Interview with Neal Morse

Jan-Jaap de Haan

Hi Neal. You've recently released your new album, called V. What have the reactions been like so far?

Pretty good! At first it seemed like... reactions came a bit slow. The first interviews I did were a little weird, I was so nervous. The first question I got, back in July, was something like: "So how does it feel to be in a rut?" Which implies we're doing the same thing over and over. And I thought: "Ooh, gee,...err... I don't know". But reactions have been better since then, and the fans seem to like it and that's what really matters to me. So all is well in Spock's Beard-land.

Now you've finished the Spock's Beard album, does it mean that you have to get back into the studio with Transatlantic?

No, we're still trying to figure that out. Maybe January. We did some shows though, here on the East Coast in June. And we're trying to find some time to do some shows in Europe as well. And we're playing next week. As a matter of fact I'm practicing for it right now. We're playing in LA at the ProgFest. But we aren't writing at the moment, cause we can barely gig together. We will play the same set that we did in June, cause we didn't even really have the time to practice, cause Mike Portnoy has a gig on the night before on the East Coast. He will fly in and we won't even have a sound-check I think.

You've recorded V, how long has it taken to record it?

We started last November, beginning of December, we recorded the basic tracks. And then we did The Great Nothing, Revelations and Thoughts (Part 2). And then we came back in January and did At The End of the Day, All On a Sunday and Goodbye to Yesterday. I did my overdubs in February.

Neal at Bospop, July 2000.

We were supposed to mix it in March, and we did, but then we lived with the mixes a little while, cause we went out with Dream Theater. And returning from that, we thought that the drums weren't rocking enough, so we went back to Rich Mouser, who had mixed Day for Night and Kindness, to remix that. But it's like trimming a moustache; you trim one side and think "oh, maybe we should do a little bit on this side as well". Pretty soon there's no moustache left and you've redone the whole thing. That's how it was: one by one we realised that we had to re-mix the whole thing, to make the whole sound match up. The only one that stayed from the original mixes, was Goodbye to Yesterday, which is such a different kind of song, it didn't really matter, cause it sounds so different. But it was a lot of work, it was a nightmare.

How was working with real classical instruments?

Oh, that's always fun. I'm always a little nervous about it, because I'm not sure if I've written it out in the right way. We play a half step down, we tune our guitars a half step down, as well as our keyboards. So then the real players come in, and I write it out, like the beginning of The End of the Day. And I actually wrote it in the key of D. But I had to write it out for that girl in the key of D-flat. So I was very worried that I didn't write it out correctly. But it seemed to work out, and there weren't any mistakes.

But it's really fun, because you know, that if you hire these players from the National Symphony, you just know that they show up and play it perfectly almost immediately. And I love to hear the real symphony after hearing all the synthesized sounds.

Why do you tune down?

We started doing it for my voice and we continued doing it, because we got used to it. And Al likes the guitar, because when you play a low E, it has a bit heavier sound. We kind of decided that "we are rockers and we play in D-flat".

Neal at Bospop, July 2000.

Where did your inspiration come from for this album? I've read you've been listening to Three Sides Live recently.

Well, I don't know where that came from. Probably from Nick, but I don't even own that album... (laughs)

So where did your inspiration come from?

From God. I mean "thank God that it came". But if anything influenced this album, it is the Transatlantic-album. I was against some of the extended instrumental passages that are on the Transatlantic-album, like the long pianosolo-part, which I thought would be boring. But I ended up really liking them.

So, for example there are two organ solos on this album, which we never had before. I kind of let the guys stretch their solos a little more. There's two long solo-sections in The Great Nothing, for example. I think that was influenced by Transatlantic.

And there's a little Dream Theater influence, like the daa-da-daa-da da-da daa-da-daa-da part (sings heavy riff from End of the Day). Which could be Dream Theater-riff.

Transatlantic (promo photo)

How do you find balance between the two projects?

That's really easy, because nobody has time for Transatlantic! (laughs) Mike is a lot busier than I am, so I don't have to be the bad guy. I can always say "oh, no, we can't because Mike doesn't have time".

There are two mixes of the Transatlantic album, one by Rich Mouser and one by Roine Stolt. After much debate, you've decided to release the Mouser-version, because of the "famous Rich Mouser-drumsound". What happened to the other mix?

It went straight into the garbage. No, I'm kidding. Don't take offence, Roine! No, it was really cool, I liked what Roine did with the vocals and with the instruments. I really could have gone either way. When Mike was mastering it, I was asking if we could possible edit some of Roine's mix in. I really liked what he did with Camouflage in Blue in particular. But you can't have everything.

When you will start working on a second album, will that be in the same way?

I'm of the mind that if something isn't broken, don't try to fix it. One of the things that happened with this last Spock's album is, that we were like "well, we really like our last two albums, let's get in somebody else that can add a different perspective." And we ended up re-doing the whole thing, spending twice as much money and time. So if you have something that is working and that you like, don't change. But that's just a one-man vote, and there's four of us. But I would say "bring in your own songs and let Rich Mouser mix it". Because that's what I like. And making an album that you like is a big thing. Because you can really wind up not liking your own album otherwise.

Neal at Bospop, July 2000.

What else is in the pipeline?

A Neal Morse solo-album. I will be working on that this fall for a spring release. Another Transatlantic-album, maybe for a release in the summertime, hopefully. And then probably a new Spock's in the beginning of the following year, I guess. But that's all just projection.

And we're digging into recordings of the acoustic shows with Nick, as we speak. We hope to have that ready to sell on the October-tour in Europe. We're still going through the material, so I don't know what will be on it. I like to give people the feeling of 'having been there'. So it might be a 2-record-set with maybe three sets on it, with some talking in between. But I don't know yet.

And finally there's the live-video from Holland, which will be available on the October tour as well. I don't know why it has taking them so long, but they're having a hard time with it. So we will have two new goodies, cause we've gotta bring some money home to the kids (laughs)!

Thanks Neal, hope to catch you somewhere this tour.

Cool! See ya then!