New York prog-metal band Dream Theatre recently completed their first Australian tour in their more than two decade career.
Jordan Rudess took some time out of his busy schedule to talk about his role in the band, keyboard technology, writing these ridiculously complex songs and their greatest "hit" album.It was the technology that got the keyboardist excited though. This was what picked up his spirits as he talked about fitting it in with the band
"I have a lot of fun actually when we prepare to do the albums because I'll always look at the state of technology and tools and plug ins and all that stuff and try to gear up for the thing," he said, "A lot of the times it can be overkill because in Dream Theatre we do a lot of sounds, but we're very rock oriented and there is a limit to what sounds I can use.
"I use the opportunity of an album to get more deeply into my tools and make sure I have all sorts of cool stuff."
It's not all just about textures and stuff either, Dream Theatre are known for their complex and intricate songs, just pieced together like a puzzle.
"We'll be in the studio and what usually happens is that someone will come up with an idea, maybe like when I'm on my own or something, then we'll start jamming on it and then usually John and I will throw in some other idea and then Mike will say "Oh it will be better if it were in a different key" or something like that. He's behind the drums, but he's got a pretty good idea of what's going on.
"We keep throwing in different ideas and as we're playing each little riff or part we'll be thinking of what's going next and we'll say "Hold on a second, I've got this idea" and we'll try putting it together.
"What usually ends up happening is for a song we'll end up with a blackboard behind us and we'll write down all the different sections then when we get a whole bunch of parts that we think are cool, then either the same day or the next day like Mike will come back in and go "I've been thinking of this in my head and I think we should play it in this order. Maybe we'll play this riff then we'll go to this chorus then we'll go back to the verse and then we'll go back to the instrumental section. We hash the ideas around quite a lot and I guess there is no shortage of ideas and they just connect. There is a certain headspace or a certain mood when we're creating a song just because we're stuck in the direction of an idea. It usually takes anywhere from a day to a couple of days to finish a song.
Perhaps it's just my horrendous memory, but that seems like a lot of notes to remember and while most of the band can pull it off, Rudess cheats.
"Everybody in the band remembers everything, but I use like little cheat sheets," he confessed, "[It's] kind of an advanced technology thing the Music Pad which lets me turn the pages without even touching it.
"I have so many different sounds across the keyboards. I use one keyboard as my master controller that controls the world there, and I have all kinds of different sounds in different octaves and different layers and things like that, so I use the Music Pad to make sure everything goes where it should.
Dream Theatre's three hour live extravaganza is sure to please all fans, as it did on their recent tour down under. "We try to play a little bit of everything. Mike does the set list and he's very anal about it. He takes a lot of time and tries to balance it over the albums. He even looks at what we played last time we were in a city so that we don't repeat ourselves.
Wait, a drummer leading the band? Even Rudess knows all the jokes, admitting that "Usually they're just drooling out of the corner of their mouth or something like that... but he grew up with rock 'n' roll. His dad was like a radio DJ and luckily he has Petrucci and I to keep feeding his pot with a million riffs.
If you're reading this thinking "Who on earth are Dream Theatre?", well they're the band that had that 'Pull Me Under', their only significant radio hit (although not really outside Australia). They make fun of this fact on their upcoming compilation 'Dream Theater's Greatest Hit (...& 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs)'.
"It's interesting. I feel like it's kind of a cool thing for us to have that," Rudess proudly professes, "The Dream Theatre journey has gone on for quite a long time. We've been together altogether for over twenty years from the days of playing in a basement, so this is kind of a cool thing and I think it's an appropriate name."
Dream Theatre now head home to the United States before a South American tour in March. Check them out there at:
MARCH
1 - Pista Atletica, Santiago, Chile
3 - Luna Park Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina
4 - Luna Park Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina
7 - Citibank Hall, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
8 - Estacionamento do Credicard Hall, Sau Paulo, Brazil
9 - Chevorlet Hall, Belo Horzonte, Brazil
12 - El Coliseo, Bogota, Colombia
14 - El Poliedro, Caracas, Venezuela
