Prog Progresses

A wide variety of influences are behind the new sound and new audience of progressive music – but for the top shredders, gear and chops are still a factor

by Ernie Rideout

It seems like ages since the flamboyant giants of progressive rock were first banished from radio and stadium tours, pushed aside by the guitar-banging aesthetic of punk and the drum machine throb of new wave. Indeed, for some 25 years the term “progressive” has rarely been uttered without a certain amount of condescension in gatherings of musically inclined common folk. There’s little point in recounting the events that led to prog’s transformation from mainstream to underground movement. Suffice it to say than when festivals sprouted up in the ‘90s in support of the beleaguered genre, they appeared as hardly even a blip on the pop industry radar.

That’s beginning to change. The prog festivals have now overflowed their borders. Bands with an unabashed devotion to melodic development, compound meters, and virtuosic levels of musicianship are playing to arena crowds and selling albums in six-figure quantities. Song subject matter has shifted from fantasy to reality. And audience demographics have shifted dramatically: A big segment of the fans at festivals and shows are young and female.

That last tidbit may or may not inspire you to dust off your Hanon. And let’s not even speculate as to whether this means keyboard prowess can now be equated with sex appeal. But with the intent of chronicling the successful endeavors of keyboard-wielding artists of all stripes, we tracked down some of the top players in the revitalized prog movement and mercilessly interrogated them.

At the top of the list were the current and past keyboardists of Dream Theater, the poster child of prog, and you’ll find their opinions all here: Jordan Rudess has held the chair for the past three years, Derek Sherinian for a number of years before that, and Kevin Moore was a founding member—all three are currently involved in other highly progressive projects, no matter how you define the term. We even included Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy in the conversations, as his opinions on the topic are as insightful as they are unbridled.

Happy the Man keyboardist David Rosenthal has also logged some time with Dream Theater, and lately he’s been working on the first new Happy the Man recording in 20 years. Richard Barbieri has played keys in a number of highly creative prog-ish outfits, including the mid-‘80s atmospheric synth-pop sensation, Japan, and his current vehicle, Porcupine Tree. Ryo Okumoto is well-known for his 15-year stint with Spock’s Beard, though he also can be heard on a burning new solo album, as well as on tour, sharing keyboard duties with Terry Trotter in Natalie Cole’s band.

We don’t intend to be exclusive; there are dozens of other players in bands new and old, all of whom are contributing to the re-emergence of progressive music in their own ways; the Flower Kings, Camel, and Kraan are but a few. (Check out “For Further Progress” on page 42 for a list of some resources that will point you in their direction.) Their stories are likely to run along similar themes: the struggle between old and new, guitar shredder envy, pop music perceptions vs. reality, gear lust, and undeserved underground status. But what may seem on the surface to be fodder for a Christopher Guest production in fact fuels a very real examination of some essential—and musical—questions.

What is this thing called Prog?

Jordan Rudess sits in a dressing room before a Dream Theater show at the Tommy Hilfiger Theater at Jones Beach—one of New York’s arena-sized venues. The band is on the tail end of one of their frequent multi-week tours. As he talks, his fingers fly across a soundless MIDI controller, going through an extensive warm-up routine. In fact, everyone in the band is practicing before the show, shredding as they listen through headphones to their Korg Pandora practice boxes. These guys are focused. No pre-show backstage rock ‘n’ roll entertainment here.

“When you look at the current state of rock music,” Jordan says, “you see a lot of good bands, but you don’t see a lot of extremely skillful players. Even in the progressive movement, there is a lot of imitating Yes, or this or that, and playing on that level.

“Dream Theater has an extra edge to it, in that everyone is a virtuoso. We’re all trying to be skillful as possible, to be able to do anything on our instruments that comes in our heads.

“Consequently, we have three audiences. First, the prog heads, the guys who used to love Genesis and King Crimson; they’re looking for something they can really sink their teeth into. We also get the metal people who want something really heavy. Then we get the really young people. Those are the ones who are interested in learning to play; they’re checking out Mike because they want to play drums like him, and they’re checking me out because they want to play keyboards. We see this more and more.

“It’s amazing to see the prog thing developing. It’s so underground, but it’s so passionate. Unfortunately for all of us, it gets really confusing. A lot of the groups are doing stuff that sounds just like what happened in the ‘70s, and that’s where people get a negative attitude about it. And you can’t blame them, because what does it mean when you say progressive rock? Are you pushing ahead, or are you going backwards? So we’ll tip our hat to that, and some of our music might have elements of that. But we’re also pushing the envelope and trying to be truly progressive. My whole musical journey is about exploring: using the latest timbres and technologies, and pushing things, musically and technique-wise.”

Across the country in his home studio (the Leopard Room, see Workspace, March ‘00), Derek Sherinian has just wrapped up the mixing of his new solo release, Black Utopia. His sidemen on this project are all personal heroes: Yngwie Malmsteen, Al DiMeola, Zakk Wylde, and Steve Lukather on guitars, Billy Sheehan and Tony Franklin on bass, Simon Phillips on drums, and Jerry Goodman on violin. For Derek, it’s the realization of a musical and personal vision.

“Black Utopia is the crossroads of heavy metal, jazz fusion, and progressive rock,” he says. “I take the best of each and put it into my sound. I hate the term, ‘prog.’ It makes me think of bad haircuts, gargoyles, and operatic singing. Black Utopia is the stake that will be driven through the heart of progressive rock.

“I prefer to call what I do metal fusion. Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci [guitarist, Dream Theater] are the ones who I think invented this style. We share the same background; we grew up being into Eddie Van Halen and Ozzy Osbourne, but at the same time were in to the Dixie Dregs, Alan Holdsworth, and Al DiMeola.

“I love jazz piano, the rich harmonies and all the altered tensions. But the bottom line is that I need that Van Halen energy, and I need to leave the show feeling like I’m ten feet off the ground. The only way you’re going to get that is with heaviness: heavy guitars and bitchin’ riffs.

“With heavy metal, you have the power and raw intensity. But it becomes monotonous without any change in color or tonality. And plus you’ve got the Cookie Monster vocals on top of it. So what I try to do is combine the beautiful harmonies of jazz fusion, the audacity and song forms of progressive rock, and the raw balls of heavy metal. That’s my sound.”

Back in England following a U.S. tour with Porcupine Tree, Richard Barbieri reports that the band’s boost in attendance may be due to the band’s brand of progressive music. “Previously, probably because of the press we got and having this tag of being a progressive rock band, we’d get a lot of 40-something guys coming on their own. It was the same in Europe when we first started. But as we’ve gone along, the audience has changed there as well. We get a lot more women coming to the shows, and a lot more young people.

“I think the lyrics have helped in that way. We’re not singing about knights in armor. The songs are more personal, and have more interesting subject matter. The music has changed, it’s a lot more song-based, with more concise arrangements. And it’s gotten heavier, so the metal crowd is starting to show up as well.

“I’m quite happy being called a progressive rock band, but I’m not happy with other people’s interpretations of what that is. We are progressive, really, because we’re looking at new ways to perform and arrange the music. And that’s what happened in the ‘70s; those groups were trying to break new ground.

“I think progressive gets confused with what’s maybe more accurately called neo-progressive, which are the groups that are more retro in their approach. They’re trying to recreate a ‘70s kind of sound, using the same parameters of the original groups.

“We’d like to be seen as progressive, but in an inventive way. We use modern technology, we use orchestras, and extensive background vocal harmony arrangements. Our music’s quite varied. I think this makes us appeal to a larger audience. And people seem to really want to see a band with live musicians, people who are dedicated to their instruments; you get a lot more from a show like that. We see bands such as Radiohead being quite progressive. They’ve proved they can reach a larger audience and have chart success, while still making very inventive music.”

The Many Ways of Prog

Back in New York City, Mike Portnoy and Kevin Moore meet over breakfast at a diner—the à propos is to do press for the release of their new project, OSI. They’re both operating on very little sleep, Mike from late-night tracking, Kevin from a full day and night of traveling from Costa Rica, where he lives in a rural town. In fact, this is one of only two occasions on which these guys have been in the same room at the same time during the life of OSI; the other was during the tracking of Mike’s drums. Kevin produced the entire project on his mountaintop laptop, taking tracks sent from guitarist Jim Matheos in New Hampshire, chopping them to pieces in Digidesign Pro Tools, Sonic Foundry Acid, and Steinberg Nuendo, combining them with drum parts by Mike (similarly mangled), and then adding his own keyboards, vocals, and other parts to it. A definite departure from standard prog procedure—whatever that means—yet progressive all the same.

“You might have to use that term with a lot of other adjectives to describe this,” deadpans Kevin. Mike offers a semi-serious comparison: “I’d like this to be thought of as Pink Floyd meets Peter Gabriel meets Nine Inch Nails and Tool and Radiohead.”

“I don’t mind people calling OSI progressive,” continues Kevin. “It’s sort of post-rock. It’s progressive, but not influenced by the same bands we were influenced by when we started Dream Theater: Yes and Rush, bands like that. It’s obvious we’re listening to different things now. Technology comes into it, too, because a lot of the project is done all in software. Almost all of the keyboard sounds I played were from soft synths.”

“Once Kevin got involved, it got into completely different territory,” says Mike. “If he hadn’t been in on it, it definitely would’ve been gone in a traditional progressive metal direction. Once Kev got involved, he started twisting Jim’s riffs into completely different things, sequencing, looping, and sampling.”

“I’d take a couple bars of a WAV file Jim sent me,” says Kevin, “and I’d put into Acid. I’d figure out what the tempo was, then I’d find loops. Once I found my loops, I put it all back into Nuendo, because it was easier to chop it up. I did vocals then, too.

“For my keyboard parts, I used the Native Instruments Pro 52, Absynth, and B4, the Emagic EVP88, and the Steinberg Model E. No real keyboards, just a little MIDI controller with a bunch of knobs on it. That’s my rig: a MIDI controller and a laptop. I never really had a big rig. I think Keyboard called me a midiot at one point—in Dream Theater I had three keyboards that weren’t MIDI’d to anything. Or maybe there was a photo caption that said, ‘Maybe some day he’ll learn MIDI.’ I was never a big gear head. Now it’s even more so. My set up is even more minimal. Every time I have to move, I curse myself for every piece of gear I get.”

When he was at Berkelee, David Rosenthal was completely absorbed with the music of Happy the Man—even though they’d disbanded some years before. He transcribed many of the tunes from their two original albums—drums, bass, keys, guitar parts, everything. When he finally met the band members, he showed them his charts—and was astonished to find they couldn’t read music. Years later, in 1999, the band reformed, and when David heard that original keyboardist Kit Watkins didn’t want to sign on again, he volunteered for the gig. After headlining prog festivals, the band decided to do a new album.

“Now having worked with them for awhile,” says David, “I’ve learned how they do it. They just feel odd meters naturally, the way most people feel 4/4. A lot of the time they’re not even aware of what the time signature is, but they’ll play it perfectly. They work by ear, but I take notes. One of their tunes is in 15/8, but with a really nice smooth flow to it. It turns out that one of them had always counted it in 5/4, another in 3/4, and I was feeling it in 7/8. We learned that the difference in perceptions was what gave the song such a unique feel.

“We have some songs that are an obvious continuation of where the band left off with the last record. But there are some songs that are heavier, there’s more guitar on Stan Whittaker’s new tunes. But it definitely sounds like Happy the Man.”

David’s detail-oriented synth programming is legendary, and Happy the Man is a perfect outlet for him. He’ll blend the attack transient of a sound on, say, a Roland JV-5080 with the sustained portion of a sound in a Kurzweil K2600R, then layer them with yet another patch from an Oberheim Matrix 1000 to get just the sound he’s after. This technique lets him recreate the older tunes faithfully, but it also lets him get deep into the new tunes.

“In pre-production on the new album,” he says, “I did basic set ups that got me in the ballpark as we worked out the parts. I make the final decisions about sounds when I’m recording the actual parts, when I can hear what frequency ranges are available, and I can hear where there’s room for my sounds. I’ll tweak my sounds to fit the spaces that exist in the final tracks.”

Whether writing tunes for his own recent solo projects or parts for the new Spock’s Beard CD (Coming Through and Feel Euphoria, respectively, on Inside Out), Ryo Okumoto uses another approach. “Mostly, I just sit at the piano,” he says. “Instead of trying to finish an entire piece, I maybe shoot for eight or 16 bars at a time. Then I move on, do another eight, write it down, move on and do another eight, and so on. Then I play the piano parts I’ve written down into the sequencer. Then I start adding other parts. Then I’ll get together with the singer, someone who likes to write lyrics. Then we’ll do a demo of the song.

“I always chart out our music in Spock’s Beard, but no one else does; everyone else just memorizes it. Someone will send out a demo of a song, and everyone in the band will learn it off the demo.

“The problem with the tunes the guitar players write is that they’re always in E, G, and A, but they tune their guitars down a half-step. So all the keys are D♭ and G♭. And the Hammond can’t transpose, so it’s really a drag to have to learn all those tunes down a half-step, but it’s good practice, I suppose, for my flat keys.” [Laughs.]

As is the case with most of the players featured here, Ryo has long felt that progressive bands are the ones carrying the torch as far as pure keyboard excitement goes. And when he’s onstage with his customized B3, Minimoog, and Mellotron, that pretty much is the be-all and end-all as far as he’s concerned—and as far as many prog fans are concerned, too. “The prog guys, we’re the real keyboard players,” he says. “The name of the genre doesn’t matter to me very much. Whatever anyone wants to call it, is fine. Just as long as there are a whole bunch of keyboards involved!”

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A Jordan Rudess Discography

For more information on Jordan, Jordan’s Online Conservatory, and Dream Theater, visit www.jordanrudess.com and www.dreamtheater.net

As a leader: 4NYC, Feeding the Wheel (Magna Carta)

With Dream Theater: Live Scenes From New York, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Scenes From a Memory (Elektra)

With Liquid Tension Experiment: Liquid Tension Experiment, Liquid Tension Experiment 2 (Magna Carta)

With the Rudess/Morgenstein Project: Rudess/Morgenstein Project, The Official Bootleg (Domo)

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A David Rosenthal Discography

For more info about David, visit www.davidrosenthal.com and www.happytheman.com

With Happy the Man: TBA (Inside Out)

With Billy Joel: A Voyage On the River of Dreams, 2000 Years—the Millennium Concert, Greatest Hits Vol. 3 (Columbia)

With Yngwie Malmsteen: Millennium Concerto Suite, Inspiration, Concert Suite Live (Pony Canyon)

With Vinnie Moore: Defying Gravity (Shrapnel)

With Dream Theater: A Change of Seasons (Elektra)

With Steve Vai: Passion and Warfare (Epic)

With Rainbow: Best of Rainbow—Millennium Collection, the Very Best of Rainbow (Polydor); Finyl Vinyl, Bent Out of Shape, Straight Between the Eyes (Mercury)

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A Ryo Okumoto Discography

For more information on Ryo and Spock’s Beard, visit www.ryookumoto.com and www.spocksbeard.com

As a leader: Coming Through (Inside Out)

With Spock’s Beard: Feel Euphoria (Inside Out; release date TBA); Snow, There and Here (Live), All On a Sunday, Don’t Try This @ Home Either, V, Don’t Try This at Home, Skin, Day For Night, Live at the Whiskey and Nearfest, The Beard Is Out There, From the Vault, The Kindness of Strangers, Beware of Darkness (Radiant)

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A Derek Sherinian Discography

For more info on Derek and Spock’s Beard, visit www.dereksherinian.com

As a leader: Black Utopia, Inertia, Rhapsody in Black (Inside Out); Planet X (Orchard)

With Planet X: Moonbabies, Live From Oz (Inside Out); Universe (Century Media)

With Dream Theater: Once in a Livetime, Falling Into Infinity, A Change of Seasons (Elektra)

With Kiss: Alive III (Mercury)

With Alice Cooper: Classicks, The Last Temptation (Epic)

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A Richard Barbieri Discography

For more info on Richard, Porcupine Tree, and Richard’s numerous solo and side projects, visit www.porcupinetree.com and www.mediumproductions.co.uk

With Porcupine Tree: In Absentia (Lava/Atlantic); Coma Divine, Stars Die, Metanoia, Signify, Waiting, The Sky Moves Sideways, Moonloop, Up the Downstair, On the Sunday of Life (Delirium); Lightbulb Sun, Voyage 34, Pure Narcotic, Piano Lesson, Stupid Dream (Kscope/Snapper)

With Japan: Exorcising Ghosts, Oil On Canvas, Tin Drum, Gentlemen Take Polaroids (Virgin); Souvenir From Japan, Assemblage, Quiet Life, The Other Side of Japan (Hansa)

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A Kevin Moore Discography

For more information on Kevin Moore and his OSI band, visit www.chromakey.com and www.osiband.com

With OSI: OSI (Inside Out)

With Dream Theater: When Dream and Day Unite, Images and Words, Live at the Marquee, Awake (Elektra)

With Fates Warning: A Pleasant Shade of Gray (Metal Blade)

With Chroma Key: You Go Now, Dead Air For Radios (Fight Evil)