Notes From New York (On Dream Theater)

DT Norway (DTN) conducted a phone interview with Jordan for their fanzine in the spring. They were kind enough to share it with us to share with you all.

DTN: Where are you right now? What were you doing before we called you?

JR: I am at my house in NY, currently in pre-production, and programming for the world tour.

DTN: Tell us about the writing and recording process for the new album.

JR: We have a cool formula going these days. We recorded at Avatar again in New York City. We used Paul Northfield as the engineer again and he also mixed the album. We have familiar hands at the helm. I think that this time around, in my opinion, this album sounds better than any we’ve done so far, because we were smart enough to go with someone we knew would do a good job and who was used to and comfortable working with us. He took the time to really go the extra mile and make it even better than ever.

We were in comfortable surroundings and we all worked very hard. We were all set up in a big room with all our gear and we started to hash out the songs. The writing process goes pretty quickly. We just throw a lot of things out there and it just happens before you can blink your eyes. Then we start doing all the tracking and getting all that together, and that part takes longer than the writing of the tunes. Writing can take one, two or three days if it is a long one.

Once that’s done, we will start laying down the drums, then put the guitar, bass and keys down, and then the voice happens. It all kind of comes together after the foundation of the song is written.

So we had a good time with John Petrucci, Mike and myself writing the music and then John and Mike go off and write all the melodies. Then, the next thing you know, we’ve got an album.

DTN: You make it sound so easy. There are bands that just stay in the studio for months and years to bring out a new album. Is the creativity really flowing that easy for you and is it as easy as it sounds?

JR: In a way! It’s easy in a sense that there’s enough ideas going around. There are enough notes going around. It’s more a question of which parts we accept. I am an improviser and I will just sit at the piano and go all day, but if I’m really inspired then maybe it’ll be really good. On a bad day, there might still be something. John Petrucci does the same thing. Sometimes we’ll just sit there and be stumped and some things won’t feel right and we’ll keep doing it until it feels a little bit more in the mode it needs to be. Sometimes it’ll just slow down. A lot of times we’ll write something that is very harmony based, in a sense that we are looking for a particular mood with certain chords. There’s a song called ‘A Nightmare to Remember’ on the new album (Jordan apologises as he is still used to the working titles for the songs – “that one was called ‘Halloween’”, he explains), and we were looking for particular chords that had a certain sound to them. We would try a few and then we would say, “you know what the third chord could be a little better” and we would sit there and the chord job often ends up on me a lot of times and I’ll just say, “well you could go to this chord, or you could go to this one.” (Jordan laughs) It’s like a lesson on harmony. I’ll throw them out and we’ll form things that way. That takes a little longer than this stream of consciousness kind of writing that we also do. It all happens in different ways.

I’d like to tell you the story of how we wrote the middle section for ‘The Dark Eternal Night’. We were following this path from this guitar section that John was going nuts with one morning. We recorded the first section which is pretty much the section as you know it. We got to a certain point and I went inside the control room to listen to it. It was cool, it was all good, but whilst I was in there I said, “you know what, we should take this out and get all progressive, kind of Dream Theater with it!” I just had this weird idea/riff in my mind (keyboard section then sung by Jordan). I was debating it because sometimes my ideas can be a little left of what is a Dream Theater acceptable idea. Sometimes they are the ones that everyone thinks are cool. It’s hard for me to totally know if they are going to say “that’s too Dregs like” or “that’s too this or that” or whether they’re going to say, “yeah, I love that!” So I was debating whether or not I should bring it up. But then I got brave and I said, “I’ve got this weird idea. Let’s give it a listen.” So I tried it, then John Petrucci will sometimes give me a weird look, kind of “what the hell are we you doing?” (Jordan laughs). Mike will say, “that’s cool, let’s try it!” Usually we’ll try it as Mike likes quirkier, more progressive stuff like I do and John always ends up liking it although it’s not necessarily his first feeling. So anyway, we followed that path and it ends up being a really cool thing. John gets into it and he starts to contribute as well. The next thing we know we have one of those cool progressive sections. Things like that happen all the time.

There’s one funny story from this new album, in ‘The Count of Tuscany’, where it breaks off into this really cool progressive section (Jordan sings it). Everyone is playing in unison these really quick 16th notes and it just builds through these different chords. I wrote the part at home one day on my little Kurzweil digital piano and I just recorded it onto my iPhone. I brought it in and I had about three or four ideas and they all ended up on that piece and they were all very connected in my mind. So I showed it to the guys and they thought it was cool and we started to put it together. Then, John Petrucci wrote this other part. My part was all around C Minor and his part was all around E and G# Minor. Those keys don’t naturally fit like a glove but you can certainly make anything work, or at least we can.

We wrote this whole thing and it happened to be a day that James visited us that we started to put it together. James heard this one part and he said, “No man! That part just does not flow!” He thought we sounded like a high school band or one of the bad Dream Theater imitation bands. We knew that the idea was there and Mike, John and I thought that it was cool, yet we probably had to use a little imagination to do it. James said, “I don’t know. It just ruins the flow.” I was like, “this is Dream Theater. We are famous for making seven left turns” (Jordan laughs). There are no bridges. We do this thing and get these cool sections and tempo changes. That’s what people love. Anyway, in my mind, it was nuts but from a musical theory sense, I thought that the parts connected in a cool way. James didn’t like it! He can have a really big strong say. We went on our way and kept going with it and more of us liked it than not. When I listen to that part, I think that that is my favourite part of the whole album (Jordan laughs again). It’s funny. People think that just because we are in the same band we reach a common ground. Part of what makes it cool is that there is a weeding process where somebody will have something and someone will listen to it and disagree.

DTN: There are some epic titles on this new album – ‘A Nightmare to Remember’, ‘A Rite of Passage’, ‘The Shattered Fortress’. They are all good movie titles even.

JR: Thanks for reminding me of the titles by the way!

DTN: What can we expect lyrically compared to Systematic Chaos and Octavarium. You said that sound-wise that this is the better sounding album. Is it along the same path?

JR: Well, I try not to listen to lyrics too much. I am speaking very generally here. However, because this is my group and I am interested in what John Petrucci is doing lyrically, I take an interest. He wrote some great lyrics for this. John has really got to a fine spot in his craft of writing lyrics. Of course, Mike wrote two of the songs lyrically. They both did a really good job. They are very talented guys obviously. I think that John went on a slightly different path this time with his lyrics. I think the last album was more fictional with the whole ‘Dark Master’ deal. In this album, he’s telling some stories that either really happened to him or he is just extending on some things that started out based on realistic situations. He is also dealing with some pretty heavy subjects. For example, his lyrics to ‘A Rite of Passage’ are about the Freemasons. It is a religious and spiritual kind of thing. He’s not afraid to get in there and write a song about that, for example, when he wrote the words to ‘The Great Debate’. I don’t think people are coming to Dream Theater to listen to love songs generally [laughs]. There’s some heavy stuff though. Mike with ‘The Shattered Fortress’ is continuing along his series of tunes and he wrote some very intense lyrics for that. The Best of Times’ is about his dad. They were incredibly close. That was a very difficult thing in his life that he had to go through. He managed to capture it in the spirit of that song and write lyrics that were pretty deep.

DTN: To get back to the sound of the album, you’ve said that Paul Northfield has once again used his magic touch and improved the sound even more. Can you describe this a little bit more – is it more down to the instruments or is it a new sound in general?

JR: The sounds of the instruments are sounding better than ever before. The drums sound really good, the guitars are really dialed in, the keys sound great and the bass sounds better than it ever has on a Dream Theater album. The vocals sound awesome. I know it sounds funny with me, singing my own praises, but it’s real. The time was spent. The lessons were learned from previous albums. The benefit of those lessons is apparent in every aspect of this album. I think even down to the mastering, it was much more effective. The dynamics were left in the music, more so than a lot of albums these days. That’s the whole loudness war, which you’ve heard about. That’s a serious thing to be louder. This time around, we decided we’re not going to play that game. We left the dynamics in and it makes a big difference to the listening experience.

DTN: I cannot wait to hear it. There is also going to be a special edition set – a three-disc set, a disc with instrumental mixes and a disc with six cover songs. Why the instrumental songs and the six cover songs?

JR: Things have changed a lot in the music industry. It is important to offer something like these instrumental mixes. People like to have access to individual files or do their own mixes. We’ve seen a lot of that from Nine Inch Nails for example. With Dream Theater, a lot of people are really all about the instrumental stuff. As wonderful a singer as James is, there are definitely a lot of people who would like to hear the music without vocals. The instrumental versions don’t have any leads in either. We thought it was a cool offering, very timely and would make the fans very happy.

With the covers, that was something Mike thought About. They all turned out really well and it was an interesting idea. It was fun just to see how a Dream Theater cover would turn out.

DTN: I see the titles will be revealed at a later date. I see you will also be doing a video for the first single, ‘A Rite of Passage’. Is this something that the label approached you to do or was this an idea from the band?

JR: I think we went into it knowing that we would do a video. It is just par for the course. We’ve already filmed it. We went to Brooklyn, New York. We went to a place where it would look like we were doing a hit or a weird movie. We were let off in this desolate factory neighbourhood. We walked through a door. The next thing we knew we were in this room with big concrete walls. In the back, there was a makeup room. It was obviously used for different kinds of shoots. There was a whole crew in there who had driven up from Charlotte, North Carolina. We spent a day there. There’s always a Lot of time sitting around waiting. It was cold in the room apart from when we started to play the song over and over again.

Making videos is a very funny thing. I hadn’t done it before (joining Dream Theater). The first one I did was ‘Constant Motion’. The video was totally new to me. I wasn’t in the band in the old days. I have been in the band for 10 years. So yeah, it was a new experience for me. So, we did that and had some fun. Hopefully it’ll turn out well. We’ll all see. It’ll be done by the end of April and out soon after that. What’s funny with these videos is that most of our songs are longer than the typical video. We had to chop ‘A Rite of Passage’ up pretty severely. It works well but if you know the other version, it will be kind of “woooaaahhh!” You also had to really be playing so you have to learn the edited version as well.

DTN: Who decides which parts get edited out?

JR: I wasn’t there for that part. I’m sure Mike does it; although, I’m not sure if John was involved as well, so probably John as well.

DTN: I cannot wait to see it. Recently, you went to NAMM. What was that like? Did you meet any interesting people or see any new gear that you’d like to add?

JR: Yeah, I hadn’t been there for a long time. The NAMM show is a big exhibition where they show all kinds of new musical gear. I had fun there. I had been going there for many years when I used to be involved with Korg and Kurzweil as an employee. Then I missed some years touring with Dream Theater. It was fun to go back. I booked myself a solid schedule doing some stuff for a company called Spectrasonics showing an amazing program called Omnisphere, which is a program I used a lot on the new album. It is a really incredible synthesizer.

I also worked for Korg doing some stuff on the Oasys and the M3. Of course, I have a very good relationship with Roland and I did some things for them on a really interesting product called the VP770 which is this next generation of vocal keyboard. You can do choir sounds on it. So if you use a mic and sing into it you can create a full choir (boys, gospel, classical). You can also do vocoding on it. I went out to California and visited Roland and did some videos on the product. There are some videos of me on the net showing the earlier product the VP550, which is also a really cool machine. The VP770 is even more crazy and wild. That should be hitting the airwaves pretty soon.

I discovered a really interesting orchestral synthesizer called Synful. It’s not like one of these big libraries with tonnes of samples and very intensive on memory and disk space. This is based on something called RPM (Real Phrase Modelling) and also added synthesis. I discovered that. I listened to a demo and I ended up getting that and very inspired. I am always discovering new toys. I don’t know if you have seen any of my iPhone stuff.

DTN: Yeah, I was just getting to that. On your website, you are taking the iPhone to a whole new level. It’s really amazing what such a little gadget can do. How do you come across all of these programs?

JR: Well, I have been really into my iPhone since the beginning. It does things that other platforms just cannot do. I don’t think a lot of people realise the abilities that it has technically that are simply just not available anywhere else. There’s this thing where you can blow into the iPhone and play a physically modelled instrument. One of the YouTube things I am showing is a program called Wivi Band. The instruments were originally pro-instruments. You can download them. Arne Wallander, who has become a friend of mine and is really very intelligent, managed to optimise his instrument collection and squeeze them into the iPhone. They actually sound really amazing. The YouTube video I did is of a woodwind quartet that I wrote and I played all the instruments. I did a split screen kind of thing. When you think about it, it is just incredible what is going on there, being able to get that kind of expression and play woodwind. He set 15 different woodwind instruments in his iPhone application. It’s really nutty! At this point you might not know about it, but when you have an iPhone and you realise what you can do with it, you will know that it’s crazy.

Another one that I’ve been very involved with, and even had some input into some of the design and the way it works, is this program called Bebot. That’s another program which shows the power of the iPhone. It’s a multitouch program where you can have four completely different and independent oscillators going. You’ve got your left-right motion and also your front-back motion, so if I’m controlling the timbre of my sound by pushing my finger front and back, I can have four completely different notes and timbres happening at the same time and then slide them all around. On the YouTube clip I did for that. I did a lap/pedal steel thing where I am playing chords and notes of the chord are bending into other notes. it’s a little bit continuum like. When I first saw the program, I thought it was the iPhone continuum!

So I worked with a man called Russell Black towards the goal of refining the tuning system a bit to make it more possible to play some real musical phrases on it and so it would be easier to play it in tune. So we have got this really advanced auto-tuning system where it can snap to the grid and automatically adjust your tuning if you are sliding around. It’s so cool. So there’s a lot of stuff going on. I’ve got a man who is making me a custom mellotron program for the iPhone now so I will be able to play some really huge characteristic mellotron sounds right from my iPhone.

DTN: That’s really cool. You mentioned the YouTube video and if people just type in Rudess and Bebot...

JR: ...That’s right. If you type in Rudess, Bebot or Wivi Band, Rudess, you can find it immediately.

DTN: I think it’s really inspiring for young musicians today to see that the technology is easily accessible and so easy to use for everyone now. In your early days when you were starting to play, were you inspired by the technology that your heroes used back then? Did that inspire you to be as good as you could be on the instruments that you played and were the instruments as easily accessible then as they are now?

JR: Actually the instrument that really changed my life, and I have spoken about this before, was the Minimoog. The Minimoog was the real pivot point for me. It was the thing that changed my life. Actually, to be specific, it was an instrument called the Moog Sonic V that some high-school friends literally carried to my front door and had me play. It had me blinking. When I started to discover Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz and Keith Emerson and the heroes that helped to guide me to what I do these days, that’s when I started to really want to get some of these instruments. I remember posting magazine cut-out pictures of Minimoogs. I had them all on my wall. It was silly, a whole collage of pictures. I really wanted one and needed to figure out how to get one. One day, my father told me that he wanted me to visit my uncle. My uncle bought me a Minimoog. So that was the beginning. My first keyboard system was a Minimoog, an ARP string ensemble and a Moog Taurus Bass. Those were the three things that I would play.

DTN: Would you ever use those instruments now when you’re practising or at home? Do you still have those instruments around?

JR: I do have my Minimoog. It’s not the same one I had at the beginning but it’s the same kind of instrument. On this last album, I played a bunch of Minimoog. I brought my Voyager in which is a modern-day Minimoog. It has differences such as presets, but it’s basically the same kind of sound and control. So the Minimoog had a big impact on my life. A lot of times when I do these space jams, sometimes I will do electronic jams, especially with my neighbour and friend. We will go out and do some really wild stuff with synthesizers. I always have my Minimoog or my Voyager. Last time, I tried to have my Minimoog but it was not happy that day. It was a little bit more troublesome than I wanted it to be. So the technology has always been my friend. I’m just so inspired by all the developments and the different ways to make music. It has been a really interesting time. I think people know that I’m into it and that I can wrap my head around it so they seek me out with their technology and a lot of times I get turned onto some cool stuff which is great.

DTN: Another musician, Jean Michel Jarre, recently did a tour using all his old analogue instruments to recreate the Oxygen album. Were you ever into his kind of music?

JR: Erm, kind of not so much. I respect what he does. He’s a good synthesist. What I don’t like about that kind of music, and maybe it comes from being a classically trained musician, someone who’s really into synthesizers, and that my mind is somewhere between Chopin and Gentle Giant, is that when listening to Jean Michel Jarre, his note choices are very basic. When I listen to the riffs I can’t help but think he’s not a very advanced player who doesn’t have a lot of music theory background. It just seems too simplified. I used to call them little notey-note sequences. It makes me a little uncomfortable to listen to him that way. These days though, I’m a little less attached to that feeling so when I listen to it, it can be cool.

DTN: He used three extra guys on stage to recreate the album.

JR: Yeah, I have a DVD of it.

DTN: It just made me think how you are able to recreate all the sounds and effects from the album live on stage. Do you often have to compromise on the sounds or are you able to recreate everything? It’s obviously a huge task to program everything for the tour.

JR: Well, for a Dream Theater album, it’s a little different. It’s definitely hard to do and there are a lot of keyboards involved. If I went to try and do what I did on The Road Home, one of my solo albums, I would need to hire some other people to make it happen. For the Dream Theater album, there are some parts that are more than I can do with two hands or maybe I used a particular instrument. There’s definitely a lot of pre-production and trying to figure out what to do.

First, there are certain things that I did when I recorded but what is the end product? What does the listener really hear? When I’m layering a lot of keyboards and there’s a big, thick guitar power chord or whatever; then sometimes a lot of what I do can, dare I say it, get lost in the mix, which is sad but it is reality. You can’t have every part that I play always there. So my process is to listen to the final mix and see what can be heard and decide what instrument to use live. So if I used an instrument that’s other than what I bring out with me live, because I try to keep my live system a little bit smaller than my studio system, I’ll go and do a whole session of sampling. I will need this or that sound from a computer, a Moog or a Novation keyboard, so I will just literally sample it into my Oasys. I’ll record every fourth or something like that out of the sound and make a nice layout and it’ll be on my Oasys. I have a bunch of things that are already done. I even have some of my orchestral things, for example, some cool stuff from the programs Evolve and Atmosphere combined. I went in and recorded some solo orchestral things (violin and cello parts) that I used and some cool libraries and I just sample them.

DTN: Have you started to think about your stage setup already or is that too early?

JR: Yeah, I have. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’ve been working on it. It’s going to be less busy looking. Before it looked like I was piloting some airplane with the Memotron and the Radius all around the Oasys. It was a little hard to push around when I’m doing my spinning thing. I’m not going to have those pieces on there this time. I’m going to do it a different way.

DTN: Will you be trading your Zen Riffer for your iPhone or something like that?

JR: No, I still need the Zen Riffer for some things as it is so much fun but I will use the iPhone maybe for a couple of parts and also some other surprises. I won’t give away everything right now.

DTN: Well, the tour starts June 3rd and it kicks off at the Sweden Rock Festival and then you’re visiting several places in Europe in June. Then you continue to do North America in August and then Europe again in the fall. Do you get to visit any new countries this time? I see that Moscow is listed in June. Have you played there before?

JR: We’ve never played in Moscow before. It’ll be the first time for the band to play there. I think James has been there to do a project a couple of years ago. It’ll be the first time and it’ll be interesting to check it out. We are also going to go to Israel which is something that has been a long time coming. It is always fun to play a new place.

DTN: On this tour, you’ve got lots of different special guests, anything from Neal Morse to Frost to Ephrat.

JR: Where’s Neal doing it? I didn’t know.

DTN: Neal’s going to be special guest in Gelsenkirchen in Germany on June 24th.

JR: Fantastic. I didn’t know that. That’s awesome!

DTN: Is it Mike who sets up the support?

JR: Yeah. That’s really funny. We were at the video shoot and Mike had an announcement about the Progressive Nation in Europe. I was looking and one of the bands opening is called Unexpect. I hadn’t heard of them before, so I started to listen to a little bit of their music and I was like “Oh my god! This is wild and crazy. This is some cool stuff!” So, then John Petrucci came into the room. I said, “John, do you know about this band Unexpect?” and he said, “No, who are they? What is it?” So, it is a Mike job. He loves doing that. That’s the producer in him, doing what he does best.

DTN: I also see that for Europe, you are going to have the Los Angeles band, Bigelf and Opeth from Sweden again. Do you listen a lot to that kind of music or is it mainly when touring that you will be listening more to that kind of music?

JR: Well, I heard a song from Bigelf. I didn’t know about them either until I was told they were going to be joining us. I can’t remember what the song title was. It was slightly progressive, a little bit more pop and also a little bit heavy.

I don’t listen to this kind of stuff [laughs]. I listen to electronic music and other things. I love Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson’s last solo album. I got to play on the last one which was such an honour.

DTN: I see that you’ve also got some very cool bands lined up for the American leg.

JR: Yeah, that’ll be really fun.

DTN: So the fans are in for some extra treats in America and Europe.

JR: It seems that these Progressive Nation experiences will be so much more balanced, as it should be. We learn from what we have done in the past. Mike, our manager and our agents work really hard on trying to put on the right lineup. Yes, there are bands that don’t work out but I’m more aware of the American bands, and I think that it’s a really great combination of bands.

Actually I’ve one more thing that I want to tell you as it is news that is coming up really soon. You’ll want to know about it. I’ve just mastered a new solo album. It’s going to be called Notes on a Dream. As soon as the front cover is done, I’ll post it up on the forums. It’s an album of solo piano music. It’s primarily my own arrangements of Dream Theater songs.

DTN: That’s really interesting. Is that something you’ve been involved with whilst recording the new album?

JR: It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and finally got to make happen in some of the break time here. It’s actually an idea that my wife had a little while ago. So I made it happen, it’s done and I’m just working on some artwork. As soon as it’s cooked up, I’ll get it out there.

DTN: Cool. We’ll be excited to hear the arrangements. So this is your arrangements and interpretations of Dream Theater songs?

JR: Exactly. It’s my own arrangements of Dream Theater songs. It’s mostly the ballad-type songs but there’s also a lot of progressive piano playing in there as well. A lot of the time, I extend the songs and edit the parts. There’s also three originals on there as well.

DTN: Cool. To wrap it up, thank you so much for taking your time to do this interview. If you come back in the fall, this would be Dream Theater’s tenth visit to Norway. It is also the tenth Dream Theater album and the tenth anniversary for the Norwegian fan club.

JR: A lot of tens going on there! We’ll have to have a major celebration!