Jordan Rudess interview (excerpts)

Peter Orullian: You and I have been friends a while. I wanted to tell the story real quickly the first time we met. I think we had exchanged some email, but you got me a pass to a show when you were coming through town in Seattle. I came in before the show, and you were on stage and you were running some stuff with John. You guys were just doing these crazy, crazy parts, but you were sight reading it and I had never seen someone do something so intricate in the context of live, which really blew my mind. And then you brought me up and you showed me your rig, and I want to talk more about your technology setup later, but it just kind of gave me this sort of dual sense of who you are. Such proficiency with musicianship and just absolutely eager to share with me all of the fun toys that you use to bring it all to life. It was really a fun moment for me. From there I’ve traded email and dinners here and there over the years. Before we get going, inside these crazy times how are you?

Jordan Rudess: Thanks for asking. I’m pretty good – I’ve got my brain is like spinning with all the different stuff that’s going on. There’s a lot of moving parts with Dream Theater. Certainly getting ready to do some solo piano shows, so I’m at the piano practicing Bach and Chopin and LTE3 arrangements that I want to do, and all this stuff I’m thinking. My head is also spinning with NFR information because everybody and their mother is telling me about... sorry NFTs; it’s some exciting stuff. It’s amazing I even get to sleep, but I try to do that so I can refresh and think about all these things again the next day.

PO: In fact all the things you mentioned, I’ve done a bunch of poking around recently, and I’m going to ask you about all of that, because I want to get all the details on these various efforts and creative endeavors you’ve got going. But before we come to the present, let’s go into the past a little bit. There’s some fun things out of your bio that I just want a little color on Jordan as a young person. You tell this story about your early Hungarian teacher and that she had a strong temper, and would occasionally kick you if you played the wrong note. Was this playful, or was it just enough that you’re like, “Yeah, I better get it right next time”?

JR: Oh yeah, she was serious. She was very loving; she was a Hungarian temperamental woman. She was living through the fact that her son was a Juilliard student, and actually went in from the pre-college to the college level. And then some point along the way – even further along than I got in the college level – he decided to join Guy Lombardo’s band. It kind of blew her mind and she never recovered. And when she met me, she thought, “OK, this one’s going to do the correct path.” And she got me really ready to go to Juilliard very quickly – it was about a year of studying with her, a year of intense lessons. She was determined that I’d get in and she taught me the Bach and the Beethoven and the Chopin and whatever it was in those days to prepare for the rounded set. And I got in! But I guess maybe in some ways, it was good that she passed away before I made the big transition to being a synthesist, a prog metal guy.

PO: Well that’s a perfect segue, because the very next question I wanted to ask you – because you talk about how you started to hear this other music and it just started to pull at you and you’ve talked a lot influences – what is the conversation you had with your parents, who were still hoping you’d pursue this path. As a parent, I think without any context, and certainly, the passion that is inside you, they’re thinking – concert pianist versus rock n’ roll guy... So how did that conversation go? Was it like, “Son, you’re not doing this,” or was it like, “Help us understand why you need to go and depart on this path”?

JR: Yeah, it’s a good question. It leads to a lot – probably more than I can even express in the context of our call. But let’s look at it this way: I was a very focused, straight, and in some ways narrow kid, just doing the Juilliard thing. In some ways, even regular school wasn’t a big part of my life. My mother wasn’t like a stage mother, but she loved the fact that I was doing what I was doing, and she was very supportive of it. And she would drive me to Julliard – the pre-college you go in every Saturday and then I’d have an extra lesson on Tuesdays with my teacher and then somebody’d come to the house. So it was pretty full with stuff. Of course the college level of Juilliard is different – it’s an everyday thing. So I was following my path, and around 17 years older or so, some people started to turn me on to all these different kinds of things – different kinds of music, LSD, a lot of influences that kind of came into my life all at once.

I never had the typical kind of teenage rebellion – I didn’t rebel at all, I was happy with where I was, and I was just doing it. I guess to this day I never really had a teenage rebellion but I did discover a lot once I turned the knobs of the Moog and heard ‘Tarkus’ and the other influences. At that point, the way that I broke free was very independent. I didn’t care what anybody else said, nothing was up for discussion, I had to break free. You have to picture me as a kid – I wasn’t allowed to go into my local town until I was like 17 or 18 years old. I was very protected. I would just get up and, “Hey mom, I feel a little something in my throat.” “Oh, stay home and practice.” So when it finally came time for me to kind of make a shift, I just did it. It wasn’t a talk, it wasn’t like, “Mom and dad, let’s talk about this. I know that you put a lot of time into it...” It was like, “F*** it! This is what I’m doing.” And I didn’t even mean for it to be like that. It wasn’t necessarily with that attitude, but I did break away; there was no longer an influence in my path, for good or bad. Everything did work out, but there were some strange years there with that kind of a big move.

PO: That’s great. You’ve always struck me as a person who marches to his own drummer – that’s a tired a metaphor, but it’s true it’s true with you. One of the things I read about, and I’ve learned about you as a musician, is your amazing improvisational skills. And you made this comment which just slipped in there in a bio but I found, it made me pause. You said, “It is important to learn to improvise. I think that is what music is all about.” So I wanted you to take a second and just extrapolate on that – what do you mean when you say that?

JR: Well, I have a very close, deep connection with improvisation. I really do feel like of all the things that I do as a musician, it’s probably the most important skill – at least important to me in the way I feel, and the way that I express, and the way that I compose. So, in my mind, improvisation feels very much like talking. If you can imagine being at an instrument and having the same fluidity that you do, like picking up a guitar or a keyboard, as you do when you just kind of... You’re amazing with words and they just flow, and you’re improvising. You don’t have a script, you’re just going with it, and these beautiful words and thoughts are coming out of your mind and then your mouth. Well, I feel like that whole kind of similar method is what I’ve been developing my whole life, and what I naturally got into – even though it wasn’t really supported at Juilliard per se – it’s what I’ve always been about. It’s about having the musical thoughts, the emotions, and being able to get those through my fingers in real-time. And that’s why I can sit down at a piano, and basically any time of day or night, and just play stuff you’ve never heard before. And if it’s a good day, you might be like, “Hey, what’s that?” And I’ll be, “I don’t know, I’m just playing.” If it’s a good day, what’s the difference between that and the stuff I write for Dream Theater or Liquid Tension? There is no difference because it’s the stuff that comes out of my head.

It might be that I’m sitting in a room with John Petrucci – who’s the incredible musician guitar player – he might say, “You know, Jordan, let’s think of a different chord than that. Maybe we used that one before.” There might be some of those kind of decision-making things that could influence the way it goes, and there often are things like that. But there’s another part of the reality which is this kind of flow of music that comes out is very much integral to the way that I work, and it becomes part of everything that I do, both in the compositional world, but also when I’m improvising. It’s one of the reasons that I am comfortable doing my Patreon streams – just turning on the camera and playing. And I can do one or two every week because I’m just making it up, I’m just playing. An idea comes in my head – I play. So that whole fluidity, that development, that whole process, I think is a really beautiful thing about someone making music. And granted, you can make music in many other ways; you can look at a score, you can interpret it, you can play it very beautifully, and that’s making music – I’m not taking away anything from that. But of all the skills that I do have, having been a classical music student, and kind of gone on that route and then gone to rock, and kind of putting it all together – I value the improvisational headspace and ability and growth element, probably more than anything else that I do.

PO: There was something that you did from DTHQ during the writing period of the most recent record, and John was kind of giving you one of those fun elbows kind of thing because he was expressing some jealousy around the fact that you can just improv solos that are amazing. One of my questions is, other than when you and John are trying to double something, is a lot of how you write like it’s an improvisation and then you find something you love? Because your solos have this quality of spontaneity that isn’t often found in solos that I really adore.

JR: That’s so nice to hear. John and I talk about it a lot. First of all, working with him all these years, I can’t say enough wonderful things about the man because when he plays the solo, his architecture, his tone and the shape of his solos – you can’t beat that, it’s incredible. That being said, when I approach my solos, they kind of come from a different spot ,but I’m saying this with all respect to what he does. I would never want to replace what he does – matter of fact maybe I it would be cool if I could do what he does. But everybody can do something different. But with a solo especially, I go with this emotion a lot. If I’m just constructing the solo, I can’t tap into the emotion I’m going for. I was talking to somebody the other day, and they were saying, “Who is the musician that you would want to play with, dead or alive?” I said, “You know what, it’s probably Jimi Hendrix.” And they said, “Why?” because they expected me to say some keyboard player or something like that. I said, “Because Hendrix was the master of cool.” The guy was just dripping. Most guitar players can play better than Jimi Hendrix these days, because the art of playing the guitar has evolved. But Hendrix was dripping with coolness, the LSD was literally like pouring off of him, whatever it was! He was the coolest.

And I think about him when I’m in that rock solo space, that I just want to embody that. And it’s just an emotion, it’s just a feeling, and I just want to play and get there. Obviously, I’ll be playing more notes than that and virtuosic phrases, but that element of coolness is really important to me. And the way that I get that is very much kind of like – just go for it. A lot of times if I go for a solo – granted if I understand the harmonies and the rhythms that are behind it, sometimes it takes a little longer – but if I get it and I can just go for it, and get the emotion and the feeling, that’s the most important thing to me. And often – I don’t mean this to just come out egotistical, I really don’t – but often it’ll happen on the first take, and if it doesn’t, that’s when trouble happens because then I start to overthink it.

All that being said, I will say that on the newest Dream Theater album, which of course is going to be really hard to sit on, I took a little bit of a different approach. I did that, I let it pour out. But then, I was inspired by my thinking about the way John does it, because I really love the way his solos are. And I was thinking I should try to get both – get this emotion, this energy, the spontaneity – but also a little more crafting. I kinda think I found a really good balance – you guys will hear that one when it comes out. But there’s that element, there’s the crafting. And I also worked with Jimmy T and with John on my sound, even though I think my signature lead sound is very cool. John had a concept about it that I really respected, because the one person in the world I’ll listen to when it comes to tone is him. So we kind of went for something a little different, a little bit smoother, but a little bit more pointed. So I’m excited about people hearing this new approach. I’m glad you asked me about that because it really is a thing.

PO: I’m excited by what you’ve come up with for the new record. Before the record, the way you I think you’ve approached the solos in the past, they’ve always felt like they had a shape to me, but they also had this distinction of feeling spontaneous. You bring up the lead thing; I read and I didn’t know this: at least at one time you had some sort of lead tone you called ‘The Pig.’ Am I reading that right?

JR: ‘The Pig’ is not a lead tone, but it’s one of the sounds I use generally to double the guitar. It’s called ‘The Snarling Pig.’

PO: You still use that?

JR: Oh yeah, it’s a Dream Theater staple. It’s like, “You play the electric guitar, I play ‘The Pig!’” It’s like one of the important sounds to the band.

PO: OK good! See, I didn’t know that, so I’m learning, too! It’s just fun for me, because I’ve followed the band forever.

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PO: Let’s talk about Jordan the technologist. I don’t know all of the keyboard players on the planet, but you’re the first keyboard player I know that in their setup for live shows would have like entire libraries that they wanted to use, mapping them across the keyboard and then set those in succession so that with a foot pedal you could change to new sets for songs. How did you devise the approach to do that so that you could so with such facility move between sounds during a set?

JR: You’re asking some really interesting questions, and I’m not just saying that because you’re my friend, but you really are because these are interesting topics. That one is really a cool topic because progressive rock keyboard players, the ones that you know about, like the Rick Wakemans and the Emersons, and people like the Geoff Downes kind of players – all great players – but their approach always was in having a keyboard here, and one up here, and one up here, one behind them, and jumping around, and all this kind of stuff. They wanted a clav sound – they’d move to this keyboard, they want a bell sound – go here, and then they go to the organ... It’s a whole thing; it’s very showy, it’s pretty cool, and that’s what people know in the prog world.

But I came into this in a different way. First of all, I came into this having a kind of Juilliard classical training, and then moving into this space, and then getting into Mini Moogs and spacey sounds, and weird stuff. So I kind of have this other combination of influences jumping into it, and so there’s that part of it. But the other part that kind of led me down this path to doing the kind of approach that you’re talking about – which is using one large keyboard and making the world happen on that – is that when I was younger, and I needed to get a job, I found a very cool gig working as a product specialist with Korg. And when I started at Korg, I definitely was talented with synthesizers, but I didn’t know what a lot of the technical words meant. There was a lot to fill in with my knowledge, but working for Korg and being the guy who was doing demos and explaining the instruments to people – guys in music stores and clinics and all that – filled in a lot of the blanks. But one of my responsibilities there was to take their instruments and to maximize them, to show them, and really turn the world on to how cool these things were.

With technology, there are so many different instruments, so many different gadgets, so many different things – we only have a limited time and we generally don’t go deep into any one particular thing. If you have a piece of software that does something on your computer that’s cool, you might know something about it, you might know how to switch the patches, but do you really know everything that that thing will really do? Chances are most people do not. I’ve worked with really high-level engineers, and they’ll bring up a cool piece of software to do something, and we’ll get to a point where they do something and I’m like, “Well, what about this?” “I don’t really use it for that...” And then they’re poking around like anybody else. But my job was to show how amazing these instruments were. And in those days, starting with an instrument like the M1 Korg, it was an instrument that was kind of like a workstation concept, had a lot of sounds in it – it was really, really cool. You could play piano, strings, bells, effects, all this kind of stuff. It was the beginning of that, so I wrapped my head around that, and I was like, “Oh my God, I can make this thing do everything that I really want!” So that’s what I did, that’s the approach I took, and I stayed in that approach. And I liked it because it was my job, but I also liked it because from my point of view, musically, it’s more important to maintain the integrity of the musical phrase than it is to lift up early so you can get over to this other keyboard, especially if the one keyboard you’re playing on will play all these sounds. It was an approach that I started then for those reasons.

PO: It makes so much sense. I have to believe that that’s being emulated now.

JR: It will, especially now that the keyboards have gotten better. The reality is on my Kronos, which is the main instrument that I use these days, I have sampled a lot of other instruments. The Kronos might not have the sound of some amazing orchestral library, or some incredible synthesizer library. Well, I’m not bringing that software out with me, I’m gonna put it inside the Kronos, I’m gonna sample it, link it up on the Kronos and layer it with something else, and then it’s there. So for me, having it all there, in a focused place really, really works. Still, somebody could argue, “Well, if you play it actually on this instrument, it might sound better.” I don’t hear many people complaining when they come to a Dream Theater show that the sounds are not cool. I have a world of sounds there in my Kronos, and some of the best orchestral sounds there are because the ones I need, I brought in there, and I tweaked myself, and I know what velocity I want them at. I don’t need to sample every velocity of an instrument to get it to do the job that I want, so that’s the approach that I take. The one thing that makes it really, really cool these days is that after myself and some other keyboard players [have been] bugging these companies that when you change the patch – these big layouts like strings, horns effects, voices and go to the next sound that’s maybe like trombones, flutes and woodwinds – there shouldn’t be any interruption in the sound. All the reverbs, all the delays, everything should remain, and should be nothing that interrupts from one big keyboard layout to another, and now that’s the case. So I’m in a happy place with my rock n’ roll prog keyboard world because the instruments are so powerful these days.

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JR: I also can play some guitar although I haven’t played in a long time.

PO: I know that. You and I skyped once, and you just randomly picked up a guitar because it was at hand, and you just started to shred on it. And I stopped the conversation because I didn’t know you could play guitar that well – it kind of freaked me out!

JR: Well, you know, the way I got into playing at all is because my brother started taking guitar lessons before I started making music. He didn’t learn much, but I sat on the steps of my house watching him take these lessons. And I learned something so I started to play – I was playing the guitar before I was playing the keyboard. But I never took guitar lessons and I also never practiced it consistently. A day here, a day here, maybe for a month and then stop for a year – that kind of thing. Even when I played the infamous LTE show in Chicago When the Keyboard Breaks, I think it was called, I looked back and I think, “OK, I played pretty well.” But it was not a great situation because I hadn’t played the guitar in a long time even before that. But now it’s been even longer. I’ve got all these beautiful guitars thanks to you-know-who, and I really should be playing more. But [it’s] the same kind of skill, it’s the same type of thing – I’m tapping on things. The guitar part was a little challenging in that most guitarists learn by pattern on the fretboard, or they learn by interval, but I have perfect pitch, and I don’t think like that. I think, “OK, you put your hand down here and that’s an E, you put your hand down here and that’s an A.” So I had to learn every dot – what note it was before I could really play. I can’t think the other ways that well. So guitar has always been an interesting kind of thing for me.

PO: Still, your facility there is not trivial. I know it’s not where you practice all the time, but if someone saw you pick up a guitar and do what I saw, there’d be some guitar envy going on. Let’s talk about LTE3 a little bit, which is pretty recent. I’ve listened to the record a ton, I think it’s great. The question I have is: there’s about a 22-year break between the second and third record – was there anything that you felt that that amount of time how it informed the third record, whether how you guys wrote, the production itself, the difference sonically in songs, anything as you look at it now? What was the change or maturation?

JR: It was a really amazing experience to do LTE3 because it taught me so many things; it gave me so many different perspectives. First of all, I should say that going into it was a bit intense; the idea of going into another record with the guys after so many years, in a big way, because of all the anticipation for so many years. People saying, “I want LTE3! I want LTE3! When are you gonna do it?” So many years, so many messages later, and I kind of felt like, “Wow, this is making me a little nervous! What are we going to come up with?” Well, nervous is not the right word; just a little bit more feeling like, “Wow, what’s going to happen?” I did feel like we’re only gonna be together in the studio for maybe two, three weeks, so what happens if the muse is not on my shoulder with me? So I did prepare some riffs ahead of time. We were on family vacation up in Rhode Island. I brought a little two octave keyboard with me and I set it up and I was banging on that a little bit, just getting some ideas and making videos of the ideas and saving them just in case. So I had that, but of course when I got together with the guys, there was no shortage of inspiration, and I didn’t think about any of the weird stuff.

We just were making music, and it flowed and it was just a great feeling to get in the room with all the guys. I mean for one, John and Mike and I hadn’t been in the studio together in what, like 11 or 12 years or something like that? And we wasted no time. First of all, we were comfortable right from the get-go. We were just comfortable with the idea of getting together at that point, and we were just totally looking forward to it. We got in the studio we started work, and it was like old times, and even better because we were just so happy to be there together and just working together – it made us just really kind of joyous. And of course with Tony, who’s a wonderful guy and a great musician.

And the whole thing, I just got a real perspective of it, because you and I, we have so many friends that are musicians, so many talented musicians, and it’s a tough business. And a lot of these guys are making some really great music, and you wonder, “Why is it this music is so popular? Why didn’t this guy catch on?” It’s a little hard to understand. And I’m grateful for anything that comes my way and for the fact that I’ve been able to make a living as a musician. I mean thank God, I guess I can’t do anything else. But I got this feeling, I got this perspective, which I didn’t have the first time, looking around making music with everybody and then hearing back. I was thinking, “You know what? There really is some kind of magic going on here. There’s a real chemistry: these four guys. I get it, there’s something special.” And it was interesting to see that from a different perspective, because again, it’s hard to understand why some music hits people and other music doesn’t. But I kind of got a perspective of that and I really appreciated that.

Then we put out the album. Of course, I’m in my own world for a certain amount of time thinking, “Oh people probably dig this,” and then we put it out and the response is so amazing, like, “Holy s***! This is beautiful! It’s fantastic!” So there’s something there and I appreciate it, and I kind of got a hint of it which is hard to do when you’re in the middle of it.

PO: I love that you had that moment of perspective on it, because if you can pause long enough to just be grateful that you have the skills and that you’re surrounded by players like this, and more than that, that you guys have a chemistry, because the record does not disappoint, it’s an amazing record. I’ve been listening back to it in preparation for this conversation, and the track that kind of been running around in my head a lot is ‘Blink of an Eye’. For me that song runs through so many different sort of musical stylings; there’s jazzy moments, it gets sort of big and I guess traditionally sort of epically progressive later on, but the point is that there’s a wide array of flavors on this album and I think that’s a hallmark of what you guys do.

JR: And that one is completely improvised. That’s not one of the ones on the main disk, that’s one on the jam part of it.

PO: It’s funny because I was gonna ask you: the structure of that is so unique, it made me wonder if that was planned or if it was organic.

JR: No, it totally happened. We just improvised.

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JR: I also enjoyed writing lyrics on [Wired for Madness]. It’s funny because, as I just described, when I think of music, the music really comes first and the words are secondary, but I do enjoy writing words. I like the flow of them, I like the rhythm of them, I like the sound of them and therefore I like to make it happen. But maybe I’m more concerned with the way they sound than what they mean.

PO: You did a great job on that record. One of the questions I wanted to ask is: do you think you’ll ever throw your hat in the ring to write Dream Theater lyrics?

JR: [laughs] What’s the next question? [laughs]

PO: Fair enough. There’s so many people to write lyrics.

JR: Right.

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JR: I discovered Eren [Başbuğ] when he was in Turkey as a college student. He was rounding up orchestras and writing arrangements [of] Dream Theater music, putting on concerts, this is an incredible producer/musician, doing amazing things. It was around the time that I got commissioned to do this piece [Explorations for Keyboard and Orchestra], and I needed somebody to help me with the traditional orchestration, because I’m not a traditional orchestrator – I could mock it up in my studio with my tools, but actually remembering how high the trumpet goes and these kind of... just not my wheelhouse. So when I met him and told him what a great job I thought he was doing arranging my music for his orchestra, I said, “I also I got a little project for you. How would you like to help me with the orchestration of a piece that I’m writing?” He was like, “Yeah, that sounds amazing.” So we started our long-term relationship and the next thing you know, I’m flying him to Venezuela to work with one of the amazing youth orchestras there. And the way I met Eren was he flew there like a week ahead of time to work with the orchestra, and then I flew down a few days before the show to work with them and play my part. I got a hit right then and there like, “OK, he’s been working his tail off, and these young musicians they’ve been working hard trying to learn this stuff!” It was up to the last minute of shedding.

Same thing happens to Dream Theater, quite honestly, when we do stuff with an orchestra. I remember the Radio City gig as if it was yesterday, and John Petrucci and I remember at the rehearsal that was the day before the show – because they don’t give you many rehearsals – they’re trying to play like ‘The Test That Stumped Them All’ and it sounded like [mumbles and garbles]. He and I literally were standing in the room. I think both of us at the same time almost backed up into the wall, shrunk down and looked at each other and going, “Oh s***! They just can’t play it!” And we were like, “What are we going to do, because the concert’s tomorrow?” And then I have these memories of all the musicians – because we had another rehearsal the next day, but of course they have lights out at these union halls. When the lights went out after the second rehearsal, they were all in the corners of the Radio City Music Hall and back practicing like crazy, freaking out, because they didn’t know. They just think that they were hired to do a job...

PO: And they probably [thought] it was a lot like this other scenario we described, “Oh it’s a rock guy. He’s probably got us doing a few stabs and swells in and out.”

JR: I don’t even know if they had the opportunity to see the music that much ahead of time, but usually an orchestra will have the opportunity to, but they just don’t. They don’t open it up until the rehearsals or the one rehearsal beforehand.

PO: Let’s use that as a transition to Dream Theater land: one of the things I love that you introduced to the sort of sonic signature of Dream Theater is a sense of humor, a sense of whimsy. Because in the context of some of these just amazing songs, all of a sudden we’ll hear a ragtime section or something. Again, it’s not the only thing you do, but it’s something that I don’t remember and frankly don’t hear in other bands, where there’s just this sort of lightheartedness, and it’s not like it’s easy to do but it gives the music some diversity. I wanted to be sure and say that because I think it’s one of the things that you brought to Dream Theater. Maybe that wasn’t as much of an expression before, but your first record that I think you wrote with Dream Theater – correct me if I’m wrong – is Scenes From a Memory. When they do Dream Theater fan polls, that is usually the favorite album or in the top tier. This was your first record writing with the band; what was the process like and has that changed over time, or have you guys kind of...

JR: Yeah, it would definitely change. First of all, let’s talk about the little parts that make you smile. So we were writing these riffs, just very serious, all the very technical kind of virtuosic riffs and all the stuff we do, and then I like to take motifs and just do different things with them. First of all from a more serious point of view I’ll take something that maybe is in the right hand or in the top voice and put it in the left hand and then put chords over it and see what [happens]. We do that a lot in Dream Theater and Liquid Tension. It’s just a compositional technique. A lot can happen with it with an idea and can shuffle it around. I remember just like it was the other day we were doing [recites ragtime melody from TDoE] but it was in straight time, all these notes, and of course I was thinking, “Oh I could make this into a ragtime time.” So I started to play it for the guys and they basically laughed, and I think they were all ready to move on, because I was just in the space where I could make them smile while we were working. A lot of the Jordan things – well I don’t know about a lot – but some Jordan things that I do makes the guys smile, and then they move on because it’s not stylistically part of what Dream Theater would ever do. But in this particular case, I did that, and then right before they were ready to move on, they kind of stopped and went, “Wait a minute, maybe we should do that. It’s silly, but could be cool.” Obviously we decided to do that, we left it in, and I really learned something which I think is really important, and I bring it up every now and then when we’re writing, which is that our music is so serious – it can it can get really like heady and very intense and all these kind of things – and I think it’s really good to break it up a little bit! You make somebody smile, just have a good time, do something funny like a different style. You can hear in LTE records and Dream Theater records where we all of a sudden break into like a Latin groove or something like that. It’s like, “What?!” and those are great moments, because they make you smile or we break into something that sounds extremely middle eastern. When you have something that’s that serious, it’s important to have a little levity in the situation.

PO: Yeah, it’s like a palette cleanser. I guess it’s understandable and would make sense that your processes for writing would evolve, with you coming into the group. I know that they had pursued you twice – the first time you told them no for personal reasons and stayed with the Dregs, this time you said yes. But you came into a time when they decided to write the sequel to ‘Metropolis’ – arguably the most important song to many Dream Theater fans – and you’re going to follow it up. And I know full well from my other life in the writing world: whenever you do a sequel, there’s a risk, because if you don’t exceed even the first, they’re going to take you to task, and you guys crushed it. So I just wanted to have you talk a little bit about that experience.

JR: First of all, the guys were very into this idea of doing this follow-up, because the first one’s very popular and this was more stretched out. And all of a sudden, we’re making a whole album with a whole story and a whole thing, and it came to life in this really bigger way. But I was not in charge of the story at all, I was in charge of helping write the music. I was a newcomer, first of all, coming into this, and they had a bunch of riffs that they had from various sessions and stuff that they were bringing into the room and showing me, that we were tossing around. And I was adding my two cents to everything.

In those days, I thought that it was a good idea to come in with some ideas into the studio, and I didn’t realize that they didn’t really like to work that way. It was kind of more like, “We write together, everything comes together.” I remember showing up at the studio, I had like 50 ideas, 50 things. I thought, “Let me show them this, let me show them that.” I thought that was what I kind of had to do. And I remember Mike saying to me, “Wow, that’s not really the way we work. Usually, we write when we’re together.” But he still listened to every one of the ideas because that’s the way he is. [laughs] And some of the stuff we used!

One of the biggest differences in the way that I work with the band now and the way I worked with them then, is that I went crazy with the orchestrating. I kind of did my own thing in a way, just layering all these parts and all these things, ended up that we took things out. They went through and it was more like, “Oh yeah, that’s awesome, but we don’t really need that part.” And maybe, “That’s cool, but we don’t need that or that.” I didn’t know. First of all, John Petrucci’s guitar is as big as my house, it’s a wall of sound that you need to be conscious of how you’re putting things in the mix. So every album I learned more and more – we all learn more and more about how to let everything survive in the mix. In those days, I would just be like, “OK, I think I’ll play this part. I think I’ll do this part. Now I’ll play another part.” So I had a lot of extra parts. I think somewhere online you could hear some of that stuff. There might be places where you can go and actually hear some of the other parts that I had. So there was that, there was that learning process, and it made me a little sad. I was like, “I like that part, I like all that.” But it wasn’t a keyboard album, it was fitting into a group.

But there’s a lot of inspiration in those days. I remember ‘Finally Free,’ I’m writing these chords upstairs at BearTracks Studio, and then I come down and James was listening to it; he was in the lounge, and he started singing this melody. “Yeah, that’s perfect,” and then we put it together, and next thing you know, that’s happening. Everybody was inspired – I was inspired because I was all of a sudden working with them in this new way, because I had worked with John and Mike in LTE, but not the other John and not James. So I was feeling a lot of energy about being there, and they were inspired, and they were also given a new kind of force to being able to do this. John Petrucci, as incredible as he is, wanted/needed a writing partner, and I think when I came into the band, that’s one of the reasons that they brought me in, because John felt like I would be a good writing partner for him.

PO: I have no inside information but it feels like the pair of you have found this just really amazing chemistry. I mean, in spades it’s on display in The Astonishing, and that was very public, like, “Hey we went and wood shedded to come up with this.” But there’s a synergy there for sure, and I think there’s a lot of players that are really, really fast, really, really good out there; it’s a different thing to take all of that and have the chemistry and to write songs.

JR: Right, and I mean anything that John and I have done – and I want to make sure [to clarify] because people get all kinds of crazy ideas about who did what and blah blah blah... and I say all that about John and I, but I also want to say when I was in Dream Theater with Mike Portnoy, [Mike was an] incredibly integral part of the whole process. Mike wasn’t there writing the notes and the chords so to speak. John and I really mostly do that – that’s our domain – we’re at our keyboard, we’re at our guitar and that’s what we’re doing. And Mike Portnoy wrote a lot of melodies back then, but he also arranged, really very capable to do song structure and always had a lot to say about that.

PO: Let me ask you a couple of specific things. There’s so many great moments in in Dream Theater that I could talk about, but there’s a couple that I will just focus on to exemplify like the rest. There’s a choice you made in a song called ‘Beneath the Surface’ off of A Dramatic Turn of Events for the solo. It struck me when I first heard it, and I have relistened to it and it strikes me the same way. I don’t know what the sound is you chose to play – what the VST or whatever it is – but the sound itself, to me (this could be personal reaction) feels like kind of memory and regret, which is exactly what the song is about. It’s like the perfect lead choice. And then beneath it, you’ve got some pulsing strings, and it really comes to this emotional crescendo. The question that comes from that is: when you make these choices on patches where you’re really taking over the melody like you’re effectively the lead singer now and you’re communicating. how much of that choice is something that you just know these sounds evoke these feelings, and how much of it is just instinct?

JR: A lot of times when I’m playing a lead, I’ll go to a signature kind of a lead sound – something that’s maybe a little bit more aggressive or whatever, like my lead tone or tones. I think that sound is more in the range of almost like a ‘Lucky Man’-ish kind of a sound, like an Emerson-inspired type of tone if I remember correctly. But for one thing, the guys in the band are drawn to classic kind of tones aside from my lead sound. If we’re working, sometimes John will say to me, “You know, like that Rush sound [imitates sound],” like something that was part of their childhood or whatever. Whereas in my mind, I’ve got like three million sounds. But they sometimes want to point to a specific kind of sound that’s in their memory bank that might be for this particular... I’m not saying that that solo was like that, but I’m saying in general. But from a musical point of view, I’m looking for things that speak clearly, that will have a camber that can be above the band, that are pleasant, that respond well to my fingers on the keys and that kind of stuff.

Like on the new Dream Theater album – obviously can’t get totally into talking about that because I’m not supposed to – but I brought my Mini Moog there. I bought this vintage Mini Moog from 1971 (I think it is), and I just played a bunch of lines on that and it just sounds so nice. On that I’m able to just turn the dials until it’s exactly what I really want, get just the right amount of glide. It was brave of me to bring my trophy piece, if you will, my vintage Mini Moog there. And actually Maddie had to open it up one day just because something got unseated or whatever – it didn’t make sound and he fixed it (our head tech) but now it’s back.

PO: That’s fun! I didn’t know that. That’ll be fun to hear on the new record.

JR: Yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff on the new record. I’m very, very proud of these keyboard tracks. I’m probably more proud of these keyboard tracks on this album than anything I’ve ever done, in a big way. Part of the credit is due to Jimmy T as well, who’s our illustrious engineer, who recorded Liquid Tension Experiment, who did the last Dream Theater album and who recorded this album. He and I worked very closely in the studio, really finding, crafting the sounds. It was really a great experience.

PO: That seems to be the consensus that I hear, whether it’s me hearing it or other places in the trades. While you always are proud of the thing you did, you guys specifically are excited about what you put in the can this time, which means the rest of us Dream Theater fans are excited.

JR: Yeah, it’s a nice buzz going on about it ,and I think that it’ll be really worth it and everybody will be really happy when they hear it.

PO: We’re all looking forward to it. While there’s definitely places that breathe and are dreamy, there’s places in the Dream Theater music that’s really aggressive, as technically challenging. Are there places in, or particular songs, where you have to focus that much more, or by the time you get on the road you’re dialed in and it’s really just performing at that point?

JR: I try to get to the point where we’re on the road and things are pretty dialed in, but of course, especially the first few shows, maybe they’re not quite dialed yet! [laughs] For some reason that always seems to happen. But there’s definitely songs, there’s definitely parts of the music. A lot of times it’s just self-inflicted, where I’ll be trying to play more than just one take’s worth of keyboard parts at the same time, because I’m doing more things live. So I’m saying, “OK, in my left hand I’ll play the chord thing, my right hand I’ll do this crazy lead thing,” more than most people would want to take on. That’s my own little issue. So that takes time.

I remember doing ‘The Gift of Music.’ If you remember the way that song ends, it’s pretty wacky; like John and I are playing these crazy lines and there’s weird stuff going on, a lot of counterpoint, just weird. And I remember when I arrived to do the music video for that, I had practiced it because I needed my hands to be in sync with the track. That wasn’t even the way these things are done – you’re not even really playing it – but you want to be playing it so it feels right. But then it felt like it was kind of falling apart there, and I had to come home and I said, “OK, well good that I did this, because now I really need to practice this more so I can get it locked in!”

There are parts of the music that when we play, generally speaking, let’s say 85-90% of the stuff is just playing along and you’re just doing it. Then there’s parts where it’s like, “OK, I’m gonna focus, gonna be very still.” You’ll see when we’re playing our crazy unison lines, especially ones that are extended, that I’ll get very still. Sometimes I’ll even stand on one foot almost like a yoga balancing thing. I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t need to expend more energy than is needed to do this really challenging part. That it’s better accomplished if I become still, so I’ll stop. I’ll be rocking out, doing my thing, spinning the keyboard, and all of a sudden I get really still and that’s why. Because I know that it’s not going to come out as well if I’m trying to show off and I’m moving around putting on a physical entertainment show. At those points, I need to focus in and just play the part and be really calm, no extra body motions.

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JR: I set up this world [referring to his Patreon account] that not only keeps me able to do the sharing that I love to do and gives people the opportunity to give back, but it also financially is something that helps to keep myself and my family fed. I think a lot of people out there kind of have this funny notion that all of us in Dream Theater live in some kind of castles up on a hill or something like that with armed guards and servants all around us; unfortunately it’s not like the [‘70s]. Maybe if Dream Theater was alive in the ‘70s, it might be like that, but we work as hard as anybody to make a living and do our thing, and honestly as much as I love Patreon besides any financial thing – because I really do – the fact that it also is another way to use my talents and what I do to make a living, it’s a good thing.

PO: I think people know how authentic you are if they have had any exposure to you, but it sends the right message that what you offer is how you feed your family. There are these websites that [claim], “This person’s net worth is X,” and they come up with these crazy millions and millions of dollars. And I researched it, and the people who put this information up [are] not even journalists, not that a journalist is qualified to do it. But they’re just like any schmoe who decides they want to do it. So it creates this misperception that Jordan Rudess lives like a king, “We certainly don’t need to pay for his music.” The fact that you and all the guys work so hard, making records and engaging with fans and doing lessons and all the stuff, tells you that it’s how you feed your family.

JR: I appreciate you pointing that out. I mean we love what we do, we enjoy what we do, so you can’t fault us for loving what we do. But at the same time, this is our job and we do it and we’re really on it because it’s a combination of, yes we love what we do, but we have to work. Dream Theater has to tour. At some point we need to go back on tour, unless we figure out some other mechanism, otherwise that’s not gonna be good. So there’s that whole part of it that’s really important to realize that we are working musicians. But the other thing I was going to say was that the music business is very different than a lot of other businesses. A lot of my friends who are my age are retiring. Not that I would want to retire because again, I love what I do. But the reality is I’m surrounded by my friends that are like, “Oh, I stopped working five years ago. I got my pension. I don’t need to work.” And in a way, I’m feeling like, “Wow, that’s not the career I chose. I need to work – I really need to work!” But I wouldn’t stop anyway.

PO: But it is part of the path. I don’t know what the graph looks like, but there’s some very, very small set of musicians who make the gajillions of dollars, and then there’s a huge, huge stripe in the middle who are known, who are great musicians with great music, but they don’t have that luxury; as much as they do love it and there’s no there’s no crime to love what you do, they have to work in order to pay mortgage and all the things.

JR: There was a something that came out like on Blabbermouth that was like, “Jordan Rudess says that you shouldn’t be a musician for your livelihood.” I don’t remember the exact quote – something to do with my saying that you shouldn’t depend on music to make a living or something like that, and I felt... [sighs] it was part of a discussion where I said, “Many of the happiest musicians that I know are ones that are not depending on it to make money,” and there is a reality to that. There’s a lot of guys who happen to have careers, that have a bunch of time otherwise, and they can make music. They can make whatever kind of music they like and they don’t have to worry about it, they don’t have to bring in any money with their music, and that’s a lovely place to be in. Personally, this is what I do, I’ve always done it, I don’t really have any other skills and thank God it worked out.