Unless you just happen to be an ardent fan of progressive-rock music, you may not be familiar with Spock's Beard or its resident musical visionary, Neal Morse. Although Spock's Beard has always been Morse's first priority, his "bread and butter", it is just one of several projects in which he associates himself. In 1999, the keyboardist/guitarist/singer formed the progressive-rock supergroup Transatlantic with drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater). The two enlisted the services of guitarist Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) and bassist Pete Trewavas (Marillion) and in the process released two monumental albums in SMPTe (2000) and Bridge Across Forever (2001). Morse's brilliance can also be heard on his two solo albums, Neal Morse (1999) and It's Not Too Late (2002). But it is his work with Spock's Beard that has established Morse's reputation as a highly skilled songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and the band, one of the brightest acts the genre has to offer.
Over the past seven years, Spock's Beard have released six studio albums, all garnering considerable critical acclaim. In addition to Morse, Spock's Beard boasts an impressive cast of musicians that include his brother Al on guitar, drummer Nick D'Virgilio (Genesis, Peter Gabriel), keyboardist Ryo Okumoto (EricClapton, Phil Collins) and bassist Dave Meros (Eric Burden). The band's latest effort entitled Snow, is also their most ambitious. The 2-disc concept album is about an albino boy who possesses the ability to heal and as their press release explains, he goes from "outsider to a wonder-boy to a freak to a messiah and back". Snow is not only one of the finest concept records ever recorded, but also ranks as one of the most compelling albums ever committed to disc.
I had the opportunity to speak with Neal Morse about his musical journey, his outside projects and Spock's Beard's exhilarating tour-de-force known as Snow.
Author's Note: Just weeks after this interview was conducted, Neal Morse stunned the progressive music world when he announced that he was leaving Spock's Beard. You can read Neal's statement on the band's website.
PopMatters: Can you give a little insight into the genesis of Spock's Beard?
Neal Morse: In the early '90s, I had been trying to get a record deal in L.A. as a singer/songwriter. I became fed up with the record business and the music business. I did this thing called the Landmark Forum, which was put on by a company called Landmark Education. It was about creating new futures for yourself. What I saw was that I didn't get into music originally for the business side of things at all. So I started to write music just for pure love. I wrote the first Spock's Beard album right out of that course. My brother Al played on some of these demos and he got really excited. Actually he was the one that suggested that we put a band together. After we put a band together, we really didn't do anything from about 1992 to '95 which was when we released our first record. It was pretty successful for a real small, "progressive rock" thing. We kept doing it and it kept growing . . . we've made a record every year, we started doing some tours and it just grew and grew.
PM: So prior to Spock's Beard, your personal musical direction wasn't necessarily progressive-rock oriented?
NM: Not at all. I was writing more song-oriented type stuff until I was in my mid-30s. It wasn't until Spock's Beard that I started writing progressive stuff. I think it's interesting to note that I didn't have any commercial success before Spock's Beard. The only commercial success I've ever had is when I decided I didn't care about having any commercial success at all.
PM: What types of music were you listening to in your formative years?
NM: I grew up first with The Beatles. Then I got into heavy rock stuff. But I liked singer/songwriters like Simon and Garfunkel all the way through those periods. I really got into the progressive thing when I saw Yes open up for Black Sabbath in 1973. That really changed my life. I only listened to progressive rock for a couple years until about 1976, and then I kind of got into the singer/songwriter thing a little bit more . . . listening to early Elton John and stuff like that. I've always like songs and progressive stuff. That's why for a progressive band, we're very song-oriented.
PM: Outside of Spock's Beard, you've been equally successful with Transatlantic. What kind of an experience was that?
NM: It was wonderful and it was challenging. It's an interesting thing when you get a lot of chefs together. I was used to running the show and Mike (Portnoy) was kind of used to running the show. So it was a challenging thing to surrender to the group. There were times when things were going in a way that I didn't necessarily agree with, but I kind of had to surrender to it. I'm definitely better for it.
PM: Are there plans for a third Transatlantic record?
NM: Not currently. I'm sure there will be one, but I don't know when, because Mike is touring into infinity as he always does. I'm not sure as to when he's going to want to do anything.
PM: There is always an innate pop sensibility, an almost Beatle-esque quality in your music, in that with all of the musical interplay exists, it's always centered around melodies that are both interesting and catchy. Would you agree with that assessment?
NM: Yeah. That's just the way things occur to me. I'm kind of a song-oriented guy and most of the progressive stuff I like is pretty song-oriented as well. I like stuff that has a certain amount of structure to it.
PM: Beautifully crafted harmonies seem to be a staple of everything you do?
NM: Well, my dad is a choir director, so I grew up singing harmonies at a very early age. We were always driving around on camping trips harmonizing . . . doing three and four part harmony. Actually, the thing that turned me on to the Beatles were their harmonies. I've always been a Simon and Garfunkel fan as well. When I saw Yes it was like "Wow! You can have the power of rock with the complexity of classical, with all these beautiful harmonies. You can have it all in one thing". I'm really attracted to that.
PM: With so many irons in the fire, be it with Spock's Beard, Transatlantic or your own solo work. Are there ever moments when you feel the need to step away from it all?
NM: Yeah, sometimes. I'm feeling that right now. I'm just sitting back and kind of exploring at the moment. Up until now, it has been just "Bam! Bam! Bam...next project". I was just saying to my wife last night, that "I don't have a project this week". Because I usually do. I almost always have something I'm writing for, or I have to finish the mixes on this or that, or whatever it is. There is always something going on. But right now, it's kind of an in between period and it's good. I always seem to have tons of stuff to do anyway, like reorganizing the studio . . . sell the old gear, get new gear and learn how to run it. There's always something to do.
PM: As prolific a writer as you are, how do you decide which songs will be Spock's Beard songs, Transatlantic compositions or solo material?
NM: Sometimes I just have a feeling about it, but a lot of times the bands decide themselves. It's sort of like I submit things to either Spock's Beard or Transatlantic. Like when I submitted the song "Bridge Across Forever" to the other guys in Transatlantic, I thought that it was spiritual and spacey enough that it might fly, but I didn't know if they were going to want to do it or not. It was an old song that I had lying around that I always really liked. But the same holds true for Spock's. There were things that I submitted for the Snow album that didn't make it.
PM: Snow is Spock's Beard's first attempt at a concept record. How much more difficult is it to write this kind of an album as opposed to writing for an album where the tracks are generally unrelated?
NM: I found it to be a lot harder. Because, not only do you have all of the same considerations that you have on a regular album; now it all has to fit together, it all has to be melodically and lyrically great, but it also has to tell a story. But that was the good thing about it to, the story started to call forth songs, like I'd get to a point in the story and think "Well, she needs to really reject him hard", so I'd write "Freak Boy". It really is a very different process when you're telling a story and then you have to move the story along. It was much longer of a writing process. That was one of the longest writing processes I've ever been through. The Transatlantic writing processes are very short comparatively. I may have worked on the demos for the Bridge Across Forever record for maybe 10 days. Then we get together and hash it out for about four days, and then we made the album. For Snow, I was probably writing and demoing for about eight months and all through that, my gut was telling me that it was going work . . . that I was going to get a great album out of this, if I were patient. Sometimes you just have to be patient. These things have their own timetable.
PM: What inspired you to write Snow?
NM: Well, a lot of it comes from the fact that I have become a Christian. I really don't know how to put, but it's like you don't even write stuff, it just comes out of you. Usually whatever comes out of you, is whatever is going on with you at the time. If you're angry, people write whole albums about being angry... about their divorce or whatever it is. So I had all of these songs coming out of me like "Open Wide the Flood Gates", "Wind at My Back" and things like that, so I was trying to come up with a vehicle for that to make it work for a Spock's Beard album. A Spock's Beard record is going to have to have a certain amount of edge to it, rock stuff and darker themes...you couldn't have it all be the great big lovefest. So that was the genesis of it for me, and the guy in the story is obviously going to have to be some kind of spiritual something in order to have these songs make any sense. It was so slow in coming and so instinctive, it wasn't even like I thought about it that much. Looking back on it I can say that, because now I've seen the photograph whereas while I was writing it, all I could see were the dots.
PM: How long had the Snow concept been residing in the back of your mind? Was it something that you had been thinking about for years?
NM: No. Not at all. I was actually trying to avoid it. I had an hour of demos, basically the framework of Disc One. It wasn't a story yet. I didn't have lyrics yet, for a lot of it. I just had music and a bunch of ideas. Then the story started to come, but it wasn't like I had this story and then wrote this thing. I had part of it and I had the idea to have a story, and then I got the idea for a little part of the story. Then it was like "what should happen now". It was literally brick by brick if you're building a cathedral or something. It was very slow and I wasn't sure if it was all going to turn out.
PM: What were your bandmates' responses when you initially offered up the idea of a concept record?
NM: They were pretty cool about it. I remember Ryo saying 'It's going to be a double, let's go.' That's his personality . . . 'If that's what it's going to be, let's do it.' The other guys were a little quieter and sometimes I wasn't sure how they felt, to be quite honest.
PM: The record has a very spontaneous feel to it. Was the recording process any different than previous Spock's Beard records?
NM: It was different. We were together more and we hashed stuff out more. There were certain things that we just did on the fly and we weren't really sure what we were doing. There were certain parts where we had it pretty organized and we just played them. We were going to spend some time writing and then go into the studio, but we decided it would be too much of a hassle to set up all of the gear in one place and then set up all of our gear (to record) somewhere else. I was like "what if we come up with something cool right then, and then we have to try and recreate it". That was a lesson that I learned from the Transatlantic sessions, because it's a cool thing to hash something out and just print it right then and there when you've got it. Then you don't have to try and remember it all.
PM: One of my favorite tracks on Snow is "Wind at My Back". A beautiful piece both musically and lyrically. Does a song like just seem to write itself or is it a painstaking process?
NM: When I wrote that song it actually went very fast. I wrote it several years ago when we were on tour.
PM: Are there any particular moments that stand out for you?
NM: Lots of them. I love "I'm the Guy", "I Will Go" and one of my favorite moments is the Wagner string section of "I'm Dying".
PM: What kind of feedback have you gotten thus far?
NM: Really positive feedback. It's going great.
PM: Touring in support of Snow would be quite an undertaking. Are their any tour plans forthcoming?
NM: Not at this time. And when we do, we're really not going to try to do all of it. If we did it would probably take about two days to complete (the gig). We would probably consider doing a Snow date and then a date to do all of our other stuff. Maybe approach it like that.
— 26 December 2002
