BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Tesla is not showing any signs of slowing down.
Singer Jeff Keith is still enjoying the ride.
“It’s 40 years later and we’re still having fun, people are still coming out,” he tells 69 News. “It’s a rockin’ show and we’re playing all the Tesla classics, some of the new ones and, sometimes, we pull a rabbit out of a hat and play one we haven’t played for a while.”
Tesla is set to perform January 23rd at the Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem. The band are not strangers to that venue — or the Lehigh Valley. Tesla headlined the event center in 2014. In 2015, they opened for Def Leppard and Styx at the Great Allentown Fair. Tesla returned to the Queen City in 2016, where they rocked the PPL Center with Def Leppard and REO Speedwagon. The group also performed several times at the former Crocodile Rock Cafe in Allentown in the early 2000s and Stabler Arena in Bethlehem a decade earlier.
The generational shift in Tesla’s fan base is not lost on Keith.
“Kids are discovering the band on all these platforms and they’re coming out and showing up,” Keith says. “It’s great to see younger people in the audience that are not from back in our day. We got our fan base that’s been there from the start, but it’s always awesome to see young people in the crowd and sometimes I read their lips to remember lyrics and stuff because they know them better than I do.”
Keith also says the band has learned to put their health first.
“We’ve been doing clean and sober since 2004. And so I found out by doing that, the most intoxicating thing is performing live on stage,” he says. “We just try to take care of ourselves; we’re getting a little bit older, we get knocked down, we don’t get up quite as fast as we used to. But you know what, you got to kind of find your way through the forest and not get knocked down.”
Fan-favorites like “Modern Day Cowboy,” “Hang Tough,” “Love Song” and Tesla’s rendition of PhD’s “Little Suzi” are almost guaranteed to make it into a typical Tesla set list. But the group is not content with just trotting out the hits. Keith says they are always working on new ideas and sometimes those ideas become part of the show.
“We love to still write music instead of just playing what they call ‘your catalog.’ We like to still create music,” Keith says. “If we come up with something new, we’ll throw it into the set and see how people are biting on it.”
The band has no shortage of new material to pull from. Tesla has released seven albums and a handful of singles since reuniting in 2000. Their EP, “All About Love,” dropped in 2024. It contains four versions of the title track, a live rendition of “Walk Away,” and the instrumental tune “From the Heart.”
“(Guitarist) Frank (Hannon) said why don’t you come over and we’ll hang out, no pressure, and next thing you know, the songs started evolving,” Keith says of the EP. “I love to write about love; it’s something we can never have enough of and the (music) started growing into what it came out to be.”
Naturally, a conversation about music turned to “Signs.” The song — a cover of Five Man Electrical Band’s 1971 hit of the same name — was released as a single from Tesla’s 1990 live album “Five Man Acoustical Jam” and remains a staple of rock radio. Keith says the band was surprised by its success.
“We were out with Motley Crue and had a couple of nights out on the road and we found a club that let us play some bar songs and some covers, acoustically, and next thing you know, we ended up recording with a 24-track mobile truck, had the cameras, and had it on the shelf for months,” Keith recalls. “Me, (former guitarist) Tommy (Skeoch) and Frank went to a radio station and played ‘Signs’ live and all of a sudden they were going, ‘man, the phones are ringing off the hook’ and the guy from the record (company) said we got a whole night of this.”
“Five Man Acoustical Jam” would go on to become Tesla’s third platinum-seller. Their 1986 debut album, “Mechanical Resonance,” also went platinum. Tesla’s 1989 sophomore effort, “The Great Radio Controversy,” has been certified double-platinum.
“The part I love about recording something that’s live is, first of all, I forget it’s even being recorded, so I’m not even thinking about it, but that’s the fun and beauty of it,” Keith says. “But you gotta have the material. So, making a studio record, that’s what you’re basing off of and then go out and play it live. I love both. They’re two different animals and I love both animals. I love building songs, putting a record together and I love playing them live.”
Keith says a new album will happen at some point, but right now the band is looking forward to getting back on the road.
“We’re brothers and we love making music and we love going out and playing it live and the people are still coming, people are still showing up,” Keith says. “The day you take the fun out of it, what’s the use?”
Tesla performs Jan. 23 at Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem. Tickets cost $64.35. Show time is 8 p.m.