Jens Johansson comments on audition

I’m afraid the unfortunate leaks/rumours regarding me being Kevin Moore’s replacement in Dream Theater have made this brief statement neccessary.

I played with them on Tuesday evening, and it went well. Unfortunately, for the time being, they have decided to go with a guy named Jordan Rudess. He’ll at least do the Foundations gig with them in a ‘sideman’ type capacity. As far as I could tell that’s what they wanted for now, ie: not a full member, rather: a replacement to do the tour. And it seems it’s not decided that Jordan will do the tour, they want to try out other people, and I suspect it’ll probably take some time.

Anyway, I played ‘Learning to live’, ‘6:00’, ‘Lifting shadows off a dream’, and ‘Pull me under’. Portnoy actually made a DAT – of which I’m sure you all will have CD copies by the end of the month. :) They played ‘PMU’ and ‘Take the time’ with Jordan. Jordan is supposedly also a good player, although I’ve never heard him.

This whole affair was actually pretty surreal from the start; Kevin leving (?), the band off on vacation(!) for two weeks, Jordan ‘not even being a contender’ and my actually being offered the job of doing the Foundations gig (even shook hands on it with one of the managers), finding out later that wasn’t the case, and then these leaks..

As for Kevin, I met him briefly on July 31st, a day before he drove off in his old 60:s behemoth of a car. I quite liked him as a person actually. In his own words he was “just going to point the car toward west and drive.” He seemed sad somehow, I don’t know him that well at all so it was hard to figure out what was going on. He apparently hadn’t been present at the mixing, I had ‘Space dye vest’ on a cassette and he almost didn’t want to hear it.. I guess he was worried about what it would sound like. And for whatever it’s worth, I think the world of his writing and playing, and it’s going to be interesting to see what he’s going to come up with. I heard some material very briefly in the management office, stuff that “didn’t end up on Awake”, and it was excellent. Hard to describe, very emotional. I hope he arrives safely in Boulder, CO, finds a house, and goes right to work on a new record.

As for Dream Theater I guess they’ll tour in support of “Awake” the next year or so. My only gripe: The way the leaks were handled certainly left a lot to be desired.

As for me, after this little snag it’s back to plan A: a little trip to Sweden to edit my new solo piano record and write and record more “Johansson Brothers” material. Possibly we’ll try to squeeze in another Hellborg record too, all though he may have gone to China (!) before I get there.

And by now I realize this ‘brief statement’ is anything but brief. :) Anyway, too bad this didn’t happen, I know it in my heart: it would have sounded great.