Kevin Moore interview (excerpt)

How was it being back with Mike again, was that awkward?

K.- It was just a week, during the middle of the project so, nah, it wasn’t awkward I mean I hadn’t seen him in years and years and (quickly) yeah it was awkward. (laughs)

There’s a certain romance about that period of Dream Theater when you were with them. To many people “Images and Words” is the high water mark for prog-metal, because of the blending of the lyrics, the pop element is outrageous and the instrumental performances are amazing – a lot of people want to go back to that

K.- Except for me! (laughs) I don’t agree with you. That’s not a high-water mark for anything for me. The thing about progressive rock... I think I enjoyed working with OSI because I could use my progressive roots and I’m far enough away from it to play with it and they were very cool about letting me be irreverent with it, like chopping it up and it was sort of “Don’t take this too seriously.” Even the performances that you are hearing aren’t the performances that Mike was playing exactly. Sometimes I think that progressive fans, they think this music is way above other forms of music. It’s either this or Back-Street Boys or something like that, I see it on the message boards all the time, “What do you like, Brittany Spears?” It’s like “Dream Theater rules!” Well, have you heard anything else? It seems that in the eyes of prog fans it’s such a measurable quantity, the quality of a band’s music, the technical prowess of the players, therefore it’s superior, don’t you sense that?

Absolutely, it’s the gunslinger attitude from the ‘80s with guitar players. You’ve got technical chops but no soul, there’s no communication there. However as a soloist, I think you are one of the best synth players out there. I thought your melodies were extremely interesting and very fluid. Why did that style lose its attraction, why don’t you express yourself in that way anymore?

K.- I’m trying to think why I did it before, I guess because that’s what it is with progressive music. That’s how you set yourself apart from other people or other bands, pop bands. It’s not by writing a better song, it’s by being flashy really. Doing really intricate, fast solos. Just as flashy as I could possibly do, I always wrote it, there weren’t that many times that I actually improvised maybe little parts live. Just because that was the progressive model and you’re supposed to do certain things and when it comes time for your solo you’d better do something that people are gonna like, when you play it live people should be looking in your direction. (laughs) But I never thought I was a great keyboard player, you know there are tons of people better than I am at that kind of stuff. I wasn’t into it like John Petrucci was, I was sort following those guys’ lead. I don’t know, it was fun but if you look at in terms of what it does for the music or the song, it doesn’t do much. I guess I’m more interested in the song and the textures and the mood of the song and how is the solo going to contribute to that? Plus it’s a different thing, progressive metal is supposed to be exciting and I don’t do stuff that I want to be exciting I don’t think. I think if anything is supposed to be exciting or adrenaline rush kind of stuff, it works more in the Dream Theater genre. Stuff I’m doing, “Ah, don’t play a solo there, just like get on with the song.”