For more than four decades, Sterling Koch (pronounced “Cook”) has been recording and releasing music in various projects and incarnations, with guitars as his primary paint brush. Throughout it all, he has embraced and explored a variety of genres, spanning heavy rock in his early days to blues-rock, blues, Christian-themed music and gospel, acoustic, modern soul/R&B and more. Recently, Sterling has begun exploring the frontiers of jazz music, and has released several singles demonstrating this latest musical adventure.
I had the opportunity to chat with Sterling recently about his career, past and present, his foray into new musical territory, and his latest single, an update of a popular hit song from 1986:
JIM: “How long have you been making music? Tell us your story.
STERLING: “I started in 1982…It was the first thing I ever recorded. It was a vinyl seven-inch single. That single got me signed to an English record company called Ebony Records, which got me signed by a United States record label called Ransom Records. I did the first full album for Ebony in 1984, and then did another full record for Ransom in ’86. And from there, it was independent releases because I just felt better about doing things on my own. And so from there, from the release in ’86 on, it was just working on independent stuff for myself.”
JIM: “You pursued a number of different musical directions over the course of your career…bluesier rock, heavy rock, getting into various blues avenues…What musical directions have you been exploring recently?”
STERLING: “Probably for the last five or six years, I’ve kind of moved in a jazz direction, because I found that style of music to be challenging for myself as an instructor – a guitar teacher, I’ve been teaching for over 35 years – and I just found that style of music to be challenging…It keeps me on my toes; it makes me work harder.”
JIM: “How has this journey been so far? What are you learning along the way?”
STERLING: “Just how much the music industry has changed and how fast it changes…and trying to keep up with all those changes can be a real challenge, for sure.”
JIM: “For your latest single, you interpret a Toto hit song from 1986. What would you like to tell us about ‘I’ll Be Over You’?”
STERLING: “I’ve been a big Toto fan and that’s one that kind of slipped under the radar for me. I was teaching a different Toto song here in the studio, and ‘I’ll Be Over You’ came up on YouTube on the side, other songs to listen to. And I listened to it and then I remembered it, and the melody, the chord changes and stuff, it’s just a beautiful song. And I thought that song and melody lent itself to an instrumental interpretation, so I started out making an instrumental song, and then got the idea to put some vocals on the choruses, just to make the song a little bit stronger.”
JIM: “And who did you work with to create this version of Toto’s song?”
STERLING: “I have a really good team working here, helping me…starting with my executive producer, a friend of mine and business associate named “Doc” Lewis. Leon Karpovich is my bassist and the recording and mixing engineer; he does a great job in his studio, and he’s a real Pro Tools wiz. My friend Eric Ziegmont plays in a band in this area and added vocals, Justin Motuk adds keyboards, Albie Coccio – who was in my very first band, Sterling Cooke Force – did the drums on this one. And then of course, I did the guitars and added some vocals too.”
JIM: “What would you like listeners to experience; what do you want them to come away with on this version of Toto?”
STERLING: “Just kind of remembering the song, and just hearing how strong a song it is. It’s a great melody, and just remembering…It takes me back to the ‘80s right away, but it’s just a terrific song. It was very intimidating to cover, and there was actually one point in the studio that I had to stop and take a breath, and just remember to keep the original idea and concept of the song – written by Steve Lukather and Randy Goodrum – just to keep that idea intact.”
JIM: “And when will the song be officially available?”
STERLING: “The song will be released on September 2nd. It will be available on the usual platforms on the internet…Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, the usual places.”
JIM: “Sterling, how do you create your music these days? Have you adapted to the current musical climate; how have you adapted to it?”
STERLING: “I’m working with some producers…I’m working for a contemporary jazz/R&B genre and the producers come up with what’s called a beat; it could be drums and percussion, or drums and percussion with some keys. We’ll actually get the beat here in the States…Some of these guys are European producers, and we’ll get the beats online and sent to us. We’ll actually get the individual stems of the tracks, and we can work on volumes and EQ’s and everything on each individual instrument, and then I write melodies and choruses and things over top of that, and add guitars and such. I can then have some friends come in, and two really good friends who are terrific keyboard players; one’s from “I’ll Be Over You” – Justin Motuk – and a guy used a lot who is from the Allentown area named George Grund; he’s a terrific jazz keyboardist. So we can add stuff like that and come up with songs that way.”
JIM: “What would you call the most rewarding aspect of this career of creating music?”
STERLING: “More so than creating is teaching…I found teaching to be rewarding. I’ve taught hundreds of students over the years, and to run into former students who are out playing or just talking with them, meeting them somewhere, that’s the rewarding thing…I continue to teach now; I’ll try to teach as long as I can. For me, I think that’s the most rewarding thing is to be able to pass along the enjoyment of music and for people to be able to play music.”
JIM: “Yes…So, passing it forward to the next generation.”
STERLING: “Exactly!”
(To hear more of Jim’s conversation with Sterling, listen to the September 7th edition of the “Homegrown Rocker” program on Q94 Classic Rock – 94.3 FM in the Altoona area, online at www.q94classicrock.com, and a podcast of the program will be available on the Q94 website following the airing of the program.)
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