The Second Coming! Part 2

This is the second and final part of the exclusive interview with band members James, Mike and John P. in London last October. We continue.....

To the future. Any new songs being written apart from these little pieces you’ve already mentioned, or haven’t you had a chance to?

John: No. Not full songs. The way we write is we do it together in a rehearsal environment, we haven’t really had a chance to do that.

How will writing now work with James in the band? If the four of you are just gonna play, what will James’ role be in the writing process?

John: We don’t know yet. It’s probably gonna be similar, I don’t think it’s the type of thing where, if James came down and sat in the studio while we’re doing the early stages of arrangements. But as the songs mature, I think it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens.

James: I was speaking to the guys, I said maybe for the first three weeks that you are in a rehearsal situation, I don’t even want to be around, because what good would it be for me to sit there and go: ‘wait a minute go back there.’ I’d just let them work it out and come in when they’re dose to having ideas falling together and then I can sit in and start giving ideas of my own.

John: I have a lot of tidbit things. I have song title ideas, things on sequencers. Kev is recording a lot of things, different sections and stuff, it’s gonna be fun. We have old stuff that we worked on a while back, so it’s gonna be fun digging out tapes and putting those things together.

Will A Change Of Seasons and To Live Forever, those two songs ever make it onto your next album do you think or will you drop them now and perhaps not bother recording them?

Mike: Well, To Live Forever, is pretty safe to say we probably won’t put on the next record, because, especially that it’s on the home video, so it’ll now be available in one form or another for people to have. But A Change Of Seasons we still have yet to record, we’ve yet to have a live version available, so, it’s yet to be seen what will happen to that. I personally would like to do it, and I know fans everyday ask about that, everyone wants to hear it. So, it would be nice to do it.

When do you plan to start recording the next album?

John: Well, we have an idea what we want to do. Hopefully we’ll be able to follow the plan, but we’re figuring it gonna take us two or three months to write. So then we should schedule being in the studio March/April.

Mike: We’re gonna start writing in January, so January to March we’ll be writing; if all goes well, and we have it written, maybe we can be in the studio by April.

So hopefully it will be out Autumn ‘94?

James: Hopefully it will be a quicker turn around than that. If we went in in April we could be done by the latter part of June, and then we could have the album out in August! What our management plan on doing is to set up the album cover and get the photos of us out of the way while we’re recording. Do a photo shoot, just get all that stuff out of the way, so when it is time – and we’re done, let’s get it mixed and mastered and BANG!

Is the recording and mixing process something your happy doing, or is it very difficult?

James: This last album (Images And Words), we weren’t involved in the mix, we were locked out of the studio.

John: There’s something that’s good and bad about that. I think it’s cool not to be involved in the actual mix, but I think it’s cool to be involved in the afterthought. We’ve been in a situation where you’re with an engineer and a producer and like five guys, and you get: “I think the guitar should be loud. I think the keyboard parts should be loud.” I think that’s bogus when you do that, the engineer and producer should be allowed to do that. Then once they have done it they should sit down with the band.

After all it’s your product! But I suppose that’s too logical! It’s surprising a band enter into a contract where that would happen.

John: Unusual circumstances. Especially when we were just beginning to work with Atco and East/West, it was a new relationship, and it takes a while for you to be able to get a lot of creative control. When you’re a young band the label will try to take some of that control into their own hands. It’s understandable because we had yet to prove ourselves to them, so...

The mixing process. The music is there what does it involve?

James: You’ve got the engineer and the producer and they sit down with the machine and they go through each track, putting effects or whatever it might be – sweetening each instrument or vocals, each has to be individually done, then balancing, bringing it all into a picture, like putting a puzzle together. And basically putting together a better sound of everything we put down, and making it all come together. The difference we want to be able to do this time, sure it’s important to have the engineer and producer doing that without us there, because they’re objective, they’re an outside party, and we’re too close to it by that time, we’ve been with it for three months. So to have them do that first, at least this time we should be able to go in and sit down and listen to the whole thing from start to finish then go: ‘Wait a minute, this has got to be changed, that has got to be changed.’ Not being too picky, because then you can just ruin everything. But we’ve got to have that luxury of doing that this time, and we didn’t have that last time. We went in, the producer was flying down to Florida, and we’re sitting in the listening room going ‘what the hell’s that?’

John: Even if you knew why the producer did something a certain way. You might have heard something one way and it comes back and it’s not the way you imagined it. The first reaction is that’s not the way I wanted it and you get mad. But if you have an insight into why somebody did something that’s a professional, then if it’ s something that makes sense, then it’s cool.

Any ideas who you’d like to produce the next album? And where will you be recording?

Mike: We have a couple of ideas. We have a long list and we’ve got to look into all the options. The producer will choose the studio.

James: They all have their favourite studio’s.

Mike: One of the names on our list is Peter Collins, it would be amazing to work with him but, we’ve always been a little scared because of who he has worked with in the past. But he would be a very appropriate choice of a producer for a band like ours.

James: There’s lots of guys like John Purdell, that produced Ozzy’s last album. The guy that done Jane’s Addiction. There’s quite a few.

Why have you returned to Europe so soon, is it just to keep the momentum going, or weren’t you happy with the last tour here?

James: It’s a good question. Our manager said the label expressed an interest in getting us back over here, because they had spoken to the markets around Europe and the U.K. and they thought it would be cool to come back. Also the fact that we released that live album catered for us to come back to regenerate.

Mike: The first time through was like an introduction, nobody had ever seen us before, and whatever buzz that created, to just wait and not come back again for a year and a half, it just dies down. So this was an opportunity to really build on the buzz while we’re still fresh in people’s minds.

You’re moving up to slightly larger venues this time.

Mike: We need to develop some of the markets out here, and the only way to do that is to be playing out here. I mean we proved that in the States, we went through the States three full times – first time was just an introduction with a small kind of following and the buzz started building, then the second and third time it just kept growing and growing. We want to do that out here, there’s a lot of markets out here last time that were amazing. Last time we were here Germany was amazing, Holland, Italy. But I think England, the U.K. was probably our weakest market that we played out here, so, it was important to come back and be in people’s faces.

James: You witnessed some of the BIG rooms we played last time here in the U.K.!

Yeah, not good. You seem to me, to have had a bigger response from the Dutch, the Germans, and the Italian fans than you did from the U.K. fans, which was quite disappointing from our point of view. I think it’s there, but just not quite as fanatical or crazy.

Mike: Hopefully that’ll change. If anything this will also be a good opportunity to present ourselves properly. Last time we were here, because we hadn’t been here before, we had to strip down our show entirely and start over. We basically started from scratch, we didn’t give a shit how small the clubs were, whatever, we would just go in and play. We really had to strip the show down from what we were getting used to doing in the States. This time we’re really bringing out the show we’ve been doing in the States and also brought to Japan. The fans out here are getting the opportunity to really see the Dream Theater show the way we want it presented.

You guys were at JB’s (Dudley), there was nothing there that night except for maybe a couple of lights and us just sweating our arses off.

This time we’ll be playing places where we can have our light show and have enough room on stage that we can actually move a little bit.

Do you enjoy making the video’s?

Mike: Yeah, it’s fun. Except for the first one. It’s a long process but it’s interesting watching the way people film, and catering to you. you get spoilt for a few days, it’s almost like a fantasy, you don’t really have to play.

John: We’re playing the parts, we’re not faking playing, you don’t have the concern in your head that anybody’s hearing what you’re doing, so you’re not so self-conscious of it. You can move freer.

Mike: If you do it right, it’s another outlet of creativity. The Take The Time video and the Another Day video we were involved in how we wanted it to be presented, the storyline etc. Pull Me Under was like a quick thing that we weren’t involved in, so we were unsatisfied with it, it wasn’t really a creative statement by us or anything. The more you get involved with it the more you can use it to your advantage.

How are you coping with, not life in the limelight as such, but with becoming more popular? Is it affecting your daily lives, and is it a problem to you?

John: How can it not affect you, you know? It could be a problem, it could be wonderful. Lots of times its wonderful – a lot of dreams are coming true. It’s really rewarding. We’re not even at a level where it’s a major deal; so I can imagine what guys like Sting deal with. I think you have to have a grip some sort of emotional or philosophical grip to deal with something like that. If you were all of a sudden dealing with all this success, intrusion of your privacy and everything, I think if you don’t have a solid ground it could mess you up.

(John exits to do a phone interview)

You’ve obviously been asked this before, and no doubt you’ll be asked again; your music covers so many different styles, moods, variations etc., that people do have difficulty in pigeon-holing you. You really should be left to get on with what you do and not be categorised, regardless of what it might or might not be style wise, it shouldn’t matter. Does it bother you that people try to bracket you?

James: Everybody is entitled to their own opinion on how they want to describe us. The way I describe this band is that we’re a Heavy Metal band. There’s a lot of influences on Progressive Music but, as far as I’m concerned we’re Rock n Roll, we’re Heavy Metal. But as I said many styles come into this band: Progressive, Jazz, Rock. It’s all there.

That’s the problem that a lot of people have, because you’re not one particular style, to them that’s not right. Unfortunately, that’s mainly people in the U.K.

Mike: For some reason, in England in particular, we’re always branded as, they don’t even say Progressive Rock, they Prog Rock or Pomp Rock, and they always say that and that’s so narrow minded to say that, because there is so much more to it than that. It’s got Progressive elements but it always has a million other elements. And to just say that, I think is pretty close minded.

People hear the music, they don’t listen to it, they don’t sit down and listen to what is going on.

James: The unfortunate part of it is, is that these critics are so influential, they touch the mass, and a people believe, for whatever the reason is, they will take at face value what a critic says, and that’s really unfortunate because so many people are just swayed by that. It’s too bad.

Last time you were here in the UK, there wasn’t any press for you, no one seemed to want to speak to you!

James: We hope that’ll change this time. They are doing interviews with us and coming to the shows. I guess it’s like anything else; you’ve got to convince these people, prove it to them that there’s more to us than what you might believe, that you’re led to believe.

Mike: It’ll happen. We’ve found a following already and the people that have been turned off or just not open minded enough to look further than what the label is, hopefully eventually they will.

James: Ultimately we’re playing for the fans, the people. It’s amazing what the magazines do for you but, it’s for the fans that we’re doing this. They’re gonna make or break us, nobody else.

On Take The Time, what’s the translation of the Italian?

Mike: I don’t know I don’t speak Italian.

James: Now that I’m blind I can see better. I think that’s what is says actually.

Mike: It comes from a movie, a line in the movie where a person said that, and Kev wrote that section of the lyrics. When we played Italy it was great, the audience screamed it out at that point, it was really loud.

That’s one good thing about the band, you have so much input from all band members for lyrics, you’re not confined to just one person. Obviously James will no doubt be putting in his worth next time, so that gives you a wider angle and direction to come from. You don’t get one frustrated lyricist.

Mike: It’s like that in every respect even with the writing and the music. It’s coming from everybody’s point of view and everybody’s got an opportunity to put their influences and ideas in. So, it makes the music very diverse and the same could be said of the lyrics, because you’re getting it from many different angles, everybody has got an opportunity to have input with it.

Didn’t you write the lyrics to A Change Of Seasons, Mike?

Mike: Yeah. I wrote those. That explains why I want that song out.

James: They all wrote a section of lyrics to Take The Time as well.

Mike: Yeah. We all wrote together and everybody took a section. There isn’t any lyrics of mine on the album after A Change Of Seasons got booted.

How many albums are you contracted to do with Atco/Atlantic?

Mike: If I remember correctly I believe its seven. I guess it’s all irrelevant because, obviously contracts don’t matter or else we’d still be with MCA.

Does the live album count towards one of those?

Mike: No, I don’t so. I don’t think it counts.

Well, have a good tour guys and see you on the back end, thanks for your time.

James: Thanks. It was a pleasure.