Many years ago, Greg Cherone and John Bettencourt got together with an idea to turn William Shakespeare’s most tragic of tragedies into a Rock Opera. The tragedy in question is MacBeth, one of his most well-known works. Greg and John got through a number of songs in the first Act done, but the project was shelved for years collecting dust and going no where. That was until a new collaborator was brought in who had a background in musical theater, Greg’s cousin, Robert Clapp Jr. Greg asked Robert to work on one song called “A Dangerous Thing” and after that was done, Robert agreed to work on another, then another until he was in hook, line and sinker. After a year or so of work, we get a finished project with two full acts, 27 songs telling the story of MacBeth.
Robert played all the instruments and even sang all the parts to kick things off so they had a base tracking of the album. They added vocals to each song by using friends, family members and even hiring singers using the app Fiverr which was very successful for them. But they still needed a name, a person that would help draw some interest into the project. Their main goal was to get a backer to help stage the show in the theater and bring these songs to life. Greg mentioned to me that he styled the Rock Opera in the same way as Jesus Christ Superstar of which all three of them are a huge fan. I believe Robert Clapp was actually in Jesus Christ Superstar at one time.
As luck would have it, during the Monsters of Rock cruise back in March of 2025, an evening dinner would start the interest in someone to sing MacBeth. On the cruise was the band Extreme and as it so happens, Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt of the band are the brothers of Greg Cherone and John Bettencourt the creators of the MacBeth Rock Opera. Gary was having dinner with Jeff Scott Soto and talked to him about the MacBeth project. Later, Gary told Greg about Jeff so Greg reached out and asked Jeff to sing on one song. Jeff did it and they loved his work so they thought, why not ask Jeff to do all the MacBeth. The worst he could do is say No. Well, Jeff doesn’t like to say No and he happily agreed to handle all the vocals as he had barely enough time before his next project, a Brazilian tour.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 