Here is an interview of Jordan Rudess, virtuoso keyboard player from the band Dream Theater. It was conducted by my friend Kevin Deplanche and I and was originally published in French in the magazine Nightfall In Metal Earth. Big thanks to Kev for giving me the opportunity to meet this quiet, yet thoroughly nice man.

The interview focuses on Jordan’s latest releases; a solo album called The Road Home containing covers of his favourite progressive songs and another one, Liquid Trio Experiment: Spontaneous Combustion containing some of the jams sessions that occurred between himself, Mike Portnoy and bass legend Tony Levin while they were recording the second Liquid Tension Experiment album.

Guillaume Erard: Let's start with The Road Home. What was the idea behind making an album of covers rather than something with brand new material, lack of time perhaps?

Jordan Rudess: Well, I did a lot of thinking about what would be an interesting project for me and also what would be interesting for the fans. Originally, my idea was to do a version of Tarkus, the Emerson Lake and Palmer thing, and then for the rest of the album to do originals. Later, as I was talking about it to the record company and thinking about it myself, I thought: "You know what? Maybe it would be cool to do a project where I go back and cover some of my favourite's Prog-Rock music, the song that influenced me the most in rock".

Guillaume Erard: Stuff like Genesis, Gentle Giant...

Jordan Rudess: Yeah, this particular style came to my attention at a very interesting point of my life. I was making a transition from being a young classical pianist to playing synthesisers and exploring progressive rock music, electronic music and it just felt like this was very important to me. Also these songs were so vital to my past that I thought this would be a fun project to get into and also interesting to share it with everybody. This was quite a challenge because some of these songs are a little bit complicated and although they meant so much to me stylistically and I would listen to them a lot, I never really tried to figure them out. I was always somebody who wanted to understand the style of something more than the details. I got into Gentle Giant or ELP and learnt about the kind of harmonies that they would do and maybe compose something in the style but then, learning the particular songs was not as interesting to me.

Guillaume Erard: You have done some tribute projects in the past though.

Jordan Rudess: A Yeah some little things but not this blown out.

Guillaume Erard: You spoke about Tarkus by ELP. It seems to be extremely important thing for this transition phase for yours. Why is it so? Why ELP?

Jordan Rudess: A Well, this was the first music; keyboard-heavy music that I got into and I remember listening to it as a young 17 years old person, and thinking "oh my god this is so incredibly powerful the way the keyboards are presented. It is so strong the kind of harmonies he uses, extended chords and everything". To me it opened up a whole new window of opportunity for my life, I thought "well now I see what's possible with keyboards, I can do some of that".

Guillaume Erard: So this was not a technological transition, you did not move to this style because of the availability of keyboards, it was rather more a matter of personal taste.

Jordan Rudess: A Well I think it was a mixture of everything; all of a sudden I was getting turned on to this new music and then finding out about these new instruments that were available. My first synthesiser was the MiniMoog; I discovered the likes of Rick Wakeman and did a little research: "What do they use?" I would even cut out pictures of MiniMoogs and put them on my wall (laughs).

Guillaume Erard: Were they as expensive at the time as they are today?

Jordan Rudess: Ah... I think they cost about 1000$ which was quite a lot at the time.

Guillaume Erard: (Showing the CD to Jordan) you've got a bit of everything here in the classic Prog Rock style. You've got some Yes, the medley with a bit of everything, Gentle Giant, Genesis songs, it must have been quite a nightmare to choose these 7 particular songs.

Jordan Rudess: Ah well, it was a little hard but not so bad because there were certain songs that were always on my play list, that I would always go back to and enjoy. Sure there are more of them than just these seven but for most of them I could easily point out a song if somebody asked me "What's your favourite Prog Rock?" Take Genesis, I mean it's easy to point to a particular song. That was really the case with all of these except for the one by Yes because there are many Yes songs that I love just as much. In the end I've decided to do Soundchaser because it was from the album Relayer which was the album Patrick Moraz played on. Patrick had only done one album with the band and I thought it was an unusual and pretty cool album. Moreover, Patrick's style was very different from the ones of Rick Wakeman and Tony Kay.

Guillaume Erard: I don't think Relayer is the fan's favourite album though...

Jordan Rudess: Indeed, I think it's a little more obscure but for me; it had a lot of meaning because Patrick Moraz, as a keyboard player, really influenced me a lot in terms of the pitch bending. It's a whole world in itself. I don't think Rick Wakeman or Keith Emerson use it so much, they don't have this approach to synthesiser. Patrick really did, and it affected me a lot, so I wanted to pick on that. To sum up, this Yes song has the vocal ornaments that I love as well as the cool synthesisers.

Guillaume Erard: You indeed have put your own touch into those songs. We were really impressed with the sounds, how did you come up with all the keyboards sounds that recreate so well analogue synthesisers like in Tarkus?

Jordan Rudess: Well you know, I really use a combination of things. My studio is obviously filled with keyboards but the main things that I use are Korg Oasis, Roland Phantom, some Moog synthesisers. I use a little bit of everything but when it came down to getting really into it, I would rely mostly on the Phantom and the Oasis but there is a lot of MiniMoog on that album.

Guillaume Erard: It must have been a lot of work to recreate those sounds.

Jordan Rudess: Well you know, in a song like Tarkus, I didn't go for the organs sounds which were on the original recording. It is all new sounds and I wasn't even thinking about making it sound like old type sounds, I didn't use Mellotrons and a lot of organs, so really it was not that much about getting close to the original sound.

Guillaume Erard: Did the other musicians have their say in this song selection?

Jordan Rudess: No. The involvement of the musicians other than Rod Morgenstein was very much as guests. You know on this album, the core of the instrumentation is keyboards and drums; there are no rhythm guitars, no bass guitars. The guitar players are guests and there are "spots" that I made within the songs for them to play and I had certain things in mind. Once I knew who was going to be playing on the album, then I would create certain things with those people in mind. Take for instance Ed Wynne from Ozric Tentacles, I created that knowing he was going to play in those sections with his style in mind. Those are featured little spots and then of course, the vocals, I also was thinking in terms of "who is going to sing this" and it all came together.

Guillaume Erard: So how did you choose the guests? Was it difficult to get everybody on board?

Jordan Rudess: It's always hard; it is a mixture of using personal contacts and some of the labels contacts.

Guillaume Erard: You did well because there are some great names with you.

Jordan Rudess: Some of the people that are playing on the album came to me through the record company, people that I didn't know at first, people like Bumblefoot (Ron Thal).

Guillaume Erard: Did you meet these people? Did you have anything to do with them in the recording process or would they send you takes and mixes.

Jordan Rudess: Basically, we set up a FTP server and I would upload the files so they could grab them and if they wanted to do some MIDI files, some notations in some cases, some Pro Tools files, and all different things with which people could do their job. Then when they were done, they would use the FTP site or send a CD in the mail. Different guys did it different ways.

Guillaume Erard: Was there any time where you were not particularly happy with a part that was sent back to you?

Jordan Rudess: For the most part, the guys that do this are very trustable and they do their thing. When it's right, you know it's right but there were a couple of instances when we would go back and say "hey you know maybe we could do something a little different".

Guillaume Erard: So there was still some interaction with the other musicians, some kind of internet based jam.

Jordan Rudess: Yeah sure, there's talking about it and then sometimes, you know, there are even interactions at the end when we're mixing the album. For instance, with Steven Wilson who sang a little on Stone of Years; a guy like Steven is so qualified as not only a singer and musician but also as a producer that I value greatly whatever he has to say about the final result. So we would mix and I would send the files to Steven and say "hey what do you think?" and he would come back with some comments "well I'd like it better if my voice had a little bit more of this effect on it" and so on. So we could do a change and see if he would approve. It's Steven Wilson you know... What can you say? With somebody like Kip Winger, it's a different thing. Kip would send back the parts completely done, his vocal part had all the right effects.

Guillaume Erard: Is Kip always that efficient? Because he was on Rhythm of Time, your previous album and his vocal lines are always amazing.

Jordan Rudess: Well, in fact, I had him singing in a kind of way that was more appropriate to him on this album. On Rhythm of Time, he was covering my vocal range because I decided not to sing on it in the end. This one, it is really him doing his thing. He delivered a final product, something you could just plug in with the rest.

Guillaume Erard: How long did the whole process take?

Jordan Rudess: Well I worked on and off it for 4 months maybe. I was very busy with other things but anytime I would get a window to do stuff, I would go in the studio and go like crazy. This kind of work is not casual, you know, when you get involved in a project like this, at least for me, I have to be there and define goals.

Guillaume Erard: Did you have any deadlines imposed on to you by the label?

Jordan Rudess: Well sure, there were deadlines but it was more than I needed, each time I was going into work, I knew that I would have a block of time. It is not like I could go in and spend half an hour and go back to it a few days later. This music was too deep for that. So I would go in, I would have 2 days and just go nuts for these 2 days and then go and do a few other things. then I would say "ok I m going to have 3 more days to go crazy again".

Guillaume Erard: So in that sense it was similar to what you did for Rhythm of Time when you locked yourself in your studio for 2 weeks.

Jordan Rudess: Well, Rhythm of Time was a more consecutive work, 2 entire weeks of going crazy to the point of getting sick! This time it was more like a couple of days/have a break/a couple of days and so on. That was the first part of it. The other part was more challenging, it was the producing part of the album, finding all the guests, managing all the stuff, making sure they had everything they needed, managing deadlines, making sure the guests were delivering the parts. And of course lots of these things where done by the engineer, this guy John Guth who does all the engineering for my solo albums. He is a master at making sure that everybody, no matter what technology they use, can access files across all platforms because it can get quite tricky.

Guillaume Erard: Did you get the chance to have comments/thoughts from the original musicians who wrote the songs or played them originally?

Jordan Rudess: On my website, there are some comments from the guys, Tony Banks, Keith Emerson, and Jon Anderson. I just had the feeling it would be cool to get quotes from those guys. They all said nice things about the album which is kind of cool.

Guillaume Erard: We were wondering as well about the cover that I think is really nice. You're kind of turning your back on something, a particular style of music perhaps?

Jordan Rudess: That perspective was not really where my head was at. I'm not really turning my back on anything. I'm more like heading back to a world that was really cool, going back to these cool elements of music that I was so into years ago. It's a return trip, a visit. This cover was my concept; I discussed it with the artist and made sure that he did what I wanted. And what is cool is that my neighbour took this picture of me walking down my driveway. The artist wanted to have this realistic picture of me and he was able to take it and plug it in to this world. He's a great artist, he did the cover for Feeding the Wheel as well.

Guillaume Erard: Moving on to the Liquid Trio Experiment album, the process of writing in LTE was very peculiar (all in studio) and it became the writing process in Dream Theater; at least for a good few albums. Do you find it's still the best way for you to get things out?

Jordan Rudess: You know when I write music, personally, I do it in many different ways. It could be anything from sitting around in front of my sequencer, putting ideas in 4 or 8 measures, then listening and then doing something else into the computer. I would be writing using traditional notation, or a combination with sequencing. As you said, with Dream Theater, we have been mostly involved with the process of going into the studio all set up. We can be coming in with the seed of an idea and then everybody brings something or we just jam around and see where it goes. We  jam around and if somebody has some ideas he would say "hey stop for a second, how about something like this?" and we would try it and modify it. We slow the process down, modify a little bit and then connect it to the part we previously wrote, try it, jam around a bit more... Light bulbs go off and something happens!

For this album, all was written very quickly, in the studio, throwing ideas into the room. It was a very interesting meeting of the minds. We would have the core of the Dream Theater writing team which is Mike and John and me going "wow you guys can do that, I can add this idea, look at all this stuff that comes out", this was kind of cool. It was also very open; whatever idea we could come up with would be considered.

Guillaume Erard: About Tony Levin, how was it working with such a legend?

Jordan Rudess: For all of us, to play with Tony Levin was overwhelming. And Tony was an interesting element to this because I was getting on well with Mike and John; connecting easily since we had met earlier when I got offered the Dream Theater position. So we got along personally and musically, it was all good and the LTE thing was kind of a confirmation that it worked. It was a good cool thing and at the same time, I was having this new relationship with Tony Levin. But being kind of an educated musician from the classical world who does a lot of writing, I was able to relate to Tony in a way different the way Mike and John did. In fact, I ended up being a go-between. I would write something with Mike and John, we would do something crazy and Tony would look at me and say "well what's that? What s going on now?" I would be like "OK this is what's happening" and I would write it down, show him. He is a man with very good ears, good reading skills and because I was writing over here with these guys, it would need to be translated into his world.

Guillaume Erard: So it was the bringing together of a perfect team?

Jordan Rudess: Yes it worked but it was challenging for me having to be the go-between but it definitely brought up things together. I was able to bring them together, the sessions went smoothly and fast and obviously the result was very good. Then of course, we became this trio when John had to leave. His wife was pregnant and her water broke (hence the title of the famous song), since we were all set up and everything was all cool,  we decided to take advantage of that and go with it.

Guillaume Erard: It was a pretty courageous thing to release unfinished jams because you expose yourself much more criticism than with a well polished studio album.

Jordan Rudess: Sure but hey, what do we have to loose (laughs)?

Guillaume Erard: It is a difficult album to get into because the songs are unfinished and obviously lack structure. You also have to know the Liquid Tension Experiment stuff well if you want to be able to get into it don't you think?

Jordan Rudess: Yes right. We thought it was a cool period of time you know; we lived with these jams for a long time and just felt like this was something that we would like to share.

Guillaume Erard: Did you know that at some point John would have to leave?

Jordan Rudess: No we didn't and we didn't know that one day we would release those jams, we just felt like playing!

Guillaume Erard: Why and when did the decision to release those jams come?

Jordan Rudess: Well we probably would have released them a lot sooner but you know there have been a lot of business problems between Magna Carta and some of the Dream Theater people. There was also the issue of finding the master tapes so it took a long time although we really wanted to see those jams released. Finally after so many years, we got by that, Mike had the original DAT recordings so we said ok.

Guillaume Erard: Do you sometimes listen to the CD and wish you had done something differently?

Jordan Rudess: No it is just what it was; it was just jamming around having some good time playing.

Guillaume Erard: Who do you think this product is aimed to? Is it aimed only at Dream Theater/Liquid Tension Experiment fans or do you think it could be aimed at other people, musicians or others?

Jordan Rudess: I think you have to be someone who just enjoys listening to music, although it is helpful if you know about this world a little bit.

Guillaume Erard: This album is really a combination of a Prog-Rock history document with the Miles Davis approach of the jams such as Bitches Brew.

Jordan Rudess: Yeah sure, I think the jams turned out really well, I think it was a special time in history. You know, it is cool to hear those players go up and do what they do, it is an unusual view so whoever wants to hear is welcome to check it out.

Guillaume Erard: Are you ever thinking of doing projects of this type again, not necessarily with the same people but maybe get together a group of 4-5 musicians and go for it?

Jordan Rudess: Yeah this kind of project is interesting to get together with players. It is certainly kind of fun and it is possible, down the road, that we do another LTE album. You know we have a concert actually planned, I don't know if you guys have heard about it but there is something planned in June to do a show in the states. There is no album planned but since we are doing a show, you never know...

Guillaume Erard: Do you think you would have the time with the hectic schedule of Dream Theater releases and the tours?

Jordan Rudess: Yeah there is time to do some things, not as much as I want to, but it is possible.

Guillaume Erard: Are you going to keep up with that cadence of releases and concerts with Dream Theater?

Jordan Rudess: In fact, the schedule is good, there is always a little bit of time to do a solo project, sure a little bit more time off is good but you know the last time we took time off the road, we took 5-6 months off so...

Guillaume Erard: Yeah from the outside it looks like there is always something going on.

Jordan Rudess: Yeah sure it is busy but we do have a few months to chill out.

Guillaume Erard: Who do you think the typical Jordan Rudess fan is? You have evolved a lot since your album Listen. You have evolved towards a heavier music, is it because of Dream Theater's influence?

Jordan Rudess: True, I think I have been exposed to a lot more heavy music lately. The metal style is not necessarily my favourite stuff but you know I have learnt a lot doing it. I have gotten a more powerful approach and I have also developed a lot of sounds on my synthesisers; some very cool and progressive so it became part of my stylistic mix. My thing as a composer is all about the grand fusion of my experiences and using that to create my own style. I mean this album is obviously based around other people's music but within that it is really me.

Guillaume Erard: We obviously had many more questions but to finish off, will there be another Rudess-Morgenstein project?

Jordan Rudess: Ah Well, that would be nice. Rod has been through a lot of personal problems, he lost his wife over a year ago. We had started to work on our album together, we have a lot of material that was done but we kept getting interrupted so one day I hope...

Guillaume Erard: Thank you very much Jordan, good luck for the show!

Jordan Rudess: My pleasure, it was great to meet you guys.

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More info:

Jordan's official website