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 Neal
Morse Interview
By Tommy Hash
Coming off the heals of a recent and yet somewhat controversial departure from
Spock’s Beard, Progressive Rock fans have been in limbo for several months wondering
what would become of both Neal Morse and Spock’s Beard. Those questions and all
concerns were met with two of 2003’s strongest albums, when both SB and Morse would
release two post mortem albums titled Euphoria and Testimony, respectively.
Morse, for years has been the Charismatic footman of one of progressive rocks most
popular bands, fusing his pop sensibility along with prog substructure, making for a
perfect mix that has given Spock’s Beard their stature of being so well receive by
all music fans. Over the years, Morse has completed three solo albums, the first two,
showcasing more of a pop rock direction, or singer/songwriter status rather than
offering record that tends to lean more toward musicianship virtuosity, creating an
outlet for what Morse himself found himself inspired to create along with his other
side project, Transatlantic, which is considerably more progressive than SB, at the
other end of the spectrum from his solo efforts.
But For Testimony, a highly inspired album that was created over the past year in
Nashville, Tennessee, where Morse resides, an album that has truly come from the
heart and his Christian beliefs, presenting some of the most inspiring music to come
from the progressive rock genre, not to mention that the record itself is a plethora
that mixes prog, pop and hard rock with the occasional symphonic edge.
I had the chance to sit down wit him on a cold but yet clear day at a coffee shop
outside of Nashville and discuss the record, the tour, and the inspiration behind
his latest opus, Testimony.
TH: With Testimony being your first solo project away from Spock’s Beard, what was
the biggest challenge that you faced?
 NM: Wow there are so many challenges,
it was not so much the writing, the writing
went so much easier for Testimony, Snow was a little bit challenging, making up a
story, and trying not have that be too lame, which is a very time consuming project.
With Testimony, it pretty much wrote itself, which that sort of started back in the
fall of last year around October, which is my favorite time of the year, it is just
a creative time for me. For me the most difficult thing was to wait on God and trust
him on how to do it and implement it all, how to mix it. I can remember that I had
to deliver the album in June and in May I did not know how I was going to get it
done, I was trying to do everything to the best of my ability and God’s will, and it
is really hard to know sometimes, especially when you really want something, I feel
that what God wants me to do, but here I am, I basically just quit my job (referring
to his departure from SB) and here I am spending a ton of money in ways that I never
had before, and my wife confronts me about spending money like I have never spent
before. On this recording I had string players, that would work for days where I had
never had that happen, and I felt in my spirit and prayer to hire this engineer,
Jerry Kudross, and I had engineered all my stuff before, all my overdubbing and
everything I had ever done on SB and Transatlantic, I would engineer it myself, set
up a mike, get a level and go for it, but on this one I felt like the lord told me
to use Jerry, and that was a hard thing, because we really did not have the money,
sometimes I really saw what he was going to add to the record that I could not add,
and for me it was mostly the money and expenditures that were hard for me, it always
is because I tend to be a little bit tight. The things that Jerry did were, that I
would be singing and he would come in and move the mike, he noticed that I sing with
my head up, and he moved the mike in that directional and got such a more warmer
sound, and I really hear the difference particularly on like “Land of the Beginning”
and “Somber Days,” I let Jerry produce the vocals with me, which is something I had
never done before, which before I had totally been on my own, it was wonderful, I
think the vocals are some of the best I had ever done.
TH: When you do your recording, what are some of you favorite toys/equipment that
you use, with the whole evolution of recording with Pro-Tools, The Pod, Vintage-Pro,
etc, coming out in the past few years making everything sort of do it yourself, how
has all this effected you?
 NM: Well, this is my first album done on Pro Tools, before this I was cutting stuff
on A-Dats, so I enjoyed Pro-Tolls, but it can really get into your head, you start
to not listen and you tend to look, because you have all the waveforms in front of
your eyes, and Jerry is very meticulous about that, and Rich Mowser (another
engineer) is not, Rich has been cutting tape up until a year ago, and Jerry is like
the younger generation guy. Sometimes I would edit something and he would be like “Dude,
you did not do a crossfire there,” I mean you can hear it if it is soloed, but not
in the mix. And Rich was like me, he would just cut stuff out and not crossfade it,
Jerry kind of had me trained after a while. If you took a lot of the tracks from the
Spock’s Beard records and soloed them, you would probably be horrified by some of
the things that you hear, bad punches and so forth. Even for the Light album I was
recording vocals in my living room and dogs would be barking, I love to hear some of
the garbage that’s in there, but when everything gets in there it all works out.
My favorite toys (equipment), Pro-Tools is wonderful, I love it, it was awesome that
Rich mixed everything inside of Pro-Tools, we rented the big Pro-Tools rig in the
sky and we used only inner pro tools effects, or he might run something out and then
run it through Pro-Tools. The awesome thing was he would work from 3 or 4 in the
afternoon till about 3 or 4 in the morning, and when I get excited about a project I
get up at 4 or 5 in the morning so there was this “Howdy Fred, Howdy Ralph” kind of
thing, he would be finishing while I would be just getting up, so I would sit there
and listen to stuff that he did, and do my thing and he would listen to what I did
during the day, I would need him to check me, because a lot of times I would turn
vocals up or things that I want to hear, and I am a real extremist when it comes to
mixing. It’s like I want to hear that, I’m not subtle, some of the tracks can be
really good particularly in mixing, but other than that, live I use a Roland
Keyboard because it does good organ, piano, and synth, usually to record I use real
piano and organ, but for synth I will use the Roland, for live you really can’t cart
around all the stuff that you might want to use for recording. I still use the same
mellotron samples from Akai that I have been using for years, that I got from Roine
Stolt.
TH: Just coming off the Tour, tell me about it.
 NM: It was so great, it was really great, I was praying about it, a lot of people
were praying about it, my whole church was praying about it and the Lord just
answered our prayers, we touched people and I wanted the guys in the band to be
blessed. I did not make one audition, did not make any phone calls, I didn’t really
solicit anything, I just prayed about it and the band God put together was just
amazing. I wanted to get everybody local, I wanted it to be easy to rehearse, not
having to fly people in, and that was not what God had in mind, we brought in a bass
player from Seattle, a Keyboard player from Rhode Island, Drummer from New York, and
we know about him (referring to Portnoy), cellist from L.A., It all just worked out.
TH: How was the audience?
NM: They were different in many cities, sometimes they were quiet, and I think I
might have misread them, but at the end they would just stand there and applaud,
and a lot of them might not have know how to respond, and I think I was able to
touch people in a different way. On Neal Morse.com a lot of people verified the
emotions and so forth on the message board.
TH: How many musicians did you bring on tour?
NM: 8, wow, what an expense.
TH: Did you get any backup from the labels?
NM: No, well I could have but I did not take any, but it really does not matter on
the money, to be able to tour was just awesome. Most of the band had not been in an
experience like that where you have a bunch of guys committed to the Lord, before
the show praying their heats out all shooting for the same thing, for each other and
the audience.
TH: How was it working with Kerry Livgren and Mike Portnoy on this project?
 NM: It was great, Mike and I have worked together for years and it is always fun to
watch him work, give him the music and sit back and watch in wonder, he knew the
music better than I did and he was so well prepared for the sessions that really
jartled me, he had everything charted out in a notebook and had all the songs color
coded and he even brought “white out” to the sessions, it’s related, how good he is
to his work ethic, its amazing.
Kerry, that was an interesting thing, I was talking to a mutual friend, about two
years ago, when I was kind of in the valley of the decisions whether I was going to
leave Spock or not, whether it was really God’s will, I was looking for advice, I
was talking to a friend, and I said “I wish there was someone I could get advice
from” and my friend said, “well, I have Kerry Livgren’s phone number,” and I didn’t
even know he knew him, and so I called the phone number and Kerry answered the
phone, and all this happened writing about five minutes, I was really surprised, he
knew who I was, which still kind of surprises me, although we are sort of in the
same genre, but yeah it was great, we had this great conversation even a bible study
over the phone and then a year later I called him up to work on the record and it
was wonderful.
TH: Tell me about Radiant Records, was that something that you started?
NM: Yeah, I started it in 1996/1997 because I wanted to have hands on the bands
career as much as possible. I really don’t like to call people up and bug them and
see if they have gotten something done, I would rather do it myself or my wife do it
herself (laughing), so that’s how it started.
TH: How is your relationship with Inside Out and Metal Blade? What is it like to
work with two separate labels?
NM: It’s been great, I hate to sound overly positive, but it has been really good.
Inside Out Europe is just like family and Metal Blade is always really good about
everything, providing whatever it is that I need and it works great, they don’t
really have anything to say on the creative end, they put it through their systems
with licensing and promotion and it all works out great. Me and Jim (Pitulski from
Inside Out America) have been friends for years and it has been good to see Inside
Out America grow like it has.
TH: With Testimony, do you see yourself possibly aligning your progressive rock
career with the Contemporary Christian market?
NM: There is a guy that is working it to Christian Radio, and I am currently talking
with a distributor at this point because it is not in Christian Bookstores at this
point, we will see, I feel that all these things are coming together and going to
happen, but you have to be patient.
TH: How did your transition between SB and your solo career go? Did you use your
first two solo records as more of an outlet to do pop stuff?
NM: Yeah, it was, I have a lot of stuff that just occurs to me, that I write, or I
like to say hear, that really does not really fit the prog rock genre.
TH: Who are some of your influences musically?
NM: There are so many, early on the Beatles, the Who, Simon and Garfunkle, Jesus
Christ Superstar; but then when I got into the progressive stuff, it was along the
lines of Yes, ELP, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, and Genesis, all the big progressive
bands, and I was also influenced by a lot of singer/songwriter material such as
Elton John, later on Marc Cohn, and there are lots of Christian singer/songwriters
that I like such as Chris Rice.
TH: What is currently in your playlist at this time?
 NM: Chris Rice’s Keeping up the Dream, that really surprises people because here is
the progressive rock guy listening to the Christian version of James Taylor, but a
lot of times, particularly if you work on music a lot, if I am driving around town,
I like to listen to music that soothes me, by I like Jars of Clay a lot, I enjoy
listening to the new Dream Theater, but it is too heavy for me to actually drive
around with; I particularly like to listen to what Mike (Portnoy) is doing,
particularly the lyrics he is writing, I also got the new Glasshammer that is about
to come out, very cool.
TH: What was your favorite record to make with Spock’s Beard?
NM: Spock’s Beard V is my favorite, but is was not my favorite to make, it was kind
of hellish at times, but its funny how some your favorite music that you produce
winds up being the most difficult to make. There were a lot of problems,
disappearing vocals from both the master and the safety copies; but I think Kindness
was the most fun to create.
TH: I defiantly could not tell from watching the DVD documentary.
NM: Unfortunately, I tend to remember the bad things; we mixed the whole album with
one guy and basically trashed everything, from those sessions and had to remix the
whole thing.
TH: So what are any of your future plans, any plans to work with another artist any
plans for another solo project and so forth?
NM: I am starting to have some ideas for another album, I don’t know what it is
going to be yet, I was even up at four this morning working on a tune, so its funny
there is this birth about to happen, and yet I am so greatfull for it.
TH: What was your favorite cut to record on Testimony?
NM: I really don’t know, it all came together, Mike’s drum solo was fun, as well as
the sting session, it all was really a joy. I had a day when I was cutting vocals on
“Oh’ to Feel him” and I felt like I was doing things with my voice that I was not
normally able to do, I really felt that God was helping me.
TH: Any last words?
NM: God is good, trust him, he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
And that wrapped it up.
Myself and Prog4you.com would like to thank Neal for the time and the opportunity of
this interview.
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