RUDESS: 'First Couple Days Of A DREAM THEATER Recording Session Are Almost Like Going To School'

MusicPlayers.com recently conducted an interview with keyboardist Jordan Rudess of progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

MusicPlayers.com: Tell me about [the new self-titled album from DREAM THEATER]. Give me the background, in your own words.

Jordan: Well, we were excited to get into the studio and make an album, especially with Mike Mangini [drums] coming in, for the first time to join us. [Editor's Note: When Mangini joined DREAM THEATER, the songs for "A Dramatic Turn Of Events" had already been written.] There's always a lot of built-up excitement as we move towards the studio, think about what we want to create, where it's going to be created, and all the different factors that go into getting yourself in the right head-space and physical place to make an album. So when we got in there, we extend a little bit of patience before we start, like, jamming like crazy people. We generally sit down and get out some large pieces of paper and start to write down the ideas for the album, concepts, what we're trying to achieve… The first couple days of a DREAM THEATER recording session are almost like going to school, because we tend to be very organized. So that's what we did for this one.

MusicPlayers.com: How much is written, song wise, before you get together? Is it a case where you write a bunch of things and John [Petrucci, guitar] writes a bunch of things?

Jordan: Well, when we're on the road, we do all these soundchecks, and sometimes at the soundchecks we can try out an idea — not that many things, but there's a handful of cool things that we stop and record and then go back to, and include in the album. So it's definitely little parts that we're able to say, "Hey, remember that day in Frankfurt, Germany or something where we had that cool idea?" So there are those things. But a lot of things are done right in the studio, a lot of the music is written right there. So that's kind of the way things come up. Most of the music is written by John Petrucci and myself, and we kind of feed off each other, a lot.

MusicPlayers.com: Do you guys ever get together locally and do jam sessions for the writing?

Jordan: Just the two of us? No, we haven't done that. When we record, we have our studio time booked. It's like kind of going to work, and we sit there and just kind of do what we have to do… and if we need to spend time by ourselves, like without the band — on the last album, there were times when we just did that too. A good example is the song "False Awakening", where it was just the two of us basically and we just sat in the room and kind of put that piece together.

Read the entire interview at MusicPlayers.com.