, it’s more about the emotion, the soul, and making people feel something in a different way.”
“To me, the perfect rock and roll record is perfectly fucked up,” KEIFER says with a hearty laugh. “You try to make each record interesting and different. I don’t ever want to make the same record twice, even though there’s a common thread between them. Everything doesn’t have to be perfectly in place, but there is a balance you try to strike. Sometimes there may be something about it that’s technically not ‘right,’ but there’s a vibe, an energy and an attitude to it that I always try to preserve.”
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