Interview With John Myung

With the new Platypus album out we wanted to ask John Myung a few questions of course. However, with Dream Theater being on tour his schedule is pretty tight. Not to worry, with new technology we managed to get together anyway. I simply e-mailed him the questions and after a while got back his responses. Of course it lacks the personal touch and vivacity of a real interview, but hey... it’s better than nothing, right? Here we go...

1) When did you guys get together to do the project?

JM: We found 2 weeks in May where it worked out with everyone schedule wise.

2) Where?

JM: The same studio as last time, Millbrook Studios upstate New York.

3) How long did the writing and recording take?

JM: At the end of two weeks we basically had enough material written but in terms of recording we started to run out of time, so after the initial two weeks Ty and Derek finished recording the keyboards at Derek’s studio, then the tapes went with Ty who brought it all together.

4) This album seems more song-orientated, more middle-of-the-road if you like, not as experimental and diverse as “When Pus Comes To Shove” (with the exception of the last part of the album), which may not be too attractive to prog rock fans. Was that a deliberate attempt?

JM: I don’t think the CD was a deliberate attempt at anything, just 4 people being creative...

5) How did the actual writing-process take place? Was there room for everyone? It seems like Ty had a lot of the material pre-written (I know his solo album and “Ice Cycles” shows a lot of his writing style)

JM: Actually nothing was pre-written, but Ty does play a huge role in bringing everything together with his guitar, lyrics, vocals, and mixing. A lot of the creative spark was based of riffs, then we’d jam as a group to develop it, the creative focus was generally song orientated. Some of the songs wrote themselves, one day we wouldn’t have anything, then the next day we would have 3 written.

6) What are your contributions to this album? I guess you came up with some bass parts of course, but did you maybe write an entire song or lyrics?

JM: No, I didn’t contribute any lyrics or complete songs. I would say my contributions were ideas that would develop and grow organically as we played, other times I would play Ty a bunch of things and he would help me make sense of it, or change it to make it better.

7) There are some potential singles on this album. Has there been talk about releasing one?

JM: No.

8) Are there going to be some live performances?

JM: No.

9) Is there going to be a third album?

JM: Yes.

Roots Sardaro

(with thanks to Matt Goodluck c/o Inside Out)