Dream Theater's epic new album The Astonishing came out at the end of January, and we were lucky enough to get some time on the phone with the one and only Jordan Rudess to speak about the record.
How long in the making was the concept of The Astonishing?
Well, we wanted to do a concept album for a long time but of course we were waiting for the right time to do it. The last one we did was about 17 years ago, so it was time to do another one, we were just waiting for everything to settle in so we could do it. We probably would have done it before but about 6 years ago we had to replace our drummer so that wasn’t a great time to do it, but now it was.
We can’t believe that was six years ago! Do you have a favourite track from the record?
I alternate. If I’m in a mellow mood then I think I like ‘Chosen’, I think it’s a really good track. Also I think ‘Moment Of Betrayal’ is a good Dream Theater track, and it has all of the Dream Theater-ish elements in it. But really I’m so happy with the new album that I like a lot of it.
Would you recommend listening to The Astonishing through headphones, or a huge speaker system?
Depending on your mood, if you had a really good set of headphones it’s probably a really great experience but if you have great speakers that’s also really good. It depends on the person and how they want to listen. I think the real thing is to put aside time to crank it up, make sure it sounds good and go for the ride, go for the journey.
So what have you been listening to lately?
A lot of ‘The Astonishing’. We’re trying to learn two hours and fifteen minutes of music for our world tour so I’ve basically turned off everything except for that and I’ve been in the studio really deep programming and practicing.
Have you been experimenting with any new gadgets or software?
My company Wizdom Music just released an app called ‘Geoshred’ which is a real iPad instrument, different than most of the apps that are out there. A lot of them are really creative and interesting but they're not really musical instruments. Geoshred really is to the point where I used it on the new album. There’s a tune called ‘A New Beginning’ and I played a Geoshred lead on that song. So that’s something I’ve really been investing a lot of time into. But I’ve also been very involved with a company called ‘Roli’ and they make an instrument called the seaboard, what they’re doing is evolving the state of a piano keyboard. I used that on the new album in a song ‘A Tempting Offer’.
When you’re working on new music, do you actively think about how you can use a new piece of technology or do something that no ones done before?
Yeah definitely. A lot of the time when we are making albums, we’ll be developing software or working on hardware at the same time, and I’ll be wanting to make use of it.
What makes you a MANIAC?
I’m pretty one-sided in my music taste. I guess what makes me a Maniac is wild software and incredible sound that brings me to another level.
