Diggin’ The Past

A couple of days after the last show of the US tour, I called Jordan to see how things were going for both him and Dream Theater. I had already planned to review his solo CDs for the fanzine, therefore I used this opportunity to ask him to share some of the inside stories relating to these. Even though most of the albums were recorded before he officially joined Dream Theater, I am sure it will prove to be an interesting read for most, if not all. We also talked about his current and new keyboard stands, of which he is very proud, as you will read. So let’s get the tape rolling...

EH: Hi Jordan, nice to talk to you again. How did the US tour go?

JR: Well it was a very good tour, it was a longer kind of tour for us being on the road for 6 weeks, but it worked out very well. The final shows were all on the east coast and of course in New York, which was our hometown gig. There we played at the Jones Beach Theatre for almost 6000 people.

EH: During this tour you had to share the bill with Joe Satriani and had King’s X as opening act. How did that go?

JR: It was great, half of the time Joe Satriani opened up, mostly on the west coast and as we moved to the east coast we switched. During the last show in New York Joe Satriani joined us on the ending of Take The Time, where John Petrucci, Joe and I chased each other musically. He also stayed to play the parts of the Rush songs we always do at the end of Take The Time.

EH: On some of these shows you also played the insane “Instrumedley”, whose idea was that?

JR: I think it came down from Mike.

EH: As usual. [laughs]

JR: Yeah, he wanted to do this crazy Instrumedley, which was a good idea. The song is pretty crazy with all these wild parts from different instrumentals.

EH: How many songs are in this medley?

JR: Ooh, I don’t know. I didn’t remember counting, but there are a lot of them. It has got two different Liquid Tension songs, there is a little bit of Ytsejam, Metropolis, The Dance Of Eternity, and Erotomania. There are maybe 8 different songs where we go back and forth.

EH: Do you bring this song to the European shows as well?

JR: I hope so; we haven’t determined the set yet. I think the people in Europe would be quite upset if they didn’t get that. So I think that we’ll probably play it.

EH: Talking about Europe; you’ll play “Six Degrees...” in its entirety in most of the cities I guess? And you’ll also play another classic album in London and Paris. Did you already rehearse that?

JR: We will play “Six Degrees...” in all the places we haven’t played it before. Yes we rehearsed the classic album and we are almost ready to go. We also have a rehearsal in Ireland when we get there and then we have like three different sound checks to rehearse as well. We might even have a day of rehearsal in the UK. So we should be in good shape, don’t worry!

EH: The last show in Europe is in Istanbul, Turkey. Is that the last date of the World Tourbulence Tour, after which you all take a long break?

JR: Yes, that’s it. After this next European leg we will take probably 2 months off and then start recording a new Dream Theater album.

EH: Do you have any plans for yourself in this Dream Theater free period?

JR: Yeah, I’m working out the logistics on how to do another Rudess Morgenstein recording, so that looks likely to happen in the very near future.

EH: Well that’s a nice bridge to move to your own extensive back catalogue. I think that a lot of fans are not aware of the many recordings that you made before you joined Dream Theater. You recently reissued the Speedway Boulevard album; what do you remember of that period and what was your role in this band?

JR: It is a long time ago, it was 1980 and my first professional rock ‘n roll experience. I came into it after the project had started; they had a different keyboard player at first. It was a funny situation; it was a band that was from all different walks of life. We had a black singer, a couple of them knew each other from Queens and then we had me coming in, I lived in New York City at that time. We just sat around, writing songs and composing music. I spent almost a year in the studio. The band never played out, we weren’t a live band at all. We were working with producers who were famous for the whole bubblegum period. They had done a couple of songs that were very famous years and years ago, like: Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I Got Love In My Tummy and Chewy, Chewy. Then they had a hit with a group called Ram Jam with the song Black Betty. Speedway Boulevard was supposed to be the next hit for them. When I signed with Epic Records and signed this deal I said: “Oh my God this is going to be a big, big thing”. It was very exciting. Then the record came out and it did okay for a month or so, entered the charts it got to number 17 and then quickly went away. All of a sudden it was no more; the record company didn’t support it anymore. It was done.

EH: And that’s the reason why you only made one album with this band.

JR: Yeah, because it was done. It was the typical story, where this group signs to a big label and then gets forgotten about because the label has to think about their other super big artist like Michael Jackson or whoever it was at that time. So what happened was that we let it go, the group never did much of anything. I kind of ran away from the whole rock ‘n roll thing for a while and didn’t really pursue the contacts that I had made and let it slide. About half a year ago I heard from this guy at Sony. He said to me “Jordan this album has always had some following underground and we really want to release it”. So I’m thinking, he only wants to release it because of my place in Dream Theater and if people are interested I don’t know. But he was telling me that people where interested in it. They finally released it and oh my God I see this big sticker on the front and it says featuring Jordan Rudess, Dream Theater keyboardist, David Bowie, Dixie Dregs and whatever else it said. [laughs] So I guess they tried to market it based on my latest work and success. It is fun for me to have the album come out anyway, to have it officially pressed. So that’s the story.

EH: Your first solo album “Arrival” only saw the light in 1988, which is seven years after the Speedway period. What did you do in those years?

JR: It was an interesting time for me; I had moved to Maryland and played in a local band there. We played in clubs and so, the typical musicians life. I also was doing some piano playing in nice hotels and things like that. I think people wouldn’t even believe that now, walk in and see me playing cocktail music in a hotel. [laughs] I also started to work for Korg, the musical instruments company. When I made “Arrival” I lived in Woodstock, actually. I had just finished living in New York City and I was working for a company that was doing music software on the old 8-bit computers. They were doing some very interesting things with graphics and music and I was the music director. Most of my job, however, was playing piano for the stock investors when they would come over. They wanted me to represent the company and also come up with ideas for the software.

EH: Wow, that’s quite different from the things that you do nowadays.

JR: Yeah, but it was wonderful, because I was paid a nice salary, which was unusual. I was a very sheltered musician. The people who own the company had rented an apartment in New York City and made it into a studio, incredible. They hired the guy from Hit factory to come and make this amazing space. So in the middle of New York City I had this room, which was completely soundproof, like a little rocket ship. It was great!

EH: I have never heard music of “Arrival”, what does it sound like?

JR: “Arrival” is more improvising, more mellow like “Secrets Of The Muse”. “Arrival” only came out as a cassette at that time. When I mastered the 4NYC CD I also took “Arrival” over there and remastered it, so one of these days I can release it on CD. So that’s ready to be made in something whenever I feel the time is appropriate. You know that the 4NYC album was just released on Magna Carta?

EH: Yeah, I saw that. Talking about this re-release of 4NYC, I noticed that you also chose another charity fund to support.

JR: Yeah, it’s called Seeds Of Peace and you can find them on Internet at www.seedsofpeace.org. When I originally did that concert I gave all the money to the American Red Cross. Which was fine, we raised $12,000. When I had the idea to do this CD at Magna Carta I wanted to think a little bit more about where I wanted the money to go and what kind of things that I wanted to do with the money. Both Magna Carta and myself take a portion of the proceeds and actually give it to Seeds Of Peace. This organisation works with young people. These young people come from several different countries, like third world countries and countries in war. They try to bring them in a classroom or camp type environment where they can talk and work out issues. It’s really an interesting project.

EH: I think that it’s very good to give these people an opportunity as well.

JR: Yeah, when you put these kids together, there is so much to learn for them and it sets up a better future for everybody. So that’s where we put the money. People should get online and check their website.

EH: Is it just this record where you will support these kind of funds or can we expect more of that with future releases as well?

JR: Well, I feel really, really good about having done that concert and setting this up. I certainly would welcome the opportunity to help out other organisations that I believe in. I think that when you have a certain talent or ability and if you can’t use it to help other people what are you going to use it for?

EH: Yes, that’s very true. We shall see what the future will bring, but let’s go back into history again as I’d like to talk a bit about “Secrets Of The Muse”. What I really like about that album is that it feels so natural like a constant flow of different feelings. How do you look back on this album now?

JR: “Secrets Of The Muse” was actually created around the birth of one of my daughters. My wife was extremely pregnant and I was trying to just create music to be very soothing. I was also thinking that I wanted to have this music prepared so I could play it when the child was being born. I created all this music with that thought in mind; it was actually music to be born to.

EH: That’s interesting; I’ll keep that in mind next time I listen to it. Let’s move on to “Listen” because this is the first record where we can hear you sing! It sounds pretty good and it gives the album a more song-orientated feeling.

JR: Yeah. I really wanted to have some catchy song-orientated music, but around these songs I wanted to have these musical journeys, the progressive elements. That’s why some of the songs start with some vocals and then wander for a while into different musical territory and then just come back to the vocal section. I always have enjoyed singing. When I was younger I used to be in some of the choirs, up until the point that the choirs figured out that I could play the piano. From then on I could accompany the choir and then the choir director would say:” Oh, we really don’t need you to sing that much, but we do need you to play the piano”. And so I had to leave the choir. [laughs] So at the time of this album I had a real desire to sing and want to write words. That solo album for me was a great, great release of a lot of things that were on my mind for many years. The record company came up to me and said: “We want you to do a real album, here is the money to do it and here’s the studio and go”. It was a nice opportunity to do that.

EH: Why didn’t you sing on an album ever since “Listen”?

JR: As much as I enjoyed it, I never felt that it was something that I needed to do again. I felt like I got that to some extend out of my system. Although I think that my vocal parts on that album turned out very nicely, let’s face it, I’m not a singer! I’m not a James LaBrie; I’m a keyboard player who can sing. It’s not my strongest suit. I have not worked as hard on my singing as on my keyboard playing. I haven’t felt the necessity to do it again. Although that’s not to say that I will not sing in the future, I like to sing. One of the things about my voice is that it’s very low so it’s not a typical range.

EH: Maybe as a backing vocal.

JR: Yeah, like (Jordan with a very low voice): “Ooooooooh.” [laughs] I can certainly do that, but to the people who ask me why I’m not singing in Dream Theater, I always say: “Well you know, I’m pretty busy”. [laughs] I’m very busy over there in my little world triggering samples and effects, playing all the parts and writing the music. Dream Theater is a group of very capable musicians doing a lot of different things, so it’s not like you have to do everything. There’s plenty of space for talent to be let out in other ways. Dream Theater has been a functioning organisation for a long time. They were lucky enough that they let somebody new come in to play the keyboards. [laughs] Singing, that maybe is asking too much. [laughs] We already have backup singers that want to be front man.

EH: Yeah right. [laughs] We’ve talked about your solo albums, but you worked with and for other musicians on a lot of different albums as well. Is there any of these albums that stand out for you?

JR: Well, as far as I do other things than my very own solo albums it would be the album with Rod Morgenstein. That’s something that I really feel was an important album for me, because it was so representative of the kind of place my head was with regards to the way that I use my keyboards. Some of the tunes on the Rudess Morgenstein project are almost exactly as they are live. Things like Don’t Look Down or Over The Edge. I got to this point in my keyboard work where I felt like it was a good kind of marriage of using the keyboard technically and what I had going musically to where I could use these synthesizers as performance tools. Almost like somebody goes out and does a piano concert, I felt like I could just do a whole musical live event on the synthesizer. With Rod playing the drums it really worked out! As a two-piece we can make a lot of noise and really rock. We spent a lot of time on that album, making sure that it was really right. When I listen back to that record, I feel like it’s not too much that I would change, it really worked out well.

EH: What can we expect from the next album with Rod and you?

JR: We already started writing some of the music. We are very buzzed and excited about the music we are writing. It has a more Techno kind of vi be within its prog elements. Using a lot of cool sounds and really getting into my synthesizer. We don’t know yet if this music will all end up on the CD, but the songs we are working on have a very prog/techno vibe.

EH: Any chance that you’ll hit the stage with Rod again?

JR: Yeah, definitely we will. We don’t have any concert dates planned yet. One of the reasons why I wanted to do another Rudess Morgenstein project is because I feel that there is such a validity to play it live. It is a wonderful thing for me. Of course playing in Dream Theater is fantastic and I love being in that band, but the keyboards play a particular role in Dream Theater. When I play out by myself with Rod the keyboards obviously play a totally different featured role. Because of the kind of musician I am, the way I feel on the keyboards, the kind of player I’ve always been, that’s important to me. The thing with Rod allows me to do that. So I need to put out another record with him and I need to go play out live. I think the two-piece format is so unusual, so easy and so cool that it needs a follow-up and that’s going to happen.

EH: That sounds good! We’ll wait and see what happens. I read on the Internet that there is also a Jordan Rudess Fanclub.

JR: Yes, it has just started by this fellow, who lives in Holland as well. It’s pretty much at the beginning of the whole idea.

EH: The rotating keyboard stand is from a Dutchman as well, right?

JR: Yeah, you guys are amazing. [laughs] That said, I’m moving there, taking the family and we’re coming. [laughs]

EH: What can you tell us about this stand, what does it bring to you.

JR: This keyboard stand is the most amazing thing. It’s build by this very cool guy Patrick Slaats. The way that this came about is that we started to talk on my bulletin board, with various people who were on the forum about the idea of me moving around a little bit. I think I might have mentioned having a circular keyboard but finally I decided I was interested in having a stand that moved. Then there was this fellow from Holland, his name is Coen, who wrote back to me that he had a stand, made by a friend of him, that does that kind of thing. I was like wow, amazing and sounds interesting. Then I heard from this other guy, the stand builder. He was like;” I really would love to build you a stand”, he is a major Dream Theater fan and I guess his job is steel welder. So he started to write to me and next thing he is asking for specifications, all the measurements; how high do I want the keyboard, how far do I want to turn, where do I want the pedals, everything. So I started to send him pictures, started to measure exactly where I want my hand to touch the key and how high up. Then we got to the point where we went into rehearsals for this last year of touring. And he said: “Okay, the stand is ready, I’m going to send it to you”. So I got to my first rehearsal at SIR at New York City, we opened up the crate and my tech put the stand together. From the moment he put it together; it was the most amazing stand, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect, no problems, completely ready, perfect height. The first one that was shipped is the very same that I use on tour, it has never changed at all, it’s a masterpiece! Everywhere I go, people say that’s an amazing stand. I get positive feedback from everyone. It really changed my life as far as the way I feel on stage as well. As a keyboard player you just stand there, absolutely still basically. It is no fun! Now with the stand I can move as much as I want. I’ve gotten to this point where you have hardly problems playing as the keyboard is moving. Now I can push even as my hand is on the keys, it is all on how much I push the stand. The way it works is that you can set how much pressure it takes to make the stand move. I set it up, so that as I’m playing a riff I have to give it a little extra energy. Patrick is now designing another stand that we have been talking about with a slightly different design.

EH: Are there any big changes with this new stand?

JR: It is the same kind of thing. The base of it is going to be a lighting truss, kind of thing. It’s not completely filled in. I’m sure that when they’ll send it to me it’ll be perfect. There is a good chance that you ‘ll see it on the coming Dream Theater shows in Europe. I’m not promising but it could happen.

EH: Let’s hope so! Now a totally different subject: It’s now a little over a year ago that the World Trade Center was attacked and collapsed. What did that to you and how did that change you?

JR: I think that everybody has been completely affected in the world. Living in New York, it was so close to home, that it is perhaps a little bit heavier and in some ways a little bit more scary. To the point where you have to think; is it safe to keep living in New York? I look outside and around my house it looks so peaceful and beautiful, I live in a suburb north of New York City. To even have to go there with your mind, is this safe, what is going to happen, is upsetting. In that sense it changed me, nobody wants to think like that. Unfortunately September 11th brought those feelings up to the forefront of our lives. That’s definitely the biggest change. If there is any positive that came out of that, is that people are more aware of what is going on around them. In my case what I decided to do in response to it, is to do whatever I could do to help. Like the concert I did and make the record (4NYC).

EH: That’s probably the best way to respond.

JR: For me it is, because that’s what I do and that’s the way that I can help.

EH: Yeah, I agree. Well let’s wrap it up. You already mentioned that you’ll be working with Rod Morgenstein again and that in a couple of months’ time you’ll start recording another Dream Theater album, but can we expect another solo album as well in the near future?

JR: Well, I don’t think that’s going to come up right away, because there is limited time between the Dream Theater stuff. Once the Dream Theater machine rolls there’s not a whole lot of extra time and energy that can be put aside for these things. Also my 4NYC CD, even though I did that a while back now, just came out on this label. So if I would do another album it would be right on top of that. So I think that doing the Rudess Morgenstein record will be the wisest move, for me. Then I’ll wait another year for another Jordan Rudess album.

EH: Okay Jordan, thanks for your time and all the information.

JR: Thank you Erik, I appreciate your support!

Erik Hulsegge