Neal Morse Interview

Also found at www.progressiveears.com

October 6, 2004 – 10:00AM EDT ( 9:00AM Nashville time, CDT)

This interview took place by phone with myself (April Bower) and Neal Morse from his home in Nashville.

April Bower (AB): Hi! It’s October 6, 2004, and this is April Bower with Neal Morse. We’re here with The Prog Palace Internet radio station and ProgressiveEars.com. Neal, I’m going to bounce around a little bit with some things from the past and of course your new projects coming up.
Neal Morse (NM): Okay, bounce away.

AB: Okay, great! I’m going to start with a question from the far-distant past.
NM: Okay.

AB: How did Neal Morse go from the son of a choir director to a member of one of the most widely-known bands in recent years?
NM: Heh … well my dad’s a pretty wacky choir director, actually! (laughs) I mean, I grew up … to me it makes total sense, actually … the music I grew up listening to, a lot of it was pretty weird. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that opera I was in when I was a kid, it is wonderful!

AB: Which opera was that?
NM: It’s called ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’.

AB: Oh, that’s by Menotti. That’s a great piece of work!
NM: Yeah! And that’s got a lot of really brilliant, but actually really prog music in it, you know what I mean?

AB: Well, so much of prog is based in classical music anyway.
NM: Right!

AB: Well your dad and I have something in common, I’m a choir director too!
NM: Cool! Well, I am too. I have the choir at my church too. I grew up with a lot of different styles of music. I listened to of course the Beatles, and a lot of rock stuff, and then sang a lot of complex classical music, and then also my uncle was in this jazz vocal group called the ‘Hi-Lows’, so there was a lot of jazz being played around the house as well. In the time that I was growing up, the music that I listened to had a lot of styles combined in it anyway. It was much more widely accepted in the early 70s, so it didn’t seem like that weird at that time (laughs), it was more normal to have a lot of different styles in one thing.

AB: A lot of people who are into progressive music are also musicians themselves. Do you think that’s just a natural progression from classical into progressive?
NM: You know, what’s funny is, a lot of classical musicians I think are into progressive because your ears get trained to desire more complexity. You know what I mean? It’s like you taste of that water and it’s like, ‘oh I want some more of that.’ I had the privilege to sit in on a rehearsal of the Nashville Symphony some time ago, and I heard that there were some prog fans in the symphony. I wound up meeting a bunch of them, actually. There was a bunch of prog fans in the orchestra.

AB: You know, I hear there are a lot of closet prog fans in Nashville!
NM: Is that right?
AB: Yeah …
NM: Well I’ll have to meet them. I’ll have to do some gigs here. Well I’ve done one, but I haven’t done any ‘real’ gigs, really … maybe one of these days.

AB: What made you move from LA to Nashville back in, what, ’96?
NM: Ah, ’95 … Well, let’s see, as the album says, (singing) ‘I was ready to try anything’! I was really dying out in LA financially, and spiritually, and emotionally, a lot of different ways.

AB: So this wasn’t purely a professional decision?
NM: Well, it was kind of, I was unable to make even my $400 a month rent out there. Then I think I was living in a house that my parents owned. I was renting it from them and then they for one reason or another, for some kind of tax reason they had to sell the house, so I didn’t really have anyplace to live. Then I went out and visited Nashville and I went to the Blue Bird and they were shushing the audience, you know, like ‘oh shush, the songwriter’s playing,’ so they were really listening, so I was excited about that! So I thought I’d come try it out, and or course as you know it’s worked out.

AB: Several years, in 2001 I believe, you made a very widely-publicized decision to leave Spock’s Beard and Transatlantic. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions about that. How did that move affect your life outside of music, and how did your family weather the change?
NM: It was pretty rough, frankly.
AB: You were kind of flying into unknown territory, right?
NM: Oh, totally! It was a total leap of faith, and it was a little harder on the family than I thought … you know, I didn’t know, you never know how things are gonna go, and it wound up being easier with the audience than I was expecting, and a little harder on the family. But you know it all worked out, I feel like God’s really helped us all to work it all out. It took a little time though.

AB: Sure! It’s funny how much time really has transpired since then. It seems like it was just yesterday, really, and it’s been what, 3 years now?
NM: Yeah.

AB: I read a number of accounts and a number of positive messages to you, but I heard a few negative as well. Some people didn’t understand the reason why you would leave such a successful situation for the unknown. How do you answer people when they question your course of action there?
NM: Well, I just say, ‘Well, I understand’. I understand why they would feel that way. Unless you’ve had that kind of experience yourself it’s hard to understand. The guys in Spock’s, of course it was hard for them to understand, you know? My brother Al was like, ‘Well, I’ve meditated about a particular issue that’s happening in my life or something, and I’ve felt sometimes like I got an answer’, so I think Al could relate a little bit, but it didn’t make him like it any better! (laughs)
AB: Yeah! (laughs)

NM: I mean, still it was an unpleasant thing, it was really unpleasant for all of us, it was really terribly unpleasant. I’d feel bad for the fans that were upset about it, because, you know they made it so … It was because of Spock’s Beard that I could quit the Eric Burdon Band, for example, and be home with my family. So I’m grateful to them, and I felt a little bit like, ‘Well if you’re grateful you sure aren’t showing it.’ You know, it was hard because I wanted to just be able to give love and show love to people, but sometimes God calls us out of things and sends us in different directions, and you pray that people would understand.
AB: There are definitely times when making a leap of faith is not a lot of fun, at first.

NM: Right! It’s great though, after … it’s been great, killer afterwards, it’s been just beyond, it’s really exceeded my expectations, and I really feel like Spock’s Beard has been blessed too.
AB: Well that’s going well then, and these things tend to work out, but we all wish we had hindsight in the foresight I guess.
NM: Right! When I was praying about it, coz I was just, months and months of praying and crying and prayers like, ‘Oh what’s going to happen to the guys though? Oh God!’ And I felt in prayer at that time that, ‘Don’t worry, they will be blessed, I will take care of them’. A lot of times we can’t see how God’s gonna work stuff out because of our limited vision, but He knows and He can see, and you just gotta trust Him.

AB: A number of people read about that departure and took it to mean that you were leaving progressive music, and some even thought you were leaving music altogether. Then you resurfaced and released ‘Testimony’, and I heard some criticisms that you were hypocritical, you said you were leaving music and now you’re back. Have you been aware of those criticisms, and if so, how have you responded to those?
NM: Well, I don’t recall, I always just apologize and say, ‘Gee, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I knew what I was going to be doing at all.’
AB: Sure, sure.
NM: I was just committed and surrendered and feeling out for what the Lord wants me to do next, which is actually the way I am every day. So what happens was, I was surrendered to the Lord and it was like, ‘Well, quit and await further instructions’ kind of thing. So we didn’t know what we were going to do. Then about 2 or 3 months later, after I told the band, I had this just creative explosion of prog ideas, and through my mind what I sort of expected was that maybe the Lord was going to open doors for me in the Christian market or something. You know what I mean?
AB: Right!
NM: In fact, I wrote and recorded a whole Christian kind of album that I still haven’t released yet.
AB: Oh cool!
NM: After I finished it, I was praying about it, and I sort of felt like, ‘No that’s not it, I just don’t feel like this is it.’ Then I started to have these ideas for ‘Testimony’ and I felt like THAT was it.

AB: ‘Testimony’ is just an amazing CD, it tells such a complete story, I think it’s one of the most complete progressive works I’ve ever heard.
NM: Oh, well thank you.
AB: Just from a start-to-finish feeling of satisfaction when you’re done listening to it.
NM: Oh good, good!
AB: I was at the show you did in Metuchen, NJ …
NM: Oh really?
AB: Yeah, and that was just, it was the only progressive worship service I’ve ever been to, I think, which was cool!
NM: Oh yeah! It’s a new thing isn’t it?
AB: Oh Yeah, it was great!

AB: Let me ask you about your new project. You have a new album coming out on November 2nd …
NM: Yes.
AB: And you’ve entitled it ‘One’, I believe.
NM: Right.

AB: Well this is not your first album. What brought you to the title of ‘One’?
NM: Frankly it was Randy’s (Randy George, from Ajalon, and Neal’s bass player) idea. I was looking for titles, in fact I was resisting ‘One’, because the Beatles had ‘One’, and didn’t Elton John have ‘THE One’? I don’t know, I was just resisting ‘One’, and I was considering calling it ‘The Spirit and the Flesh’, which is one of the songs on the album, and again, Mike seemed to prefer ‘One’. I ran it by other people and everybody seemed to like ‘One’ better. I prayed about it, and finally decided to go ahead and go with it. That’s really kind of how it happened. The idea with ‘One’ is that the last line of the album is, ‘Make us One’. Jesus prays right before He’s going to die, He said, ‘Father make them one, even as You and I are one.’

AB: So there are various different things you could read into that title.
NM: Right – that’s what I was afraid of, all the different things that people might read into it. That’s why I always want to quote that Scripture to clear up any misconceptions that anybody might have.
AB: Well, it makes people like me ask the question, too, so …
NM: Well I guess that’s good then!

AB: There you go! You recently said that you didn’t currently have any plans to tour to support this CD just yet. What would change your mind?
NM: Well, you know, I’m praying about it! (Laughs) I hate to sound redundant. I’m praying about it, and just kinda feeling out for what God wants. I don’t want to just do the automatic thing, the automatic music business thing, you know of like, ‘Oh, I have an album so I’m gonna tour’. You know, that’s not what I’m about, I’m not really about that, so I’m just feeling out for the next step.

AB: ‘Testimony’ was about a journey, a spiritual journey and in a professional and personal context. Does ‘One’ have a theme or tell a story, or do the songs stand alone? Is this also about any kind of sojourn in your life?
NM: It definitely has a theme. The first review that I read recently, I thought put it pretty well. He says that there’s a lot of stories in the Bible that basically are pictures of the whole book, they tell the whole story, for example the story of the Prodigal Son. The son is together with the father, and then the son leaves … I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story …
AB: Sure.
NM: He leaves, and squanders his inheritance with riotous living, I think is how it says it …
AB: And then he returns to his father’s open arms.
NM: Yeah, he comes back to his father’s open arms. And that’s really essentially the story of this album.

AB: Oh, cool! Who are some of the guests and people we’ll hear on the album?
NM: Well of course Mike and Randy, and Mike just plays incredibly, some of his best drumming ever.
AB: Yeah, you’ve said he was killer.
NM: Yeah, he is just amazing. Phil Keaggy is the real special guest on this one. We sing a duet … we also sing a duet on the bonus disk in the Special Edition. We sing George Harrison’s ‘What Is Life?’ I don’t think anybody knows that yet, so you can break that, the duet with Phil and I.
AB: Oh, that’s excellent! Phil’s amazing, I’ve seen him a few times with Michael Card, and he’s always great. I’m looking forward to hearing him on this CD.
NM: Yeah, he’s great, and he takes one acoustic solo and one electric solo, and then sings things on two different things. Yeah, it’s great, man -- what a blessing, a total blessing! I just feel so blessed, it’s amazing.

AB: Well, it’s been an amazing journey, to take a total … well, leaps of faith are often blind, and for it to go in the direction that it’s gone in is really, it’s good to watch!
NM: Well, thank you! It’s good to be in it, to be in the flow.

AB: How do you respond to fans who object to the Christian content in your new music?
NM: Oh, well, I understand that! I understand coz just a few short years ago I would probably have felt the same way. Although I don’t know, I don’t know if there’s ever really been records quite like ‘Testimony’ and ‘One’. They’re sort of different. I don’t know how I would have perceived it or received it. I just say, ‘Well you know, I’m just singing and speaking from my heart, I’m not trying to offend anybody’, and I’m sorry if I am offending anyone. I just hope they understand that you gotta sing where you heart is, when you’re singing a song you’ve got to feel it. The Bible says ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh’. And that’s what I was doing all along. When I was angry, I was singing ‘F-you’. Now that I’m at where I’m at with Jesus and God and all of that, I’m singing about that. I think most people appreciate that, it’s just like, well if they don’t want to hear that they don’t want to hear it. I understand that.

AB: Let me bounce backwards a little bit to the last album you did with Spock’s Beard, which is ‘Snow’. That is a story of struggle and redemption, and you seem to have a talent for telling stories and bringing people back to where they need to be. Looking back on the whole process of writing ‘Snow’, do you see it as almost a prequel to ‘Testimony’?
NM: Well, I don’t, really. They were very different experiences. Testimony was much easier to write because I could just tell the truth and I could just think, ‘OK, what happened next?’ You know what I mean? I could just draw from my life. ‘OK, what happened next? Well, then I moved, then I got married, then I went to church, then …’ you know what I mean? It was a challenge to try to put those experiences to music, you know? But ‘Snow’ was different. What happened with ‘Snow’ was these different kind of prayer songs were coming out of my heart, like ‘Wind at My Back’, and ‘Open Wide the Floodgates’, and ‘Love Beyond Words’. All these things, and even the opening song, ‘Made Alive’, are really about your soul being made alive. And ‘I Will Go’ was based --my pastor had been preaching on the Book of Ruth, where Ruth says, ‘I will go, I will go with you wherever you go, I will die where you die.’ There were all these songs coming out of me. The challenge was to take those songs and use them in a way that would work for Spock’s Beard, because I felt like they were good songs for Spock’s Beard, but how could they be on a Spock’s Beard album, you know what I mean? They had to kind of be juxtaposed with other, darker elements to make sense. It was really hard. Writing ‘Snow’ was months and months … that’s why it took 2 years for it to come out. It was very difficult.

AB: How did you come to work with Eric Burdon?
NM: Dave Meros in Spocks, almost his regular day-job gig or however you want to put it is playing with Eric and being Eric’s road manager also. Dave’s been working with Eric for 15 years or so.
AB: Well, that was definitely a blast from the past when I read that!
NM: Yeah, oh it was fun, playing with Eric was great!

AB: What musicians are out there that you want to work with but haven’t been able to yet?
NM: Oh … well I’d love to work more in-depth with Phil Keaggy. I was trying to collaborate more with him on this album, but it just didn’t work out that way, but I think God had a plan. I’d like to do that. I’d like to work some more in-depth with Kerry Livgren. I’d love to work with Peter Gabriel, if all things were possible.
AB: I’ve seen a number of names bandied about, including Glass Hammer and Rick Wakeman, which would all be really cool to see.
NM: Yeah, I’d love to work with Rick.

AB: How did you find the members of your touring band? Are the members that toured with you for ‘Testimony’ the same folks you play with at home? I know Randy’s on the west coast.
NM: No, everybody’s really spread out, there’s very few of them that are here, I think the only ones that are here are Rick (Altizer) and well, Mark Leniger, we’re friends and live in the same town, go to the same church. All the other guys are spread out.
AB: So is it difficult to get gigs coordinated?
NM: Yeah, it’s a big production, actually. You’ve got to fly everyone into Nashville and rehearse. Doing the Testimony tour was incredibly expensive, I wound up breaking even on it, praise God.
AB: Well, it was an amazing experience.
NM: Wonderful! How we found everybody is kind of a long subject. I guess I could give the short answer and say that I prayed about it and people showed up. Pretty much that’s how it happened.

AB: How did the ‘Yellow Matter Custard’ project come about?
NM: Oh, Mike had called me and asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said, ‘Sure’. That was pretty simple, pretty short answer for that one.
AB: Sure! Do you think there will be any follow-up to that?
NM: I don’t know. Somebody talked about, there’s somebody trying to get us to go to Japan or something. I don’t know. It was fun, it was great being with everybody.

AB: Are you able to take your family with you when you tour?
NM: It depends. I’m able to, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. It depends on the schedule and the places. They came to both the shows in the States, the family did, but they didn’t go to the Europe shows this time. We always just feel it out. I like to have them with me as much as possible.

AB: Has ‘Testimony’ and the new music you’ve written since you left Spock’s Beard and Transatlantic reached beyond the prog audience?
NM: Not very much. It doesn’t seem to have, not in any kind of significant way. I got a Christian distributor, and we were trying to get stuff into the Christian market and had real high hopes for that, nothing’s happened so far, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t.

AB: Let me wrap up with a few other last minute questions. Who are YOU listening to these days? Who’s in your CD player?
NM: Well, let’s see. A friend of mine gave me some David Sancious CDs that are really cool.
AB: Oh sure! He did a short tour with Francis Dunnery from ‘It Bites’. They were here in DC, I checked that out, it was pretty cool.
NM: Really? That must have been amazing! Francis Dunnery’s great, I really like him. Let’s see what else? I’ve been listening to this guy, David Willcox? He’s really interesting. I’ve been listening to a lot of tapes of preaching from my church. When I travel a lot I like to listen to that, I like to get fed in that way, so I listen to a lot of that, actually.

AB: I would imagine getting fed is more difficult to do when you’re on the road.
NM: It’s good! I’m really glad to have the tapes and CDs of all those different things, you really get some really good things while you’re driving.

AB: Finally, let me just ask you what else you would like us to know about you and your music that we won’t read in liner notes?
NM: Oh man, I don’t know, I feel like I’ve said too much already! (laughs) I did this solo concert last Saturday in Michigan, and I think I talked for as long as I played! (laughs) I need to read those Scriptures in Proverbs about holding your peace!
AB: How’s that go, we have two ears and one mouth? (laughter)
NM: That’s right!
AB: Well great, Neal, this has been terrific, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to talk with us.
NM: Well, thank you. You have a wonderful day.
AB: Thank you, you too!
NM: Bye, take care.

Thanks to Neal Morse for taking the time to talk to us. Look for the new CD by Neal Morse called "One" in stores November 2nd

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