By Ryan Sparks
Since leaving the progressive
rock band Spock’s Beard in 2002, vocalist and muti-instrumentalist
Neal Morse hasn’t spent a great deal of time looking in the rear
view mirror reflecting on the past. His decision to leave the
band he co-founded with his brother Alan might have come as a
surprise not only to his fans but to the members of the band as
well, however his decision to give his life to God and become a
Christian left him no other choice but to pursue his own path.
Since that time it seems like the music has been pouring out of
him nonstop as he’s no t only recorded five solo albums which
find him continuing in the progressive rock vein, he’s also
issued a handful of praise CD’s and found the time to
collaborate with other artists as well.
His latest release Lifeline
reveals some of the most ambitious music of his career while at
the same time it retains everything that first drew you to both
Spock’s and Neal’s music in the first place. Full of majestic,
soaring vocal harmonies, gorgeous melodies and complex passages
replete with intricate time changes, it’s all here.
It might be difficult to gauge
how Neal’s conversion has affected his fan base as far as sheer
numbers go. I think it’s probably safe to say that the lyrical
content and messages within his songs have probably alienated
his diehard fans to a certain degree. However, that being said
he’s also opened himself up to an entirely new audience at the
same time. Either way Neal continues to forge ahead and do what
he feels what is right within his heart, something any artist
should do whether they’re a Christian or not.
While I’m not personally
offended or put off by any of the subject matter contained
within Neal’s music, I do understand that talk of God either
scares some people off or simply doesn’t interest them and
that’s fine. If this is the case then you might not want to read
any further than this introduction. Otherwise I’d encourage you
to sit back and read on to learn more about Neal’s approach to
songwriting and the divine inspiration that continues to guide
his life and music .
Ryan: How would you say
Lifeline differs from your previous albums? I mean for one
thing this isn’t really a concept record is it?
Neal: No that’s one of the
main differences, that it’s not a concept album. I didn’t know
there were albums that weren’t concept albums [laughing]. I’ve
been making concept albums for so long, which is really funny
because I really resisted the idea of making a concept record in
the first place. I remember Greg Walker, who’s a well known guy
in the progressive rock world, when I was in Spock’s Beard he
was always asking me “When are you going to make your Lamb
Lies Down?” and I thought “Oh man how cliché”, you know? The
prog band has to make the concept album. Then after Snow
I don’t know what got into me, it was like I couldn’t stop
making them. So this is the first record that isn’t a concept
album and it’s a nice break, and hopefully it is for the fans as
well.
Ryan: Was there any
particular reason why you went in the opposite direction this
time around?
Neal: It just kind of flowed
out that way. I always just try to follow the flow of what God
wants me to do at any given time, on any given day, so that’s
what I felt at that time and that’s what came out. It’s sort of
interesting because Mike Portnoy said to me I think it was when
we were doing Sola Scriptura, he told me that he wanted
to put in a request as a fan. He said that he hoped that on my
next album it would be more structured like a Kindness of
Strangers or Day for Night, with a kind of longer
prog thing at the beginning, then some separate shorter songs
followed by maybe a longer piece at the end. So Mike kind of
gave the call a year or two years ago, whatever it was
[laughing]. That was how it ended up and I always think about
what he said, and it’s funny that’s how it ended up. I did have
it in my mind, so I don’t know how much of an influence that was
but it did end up like that.
Ryan: Thematically you’ve
sort of come full circle in your solo career in songs like
“Lifeline”, “The Way Home” and “So Many Roads” in which you
revisit the different paths your life took before you embraced
Christianity. I’m curious as to why you revisited this topic; I
mean did you feel there was more to touch upon that you didn’t
address on Testimony.
Neal: No I didn’t really think
of it specifically that way. I think one of the things that
happened, which I mentioned in the liner notes of the special
edition version of Lifeline where I talk about the
inspiration behind each song. Part of it is I started to do some
ministry work over in Europe, which means it was basically just
me talking to people about God. So from doing that I’m hearing
where people are at, and I’m talking to a lot of young people
who are at a place in their life where they’re trying to decide
what to do and where to go.
Ryan: They’re at a
crossroads.
Neal: Exactly. When I talk
about the goodness of God it tugs at their heart but they don’t
know how to step into it. It’s a “What do I do now?” kind of
thing. So I think that was on my mind a lot when I was writing
songs like “The Way Home”, “God’s Love” and “So Many Roads”. On
those songs it was like I was singing for other people or to
those people when I sing “You promised yourself you would never
love again”. Of course I did that once before, I promised myself
I would never love again when I was in my early thirties. I got
hurt in a relationship, so I did that. However, I was also
talking to a particular person over In Germany that said that to
me, but I could see that they were coming out of that too.
There’s a line in that song after that which goes “You promised
yourself you would never love again, and you’ve tried hiding out
but your heart just can’t stay shut in”. People try to hide out,
it’s our nature to hide but it’s also our nature to desire love
and to be loved. I don’t know… I was just thinking about
different people that I’ve talked to. Testimony was about
me telling my story and this has a certain amount of that in it
as well because that’s also something that I do a lot when I
travel around and I go to churches. I give my testimony. I tell
my story a lot, so much so that my kids can actually give my
testimony now [laughing]. The apostle Paul gave his testimony
three times in the book of Acts. I had a guy in my church tell
me once “Don’t ever get tired of giving it”.
Ryan: In “Star For A Day”
you mention Britney Spears. What do you think of how the
industry and the media prey’s on not only her but anyone who
rises to the top only to get knocked down? We as human beings
seem to have this infatuation with watching famous people fall.
Neal: Yeah there are a couple
of things about that. One is that God made us to worship. He
created us to worship him but since we in large in part don’t
worship him then we have to worship something, because we’re
made to worship [laughing]. So we find people and stuff that we
can see, and in a way it makes sense. You find somebody that you
can see whether its a musician or a movie star. It can be good
things that we idolize, or a pretty girl that sings well like
Britney Spears, ‘cause I don’t know how well she sings. I don’t
know… I don’t follow those things very well. The problem is we
were made for that and idolatry kills you know? It’s bad for the
people that do it and it’s bad for the people that are idolized
too. It’s just not how God made us so we suffer. It’s sad that
people buy into that that is the good life because really you’re
not rising to the top of anything, that’s just an illusion. In
Christ the way up is down, it’s the opposite. You humble
yourself and God will lift you up, but if you exalt yourself
then God will put you down. What I’m trying to say in that song
is really look how the world lies and this is really a lie. I
call them hawkers, these people who are standing out in front of
something saying “C’mon in this way” like you’re walking through
an amusement park and there’s all these people trying to get you
to ride on their ride. That guy is saying “Come this way it will
be great” and the way the world is with its subtle and not so
subtle ways, it preys on young people to live the life. I was
sucked into that and it just left me miserable. It just leaves
you miserable, soulless and loveless.
Ryan: Buy into the material
dream.
Neal: Right and if you watch
the commercials they’re telling you you’re going to get chicks,
you’re going to get loved and you’re going to get all the fun
things in life. You’ll have fun for a season and then you’ll
find yourself hung over, miserable and broken hearted or
whatever; and divorced you know what I mean? Everybody’s
divorced and that kills. Some people never recover from it;
they’ll never recover from divorce. There will be people in
their sixties and seventies, if you get them talking about it,
they’ll tell you “Yeah I never really recovered from when my Dad
left” and stuff like that. They won’t tell you that if you get
drunk and hang out with all those beautiful chicks, you’ll wind
up divorced and miserable [laughing].
Ryan: That’s it a nutshell
right there.
Neal: Yeah so that’s what I was
trying to say on “Star For A Day”
Ryan:
While the songs are
not primarily the lengthy epics that you’ve become known for I
have to say that Lifeline features some of the most
diverse sounding material of your solo career yet. Was it a
conscious decision on your part when writing the material to
experiment and shake things up a little bit more this time
around?
Neal: I don’t know… not
really. I’m always just sort of forging ahead. I don’t know how
to describe exactly how I write. It’s kind of like a daily,
spontaneous event and I’m not really calculating or thinking. I
don’t know if that’s good or bad.
Ryan: What you’re basically
saying to me Neal is that you just don’t have a plan.
Neal: No I don’t have really
have a plan [laughing]. I wrote “Leviathan” at one point and
then a month later I was out in California and I wrote “The Way
Home” and “So Many Roads”. Those songs weren’t really related
and I was enjoying writing songs that were unrelated you know?
[laughing] When I’m left to my own devices I just really do a
lot of really diverse stuff. I love classical music and jazz, I
like pop and heavy rock. I like a lot of different styles so I
love for it all to be able to show up.
Ryan: There’s no plan laid
out in advance, you just go into it and somehow it all comes to
together.
Neal: Yeah I’ll just have ideas
and I’ll try to follow them and try to flush them out to see
where they want to go or what I want to say. I get a lot of help
from the Lord because a lot of times I’ll just wake up in the
morning with some idea and I’ll have no idea where it came from
and that’s a very common thing, not just for me. I mean Paul
McCartney dreamt “Yesterday” you know? The angels give gifts,
its great [laughing].
Ryan: Speaking of
“Leviathan” that has to be one of the heaviest and at the same
time most eclectic tracks that you’ve done since leaving Spock’s
Beard, wouldn’t you agree?
Neal: Yeah that’s a bizarre
track [laughing].
Ryan: You have some real
funky horns and sax going on in there.
Neal: And marimba.
Ryan: Right and a sneeze as
well.
Neal: Yeah a sneeze through a
guitar amp. That track was fun, and it all started because a
friend of mine at church was talking to me about Leviathan from
the bible which I had never thought about or really considered
too much. So I did a word search in a computer bible program on
Leviathan, sea monsters and dragons and stuff like that and it
spat out all these scriptures. So I printed them all out and
took them into the studio and I was just sitting there looking
at it. I started singing what was on the page, so a lot of the
lyrics in that song are just straight scripture. “Praise ye the
Lord ya sea monsters” is in the Psalms. “He shall punish the
heads of Leviathan” is in Isaiah. “He’s king of the sons of
pride” is in Job. It’s just all these different scriptures and I
just thought it would be interesting, if anybody cares about
such things then they could consider what this sea monster might
be representing.
Ryan: Over time your lyrics
have become more autobiographical, more so than when you were
writing for Spock’s Beard. You mentioned in the past that back
in the day “A lot of the time the lyrics just needed to fit and
not necessarily make sense”. It’s as if you’ve allowed yourself
to really be opened up.
Neal: Yeah I don’t just write
what ever comes into my head anymore… well let me correct that,
sometimes I do. Writing a lot of the times is something that
just comes into your head but I take more time with the lyrics
now I think. I want every line to say something that I really
want to say rather than just conjuring up some image or
something that doesn’t make any sense at all. There are certain
things on Spock’s records where it just didn’t make any sense
but it sounded good so I just sang it. That’s ok but it’s not
the way that I operate anymore.
Ryan: You’re more conscious
of what you’re going to say and how you want to say it.
Neal: Yeah there’s usually more
of a point to what I’m writing these days.
Ryan: Has there ever been a
time where you’ve experienced inner conflict over a particular
lyrical subject be it something from your past or an experience
where you’ve found yourself praying for guidance on whether to
actually write about it in a song and put it out there for
everyone to hear?
Neal: Oh yeah. I pray about
lyrics and music all the time. I had a little struggle within
myself about – on Sola Scriptura there was lots of stuff
that I was praying about. Should I say this like this? I asked
the Lord if he wanted me to temper things down and I felt that I
should leave it so that’s what I did. I was going to change some
of those things, some of the harder things and I just felt that
the Lord didn’t want me to so I didn’t do it. On Lifeline
I prayed about the struggle about whether I should say “Jesus is
my lifeline” at the end of “Lifeline”. Sometime it’s just me, I
don’t want to say something or do something just because I want
to.
Ryan: What was it about that
particular line that made you question it?
Neal: My kid mentioned that it
might be better for the audience – we were talking one day, and
I try to be sensitive because I know that a lot of people that
are listening to my music are not Christians. It’s like when
somebody comes into your house, you don’t want to just put a big
piece of meat down their throats or something. You intrigue
them, give them water or some salad or whatever. I try not to
hit people over the head too hard.
Ryan: Maybe serve the steak
a little later?
Neal: Right, and dress it up
nice too so people can eat it and enjoy it [laughing]. So he
mentioned something about that line in “Lifeline”, so I thought
about it because I didn’t want to say Jesus just because I
wanted to. I want to make sure I’m doing the Lord’s will and not
“I want to say this because I want to say it”. I think I had a
little of that going on when I quit the band because I was tired
of having to dance around what I was really talking about, so I
was really eager to just say it. One of the first things I wrote
after I quit was called “I Sing My Love”, off of the God
Won’t Give Up album where I sang “I’m going to sing my love
to the Lord almighty”. I wanted to sing my praises to God
because that’s where my heart is. Anyway I did pray about that
in “Lifeline” and I felt that I should leave it because that’s
how I had written it. It’s probably pretty obvious that people
know what I’m taking about anyway [laughing], but I think it’s
also an important concept to have in mind, that there’s one
mediator between God and man, and that he sent his son like a
lifeline to us. He reaches down for us through Christ, but
anyway I do think and pray about those things.
Ryan: I have to say that I
love the cover artwork as well. It really fits the message of
the album, with the rope coming down from above.
Neal: Oh good I’m glad. I’ll
tell my wife you said that because she doesn’t like the cover
[laughing]. We had tried a couple of different things but
nothing really captured us. The reason why she doesn’t like it
is because she feels it looks too much like the One cover
which if you see them side by side, they do look pretty similar.
Ryan: How does the origin of
a song often begin for you, does it start with a lyric, a
melody?
Neal: It really depends.
Sometimes it starts with a riff. “Leviathan” started with that
opening riff (makes the sound). In fact I was on a cruise ship
when I first thought of that. They’re all a little different.
For example “The Way Home”, my kids were swimming on the beach
in L.A. and I was sitting there in a beach chair playing an
acoustic guitar. I started strumming the D chords and began to
sing “Running from a destiny I wasn’t sure was mine”. Sometimes
the words and the music come out pretty quickly at the same
time, but I guess generally the most common thing is that I’ll
have a line or an idea of what the song is going to be about and
I’ll sort of sing that line and have a melody for it. A lot of
times I’ll lay down a scratch vocal, even just the one line with
a “La di da” and then I’ll go back and fill the rest of the
words in. Sometimes I don’t write the words until right before I
cut the vocals. I’ll go to cut a vocal and then go “Hmm… I don’t
have the all words here” [laughing]
Ryan: Is there a particular
time or place that works best for you when you write?
Neal: Early morning. In fact I
was up at quarter to five this morning and I had written a whole
thing by six thirty. Early mornings are my prime creative time.
Ryan: At home?
Neal: No. When I think about
it a lot of Lifeline was written out of town actually. It
just depends.
Ryan: So you’re able to come
up with constructive ideas even when you’re on the road?
Neal: Yeah sometimes it just
flows. Sometimes it’s even better because there’s less business
stuff to take care of, and even when I’m on vacation I’ll write
more. It’s kind of weird [laughing].
Ryan: Well not really
because if your mind is free of all the clutter then it should
be easier for the ideas to flow through.
Neal: Yeah and writing is just
something that I really love. I enjoy it; to me it’s not a job.
Ryan: That kind of brings me
to my next question because songwriting doesn’t always come as
easy as one might think. Some of the best songwriters have said
it can be a struggle while for others it can some rather
effortlessly. So I guess what you’re saying is the process is
fairly easy for you?
Neal: Usually. Sometimes like
with a piece like Sola Scriptura that was like- sometimes
there’s real travail that goes on. Travail is a biblical word
that describes a woman giving birth, the trial. So sometimes it
can be real work and you’re only getting two measures a day or
something [laughing]. You’re going in there and forcing
yourself, I’ve been through that too. I can’t really say that
one is necessarily better than the other because Sola was
like that, and a lot of people think that was some of my best
work. Some people say “Well if it just doesn’t flow out then
forget it” but I just kept feeling the Lord at my back saying
“C’mon it’s good”. There was several times during the writing of
that one where I just wanted to kind of scrap it all and start
something else.
Ryan: You have some great
musicians in your band who can be seen and heard in your
fantastic Sola Scriptura and Beyond DVD. Tell me how it
feels to have such great likeminded individuals both live and
also in the studio environment who are willing to share in your
musical vision.
Neal: What an honor you know? I
give God the glory that he put me in a place where I can afford
to- and also that these different individuals want to play this
music that I’ve written. It’s just a real honor to be able to
work with people like Mike (Portnoy) and Randy (George).
Ryan: Not to mention Colin (Leijenaar).
Neal: Oh yeah those guys as
well. God is good isn’t he? I now have a band in America that’s
great, as well as a band in Europe that’s great, it’s crazy.
Ryan: You booked gigs over
in Europe without even playing with these guys. These aren’t
three minute pop songs you’re playing here; you’ve got some
pretty complex arrangements. How did you rehearse this stuff in
advance?
Neal: With the Dutch band they
rehearse before I show up. Then I show up and we’ll rehearse for
two or three days and then we’ll play. They do great every time
because they really do their homework. I mean they really did a
great job on “Author of Confusion”, they really did it. With the
American guys they’re all locals, so we got together at my place
and rehearsed a lot, but it’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of
work for me as well. It’s a lot of work for a couple of gigs you
know? But then again I’m a family man and I don’t want to be on
the road that much. If I could fly out, do a couple of gigs and
then come home, or bring the family that’s what works for me.
Ryan: Tell me about the
bonus tracks on the special edition of Lifeline. How did
you come up with the idea of covering The Osmonds and The Bee
Gees? Those are some interesting choices.
Neal: Before the end of the
sessions we always talk about- Mike usually comes with covers in
mind that he wants to do, so both of those were Mike’s. Those
were I guess songs that he was into when he was a kid. When we
first heard it we thought “Oh man this is going to be goofy” but
then when Paul Gilbert put his guitar on it, we were like “Ok
this is going to be great” [laughing]. We had a lot of fun doing
that.
Ryan: You’ve also got a guy
like Paul Bielatowicz on guitar who’s a monster talent as well.
Neal: Yeah he’s killer.
Ryan: So what does the
future hold for you, what’s next?
Neal: I’m working on a
lot of new material and I’ve got quite a bit of new material
happening. I’m going skiing in Colorado in the New Year so I’m
excited about that. We’ve never been skiing there so I’m looking
forward to that. I’m just taking it day by day, writing a lot of
new music and we’ll see what happens. There are some exciting
things on the horizon.
