Jordan Rudess – Dream Theater

Martin Michea recently chatted with Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater to discuss the band’s new concept album ‘The Astonishing’, which was recently released in Australia through Roadrunner Records/Warner Music Australia. They had plenty to talk about, but with only about fifteen minutes the chat turned more into a sort of Q and A than originally intended, but it was a great talk nevertheless! 

The first thing I asked Jordan was how he’s feeling so close to the release of what is their most ambitious project to date.

“So excited! We’ve been sitting on it for a while, and when you’ve created something and put so much effort into it, and nobody’s heard it, you just want to get it out there. It seem to have leaked a bit, but I’m very excited about the official release, it’s a great album.”

If at any point in time there is an album that you would want to buy, this would be it, right? With all the additional information, character illustrations and the map in mind. 

“Absolutely, there are so many details and cool graphics, it’s a really big part of it. That’s why it’s important to get the physical merchandise.”

The album clocks in at 2 hours and 13 minutes in total, spread over two discs. It’s a gargantuan release in every aspect, and I was curious about if Jordan had read any initial reviews, and if he care about what they say at all. 

“Yeah, totally. I’ve seen some reviews, and I’m very happy that the ones I’ve seen have all been very good, so that’s great. I definitely care, I’m most interested in the judging of the larger picture rather than the individual opinion. So I’m looking at what our fans have to say, I’m not paying attention to each and every one of them, but if someone is shouting out and everyone else is saying the same thing, I’ll think about that.”

John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess have earlier stated that this is an album where you should listen to it all in one sitting, it’s like a movie. I was curious about if they were worried that this release could be easily misunderstood by people, that they might think it’s too long.

“I don’t know, ideally it would be great if someone could listen to the whole thing. We created it as an experience, I mean for example, we’re going out on the next tour, we’re playing it as an experience from beginning to end. If you buy the album you can take it as you will, we recommend that you listen from beginning to end, but in some scenarios that’s not going to be practical. It’s music, so you’ll listen to what you can. Different people have different values, some people value the story, some people just want to hear some music, that’s fine too. I think it’s easier to grasp the concept if you listen from the beginning to the end, it’s the way it’s designed to be experienced. But at the same time, as someone who’s always been more into music than words, enjoy it as you will! I think it’s possible for things to stand alone. ”

So, on this upcoming world tour, you will play The Astonishing in its entirety and nothing else. What do you have to say to people that want to/are expecting to hear Pull Me Under live on this tour?

“Well, unfortunately, that is not gonna happen. If someone wants to hear Pull Me Under they’ll have to wait until the next tour, perhaps. We decided that after thirty years of Dream Theater being around, we wanted to change it up a bit. Get people into a nice theatre, we’ll be a bit more particular about the kind of places we play.”

The concept is incredibly detailed and well-written. I was curious about how John Petrucci, who wrote it, went about telling the other band members about the idea for this album.

” We knew that we wanted to do a concept album. John told us here and there that he wanted to work on something that was really well thought out, details, story. He really wanted to come up with something. So at the end of the last world tour, he had a synopsis that he presented to me. He let me read it, and said: “maybe we can do our concept album now”. I read it and thought it was a really cool story. Within this big story it has a classic love themed story, and some drama and violence and all this stuff. The other guys were very supportive as well. One thing that happened with this album, because it is such a detailed story, the music really had to support the story. John Petrucci and I wanted to write the music together in a quiet space. We had to go to the guys and tell them that we wanted to do it in a different way, and ask them if they were cool with that, which they were. And that was really nice. So we just went in and made it happen.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdPn1mCmqoE&w=560&h=315]

What really strikes me with The Astonishing, is James LaBrie’s vocals. He’s essentially playing eight different characters, male and female, throughout the entire story and I am really not sure if there are any other vocalists out there that could have pulled this off in the way he did. 

” I have to agree. I think that this is, in all the time we’ve been in Dream Theater together, I think this is his tour-de-force. His delivery, he had to cover all the characters, from the male characters to the female characters, and I really feel like he captured the vibe. He did a great job.”

Regarding the additional content for the album, the band has set up a website for all things The Astonishing. I wanted to know if fans really have to go onto this website to figure out pieces of the story, or if the music alone can tell them everything there is to know. 

“They’ll be able to figure it out by listening to just the music. One thing I’m really happy about is John Petrucci who wrote all the lyrics, he did a beautiful job, the story is pretty complex, but the lyrics are really clear. Even if you listen to the first vocal song, The Gift of Music, the lyrics tells the story. It’s not that difficult to uncover what’s happening. Another cool thing is that the video for the live show, is going to be even more clear, there are a lot of great images and visuals as well. ”

Your stage show will be really massive then?

“We’re trying to take it to the next level. We hired a company out of Montreal that does really nice visual stuff, projections and animations. On the previous tours we’ve worked with some pretty talented people, but they’re from all over the world, there was no definitive leader of putting it together. Now we have a project manager, it’s going to make it a really good show. I’m really excited, people who have seen us before have never seen us quite like this, and people who haven’t seen us before, I think it’s going to be one of our best shows!”

It’s been heavily communicated from the Dream Theater camp that the album is like a movie, an experience. Will this be reflected in the live show? Will it be like an actual Dream Theater concert at all? 

“I think there’ll be a good balance. We’re trying to be aware that people come to see Dream Theater, sometimes it’s a video in the background to support the mood, and sometimes it’s actually something on the screen that’s more: “okay, have to check out what’s going on”. But you’re coming to see Dream Theater, and we haven’t forgotten that. ”

As we neared the end of the interview I asked Jordan if they will be back in Australia on this tour, I didn’t get a definite answer, but it seems most likely that it will happen.

I know that Jordan Rudess has worked with David Bowie in the past. Just before we said good bye, I asked him what kind of impact Bowie had on his life.

“Well, I worked with him for 12 days with him on the Heathen album in 2002. I worked with Tony Visconti and David. I got to play on a pretty cool David Bowie album. David was a very nice guy. I wasn’t really a big David Bowie fan before I got to the studio. I was just hired because I was a keyboard player that in the producer’s mind could do whatever David wanted. So basically I went in, I did the tracks, enjoyed meeting David, he told me some good stories, and then I went back to Dream Theater land!”

‘The Astonishing’ out now via Roadrunner Records/Warner Music Australia

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