Getting an opportunity to see former Kansas front man John Elefante sing the group’s numerous anthems or ballads would easily be enough to fill any given night, but when the Voices Of Rock Radio come to the Arcada Theatre on Friday, May 30, it’s going to be a triple header of chart-toppers.

In addition to probably hearing “Carry On Wayward Son,” “Dust In the Wind” and “Point Of Know Return,” plus his personally popularized “Fight Fire With Fire” and “Play The Game Tonight,” previous Boston singer Fran Cosmo and Illinois own’ Kevin Chalfant (The Storm, Journey’s first-ever Steve Perry stand-in) will also bring tons of their melodic classics.

Elefante rang Chicago Concert Reviews to preview his portion of the performance, while recalling what it was like steering the original members of the progressive rock band into the more pop-minded MTV era, transitioning towards Grammy Award-winning production life (Petra, Natalie Grant) and becoming quite a varied Dove-Award winning solo artist.

How did you wind up getting involved with the Voices Of Rock Radio?

John Elefante: Honestly (laughs), not to put Kevin down, but in a nice way, he was kind of trolling me a little bit on Facebook. I heard Kevin’s name before, but I didn’t really know who he was, and then when I went and listened to some of The Storm stuff, “I’ve Got A Lot To Learn About Love,” I went, “Wow, this guy can sing!” And I don’t know, he either left his number in a message or I left mine, and we hooked up and just really hit it off. He was like my long lost brother. We really think alike. We have a lot of the same goals and beliefs. We’re pretty tight…

Me and Fran Cosmo just got back from Germany a couple weeks ago. We were in Germany for almost a month. It was exciting man, 12, 13, 14 thousand people at every show. It was me, Fran, [former Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist] Randall Hall, who’s also part of Voices Of Rock Radio, Lita Ford and Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple with a full orchestra and like five background singers. It was first class audio/video and they just ate it up man. Fran killed it. It was great.

When you put together your portion for one of these shows, how do you select what you’re going to perform?

Elefante: First of all, it depends who else is on the show. If there’s five artists on the show, I’m only allowed to do four songs or else it turns into a two-hour show, but I’ll probably decide at soundcheck how stuff feels. You know, “Fight Fire With Fire.” People always want to hear some Kansas. I do a specialized version, a cool version of “Dust In The Wind” that doesn’t compromise the song whatsoever. It doesn’t touch the integrity of the melody, but it’s my own version of it. Nobody’s every said, “I don’t like that. Can you play it more like the original?” I’ve been playing it this way for over ten years, so that’s a treat. We do a little bit of [post-Kansas Christian rockers] Mastedon, of course “Carry On Wayward Son” and sometimes I do a cover of [Foreigner’s] “Cold Of Ice,” which I love to sing.

Do you all get together and collaborate at any point?

Elefante: At the very end of the show, the encore, we all get together and we do a medley of about five songs.

Can you recall any specific performances in the Chicago area?

Elefante: We did a show close to where Kevin lives. It was some kind of outdoor setting right during COVID. I remember everybody was kind of freaked out, but there was a lot of people in the audience. I think we had John Schlitt [Head East, Petra] on that show and Charlie Huhn from Foghat. It was a great show. That’s the last time I can remember being in that area…[Kansas] played Illinois a lot. We did so many shows when we toured with Heart and when we toured with Survivor. There’s a local boy right there, [Jim] Peterik. I just don’t remember the exact locations…It’s always fun. I’ve never played the Arcada, but I’m looking forward to it. I know Lita Ford was telling me she played it.

What is your take on the fact that you’re the only lead singer, other than Steve Walsh, who recorded and performed with the original Kansas line-up?

Elefante: I’m so proud of that fact because the original Kansas was one of the best bands in the world, if not the best, especially live, because they play the songs live exactly like they were on the record. If you ever listen to a Kansas record in depth, you say, “Wow, that’s amazing.” But other than Steve Walsh, I was the only one who was with [drummer] Phil [Ehart], [guitarist] Rich [Williams], [violinist] Robby [Steinhardt], [primary songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist] Kerry [Livgren] and [bassist] Dave [Hope], all the original guys. I’m glad that I had that opportunity and it was amazing because those were the nucleus of what made Kansas who they were, those guys. It’s not when the new guys came along it fell apart. That’s not what I’m saying. But just being with the original band, that doesn’t happen very often these days.

What was it like for you coming into the group during such a transitional time and helping point everyone towards the MTV generation?

Elefante: Things were changing because of MTV. Bands weren’t faceless anymore. Remember the faceless era? Nobody knew what the guys in Yes looked like. Nobody cared. They would just see this wild album cover. Same with Kansas. Nobody cared what they looked like. They just put on a record, listened to it and were blown away. MTV brought to light, “Oh, that’s what they look like” (laughs). If you were’t Duran Duran, I guess you didn’t look so hot next to those guys. And things were changing on the radio too. It was like, “We need singles.” In turn, singles were videos. It wasn’t that way in the late ‘70s. Remember AOR radio when they’d play album cuts? They devoted entire evenings to playing a whole album. It wasn’t just about a single. When I joined the band, things were starting to migrate over to just playing singles. So as a writer- thank God they gave me the opportunity to write some songs- I tried to concentrate on writing singles. That’s what they wanted.

I thought we had one in the song “Chasing Shadows.” I thought that song had a real shot It didn’t sound like “Dust In The Wind,” but it has similar tendencies and I thought that was a hit song. I thought that song would’ve been humongous. We never released it as a single. I think that was more of a record company decision than a band decision, but what a song!

How do you feel about the albums you contributed to, mainly “Vinyl Confessions,” “Drastic Measures” and “The Best Of Kansas”?

Elefante: I feel some good and some regret in the fact that I wanted more Kerry. A lot of guys, from a selfish point of view, [would say], “Oh, I want to write more.” A lot of guys would have came in and wanted to take over everything. That wasn’t me. I joined the band with Kerry Livgren, the maestro. Who am I to come in there and try to step on his shoes? So I wanted those records to have more Kerry. “Kerry, you got any songs?” But Kerry was starting to get involved in the group AD. I don’t know if some of the songs he had for Kansas went to AD. I don’t know, I’m just speculating, but I wanted more Kerry.

What were you the most pleased with when you were able to work on together?

Elefante: I was really pleased what Kerry brought to “Chasing Shadows” with the orchestration part and I was really pleased we wrote a song together called “Play On.” I think he played the piano part on it. Just getting inside a guy like that’s head is a one-in-a-lifetime. He’s a genius. Nobody could do what he does that’s not a genius. The guy could play one thing on his left hand and a completely different thing on his right hand. The proof in that is “Song For America.” That’s amazing! I used to sit there and just watch him play. He’s not even looking at the keys (laughs). He’s just going off, and he picks up a guitar and blows your mind.

Kansas of course had a progressive rock foundation, but there was a new found pop sensibility when you joined to the band. What do you think was special about that era?

Elefante: Well, it’s never disappointing to have a couple of huge hits. “Play The Game Tonight” was a Top 5 single. “Fight Fire With Fire” made it to, I believe, number one on the rock chart. That was pretty cool. Not everybody can do that. We were nominated, I think when I was in Kansas, for at least two or three Grammys. And I can’t leave Phil Ehart out of the picture because there’s so much in branding a band. Phil has such a great grasp of branding that band and the way he kept it together through a transition singer, through a new singer coming in, was genius. He pulled it off. Then when I left, he continued to pull it off and it’s still going now! I mean the guy’s brilliant at what he does…the mystique around Kansas, the album covers, just the way the band was presented to the public.

What was it like going on to solo and production life?

Elefante: When I first left the band, my first inclination was, “hey, I need to go out and get a record deal” and I got real close. I don’t want to get into particulars because there’s a lot of names that you’ll know, but I was close to signing a seven-figure advance deal. Man, I was like looking at Ferraris, you know what I mean? (laughs) And the deal fell apart at the last minute. It had nothing to do with me. The management and the record company had a falling out, and I was collateral damage. That really killed me. [Guitarist] Dave Amato was in the band from REO [Speedwagon]. We had Mike Baird on drums, who played with Journey for awhile. The band was amazing. Every showcase we did in Hollywood, people wanted to sign us, so I started doing the solo thing.

Then we started getting calls to produce records, and then just one thing led to another. One record [became], “Would you produce this one?” Pretty soon we’re doing 15 in a year! And I keep asking my brother [and co-producer] Dino, “When am I gonna make a record? I can sing a little bit!” And it was just, “wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.” But there had to be a reason for it. At the time, it kinda hurt a little bit, but now that I think back about it, I think the timing was right. I think I finally released my first solo record in ’94, “Windows Of Heaven” that was pretty successful.

You had a string of solo projects in the ‘90s, but the breaks grew longer in between them up until your latest, “The Amazing Grace.”

Elefante: I usually don’t do a record unless I have something to write about. It’s kind of an inspiration thing. I know there’s a lot of time that goes by in between, but that’s just kind of my method I guess. I feel like I need something to say, something on my heart that I want to sing about. Each one of my records, you’ll hear a different theme and I like to write about situations that I’ve been through cause I know those the best. I listen to Christian [radio]. My wife listens to The Message on XM, great stuff, but the songs are written for a different purpose. It’s almost like Sunday morning worship, which I love, but they don’t play songs where a guy is talking about autobiographical stuff, like what it’s like to be a Christian when it’s hard to be a Christian. You don’t hear that much stuff like that on Christian radio, but I’m probably teetering off here.

Tell us a little bit about the styles you’ve explored on your own throughout the years.

Elefante: Gosh, I’ve been all over the map. A song like “Home With A View” is kind of like an Eagles song. “Pass The Flame” has a lot of country tendencies. “This Time,” that I wrote about my daughter, has a Beatles edge to it. I don’t plagiarize anybody. That’s not my thing. But every songwriter gets inspiration from other songs and other things they’ve heard in the past. As long as you don’t steal it (laughs). I’m just kind of all over the map. I guess sometimes heavy rock. The stuff I do with Kerry Livgren, love those songs. “One Day Down By The Lake” and “Slay Your Demons,” cool stuff. Then we had Rich Williams and [Kansas’ second violinist] David Ragsdale play on the song “This Is How The Story Goes.” That’s a pretty wild song.

Do you have any thoughts about the current musical climate?

Elefante: It’s getting a little too processed for me, but there’s a lot of bands that I like. A good friend of mine, his son is Ryan Tedder who’s in OneRepublic. Love that band. There’s a lot of new stuff coming out that I like, but most of the new stuff coming out that I like is more organic than the processed stuff. I can hear a vocal tuner a mile away and it bugs me. It’s like somebody put their nails on a chalkboard. I even got my wife tuned into where she can hear somebody’s voice has been tuned. It sounds like the vocal’s being played on a keyboard and she’ll look at me like “ugggh” (laughs). I mean they have their place if you sing a great line and maybe the line you held that’s really good is a little sharp. Bring it down a little bit. But some of these people, they just strap it on the whole song. I can’t do that. But there’s some cool stuff coming out. I’m not a huge Taylor Swift fan, but I think she writes some good stuff.

How have you been able to preserve your voice so well?

Elefante: I don’t know. I think it’s three years of operatic training that I took that helped me to preserve my voice, taught me how to not hurt it, cause that’s when people sort of loose their voice. When they’re in their 20s, they hurt it, and then when they’re in their 50s, they start to loose it.

What is it about this music, whether it be Kansas, or Boston, or Journey, that has kept people coming back for not only years, but now decades?

Elefante: And it’s gonna keep going. It’s a real easy answer. Good songs. Well-written songs. Good melodies. Nice lyrics. Every band we’ve just talked about, Journey, Foreigner, Kansas, Deep Purple, I love Steely Dan, just good songs man.

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Voices Of Rock Radio, featuring John Elefante, Fran Cosmo and Kevin Chalfant, perform at the Arcada Theatre on Friday, May 30. For additional details, visit Facebook.com/VoicesOfRockRadio, JohnElefante.com, FranCosmo.com, KevinChalfant.com, ArcadaLive.com and DesPlainesTheatre.com.