James LaBrie

We obviously haven’t yet got a final list of songs that will be on the new album, but there are at least four or five that you know are definitely gonna make it on to there?

Oh yeah. I’d say definitely six. Well: ‘Trial Of Tears’, ‘Lines In The Sand’, ‘Take Away My Pain’, ‘Burning My Soul’, ‘Just Let Me Breathe’ and ‘Peruvian Skies’. There is six there, and that would leave, at present, three or four possibly to go on the album. I'd say three because of the time we are looking at. So that leaves several songs leftover to see what we’re gonna do with. It is just frustration that we’re not able to get in there and record it. We’ve waited long enough, we feel we’ve got the material, and we are very confident in the material, and I think the people will definitely embrace it.

Did you have any particular difficulties with any of the new material?

No. Actually I felt very good about it, and when I was writing melodies for certain songs... put it this way, melodies come in pretty quickly when I’m writing a song, but with me lyrics are something that – and I guess I’ve probably told you this in previous things – I write a million times before I feel that they’re expressing exactly what I’m feeling. But one song, ‘Just Let Me Breathe’, the way we approached that, was completely different to the way I usually have expressed myself vocally on songs before. You listen to the chorus section, you see it’s almost more like a rap spoke part.

Listening to ‘Just Let Me Breathe’, my initial thoughts were that it could have been an instrumental in its own right. It is strong enough to carry it off.

It’s cool. But then you wouldn’t get the radio play. I think it is strong enough vocally, that it could do a lot for us on radio, depending on where we take it in the studio. You listen to the demo stuff from each of our albums, then listen to the finished studio album, there’s just subtle changes, but those changes are what enhances it. Look at the ‘Images And Words’ demo, and then you hear the album, and you’re like “WOW! What a change!” ‘Awake’ – the same thing. Even with ‘A Change of Seasons’ we re-wrote the whole thing. I then came in with all these different melodies on ‘ACOS’ because I thought the melodies before were very 80’s-ish, and very theatrical on the original.

John Myung asked me last night what I think would make a good first single. Depending on what area you are pitching at, be it the rock radio side of things, then ‘Just Let Me Breathe’ would be the ideal fast-paced rocker. Then you are looking at editing songs down, and then are you going to lose the nucleus of what you have there? ‘Trial Of Tears’ could be a good single, but editing it down to such a degree, it may just lose its spark. If it does enough to generate interest, then people get to know that there is a song twice the length; it’s a bonus.

That’s true. Well look at ‘Pull Me Under’. We had to edit that to get it to radio, and then the people loved the song so much that they said “you got to start playing the album version.” Just shows you the power of the people; it still lies in their hands. Basically it all comes down to the listener, and with ‘Pull Me Under’ it was like bang – top five phones. #1 phones, then it was the #1 radio song for 6 weeks, and in the top five for 24 weeks – that’s six months! So it just shows you that the power still lies with the listener.

I think you really get across perfectly the feel and emotion on ‘Take Away My Pain’. Apart from last night’s live performance!

The first verse! If only I could remember the lyric. “I forgot the fucking lyric.” Then after I said that, I went wow boy, have you ever lost the essence of this? So much for emotion!

Did John give you a guide as to where he wanted the vocals on this song to go?

Yeah he did. He asked me what my interpretation was, but for the most part, John pretty much well knew where he wanted it to go. He said that he wanted me to express it in my way. So what I did, like every song, I really immerse myself within the lyrical content and try to picture all that is happening within that content, and what my personal experience would be with it, and how would I react personally. And that’s what I do when I approach a song to sing it; I think of somebody within my life, or family, or friend...

The whole feel and atmosphere of it is just pure emotion – it is just dripping with emotion and sentiment.

Great. Thanks, that’s exactly the way I wanted it. The lyrics are powerfully graphic, there’s not much that you can’t envision through his lyrical content. I told John that I thought that these were one of the most powerful lyrics he’d ever written, and that anybody can relate to this. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a father. It could be anybody: family, a friend, whatever, anybody that has meant something to you.

When I went in to record the demo, I thought about my father, and if I lost my father. At certain parts of the song, I actually thought about if some danger or harm came to my daughter – it really freaked me out.

It’s so easy to listen to it and picture yourself sitting there looking at that paper, or at the people around the bed. It’s eerie.

Exactly, it is. That song should do something for us on some commercial radio, but it can’t be the first single. I think now we are coming into another period in music where people are able to accept a ballad on radio.

Has the Winter Rose album got a US and European release?

Not yet, but March 21st is when it is supposed to be released in Japan.

This is a very important album for you. Do you feel that this is the stage where it’s either ‘big time’ or you continue to plough that similar field?

Yeah. I mean, I guess those are really the only two things that can really happen, if we can’t at least try and get to the next level. Like I’m not talking explosion, but I think if we can at least make that next level and maybe have a gold album once again. Then I think it’s going to be hard on us, because it takes a while to bounce back. But it’s nothing that we couldn’t handle, you know. It may not be this album, it may be the following one. When you look at Rush, that it was ‘Moving Pictures’ that all of a sudden took them to unbelievable lengths, but at the same time, they were gradually growing from one album to the next.

Your hopes for 1997?

Get in the studio, get the release hopefully around the summer, and then just get out there and do a very intensive world tour. Which hopefully, the more successful the album, the longer we’re gonna be out there. That’ll take us into ’98, and I’ll sing the next ‘Victor’ album (laughs), take a bit of a break, and then right back into it. We’ll see.

One final thing you might like to explain, and that is your absence from the stage last week, leaving Mike to take over the vocals!

That all came about because I was downstairs rapping with the tour manager and all of a sudden I said “hang on a second”, and I realized we were already at the point in the music where I should have been out there singing the first line to ‘The Killing Hand’ – so unfortunately, I got too wrapped up in a conversation with Todd, and screwed up, ran up onstage, and Mike took the liberty of singing the first couple of lines and then I came in and sang the rest of it. It was quite humorous, and the people took it lightly.