Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.14 04/97)
excerpts from an interview with Neal Morse (Vocals, Keyboards)
Well, personally my musical roots are The Beatles. That was the first music I truly loved, of course at the same time I was singing classical music with my family, so that all got mixed together, I suppose. Then I saw Yes open for Black Sabbath and I've loved prog ever since. Am I answering your question? Anyway, yes, I'm terribly glad there's a progressive rock scene to be related to. When I first started writing this stuff I had no idea, so yeah, it's great. We would like to branch out a bit, though it's funny, when I first started writing prog, it was like a religious experience. It sill is, actually, there was so much freedom! I had been writing pop and country songs and Musicals, but with progressive I felt I could do whatever I wanted. Now I've found that if I write a straight pop song, even if it's good, we worry about cutting it. Is it progressive enough? If we like it we record it anyway, like "Waste away" on our 2nd record and "June" on our next one. But it's always a concern. It's funny I started doing this to get out of a box, now I'm in a different box, but still have way more room.
What kind of reactions did you receive for your first album "The light"?
The reaction to "The light" has been amazing. The things some critics have said "best album since 1978", this one guy from Germany just went nuts over it. I mean he says something like "the pillars of rock music have been pulverized and out of the rubble comes this record!", something like that. It was album of the year in several british papers and Burrn! Magazine in Japan gave it a 96 out of 100. Listen to me, I sound like an ad or something. Suffice to say the response was quite good.
Did you expect any reactions at all, because in the program of Progfest '95 you described your music as something that no one would like?
I'm a real pessimist. Escpecially in regards to what people are going to like. I mean, most of the stuff that people like I find appallingly bad, so, I generally have little faith. No, Ididn't expect anything good to happen. I always hope it will, but you never know.
The members of the band are involved in several other bands or projects. Can you tell me a little bit about their activities?
Let's see. Well, you probably know Nick doin' the Genesis thing, he also did a tour with Tears For Fears last year and plays regularly with Jonatha Brook And The Story. Dave plays with Eric Burdon constantly. Ryo does all kinds of stuff. He's in Japan with Peabo Bryson right now. Al doesn't have any outside projects. And I write country and pop songs and try to get them placed with other artists as well as doing the occasional cover gig in Europe.
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 1997