James LaBrie interview (excerpt)

PS: You know he worked with Zappa, right?

JL: Yeah, I know, exactly. Well, shit, it comes out through his music. No wonder Frank had him fucking working. But I remember listening to his stuff and going “fuck, this is really intelligent. This is really cool writing. This guy is really talented” and, so when it came time to start doing the Mullmuzzler stuff, obviously I wrote all the stuff with different people, and the only players that I... the only people that played on it that I wrote with were Matt and Trent. The other guys being Carl and a couple guys from Shadow Gallery didn’t play on the stuff. Just cause I really... at that point I knew I wanted players that I really had been digging for a while to play on it. So what originally happened was I met Mike Mangini at... we did a big festival in ‘95 with Extreme and Page/Plant and all this stuff. So Mike and I hung out backstage, and I was talking to him and I remember seeing the show with Extreme and I was hanging out with Gary Cherone, who is absolutely a terrific guy by the way. He really is a nice guy. A lot of people don’t know that but Gary is a nice guy. Anyway, getting back to Mike Mangini, I was hanging out and I remember seeing him do the show with Extreme at that festival and this guy’s fantastic, I was blown away by his performance. And so, when it came time to do Mullmuzzler I just called him up and said “Hey Mike, listen – this is James LaBrie. I’m doing this thing, would you be into it?” and he was like “fuck yeah man! I’m there! Let’s do it!” (laughs) and so at that point I said, “Well, listen I’m just gonna try and nail down a really cool guitar player” and actually the guy I had in mind at first was Lincoln Brewster. Does that ring a bell to you?

PS: It doesn’t.

JL: Ok. Well, he played on Steve Perry’s last solo album.

PS: Okay.

JL: Incredible fucking guitar player. Like Neil Schon, I think, is a terrific guitar player. This guy was like a young Neil Schon. You know, very melodic driven leads. A lot of taste, a lot of feel, a lot of soul. And that’s what I wanted here, but also technical ability. And so I was saying this to Mike Mangini and Mike Mangini said “Hey, man, fuck – what about Mike Keneally?” And I said “Wow! I never even thought of him” and Mike says “Yeah, I’m working with Mike right now on the new Steve Vai album” and I went “Aww, shit! Ask Mike if he’s into it. You’re with him, right?” and he [Mike Mangini] goes “yeah, we hang out almost every day” and I [JL] said “tell him I’d love him to play on this stuff” so Mike Keneally gives me a call and says “Hey man, I hear you’re looking. I’m totally into doing this thing with you” and I said “Great! Let’s get together. Let’s sit down. Let’s go through the material and I’ll tell you what I’m looking for in the guitar thing and how I want you to approach the sections and then I want you to put yourself all over it” and he [Keneally] went “yeah” and totally into it, so that’s how that came about. And now Bryan Beller, Mike played with him in Beer For Dolphins and I remember really really digging his bass playing, and I’m thinking “this guy’s fucking... he’s sweet, the way he plays, you know, he’s got a lot of feel, a lot of maturity in the way he approaches things. he’s not just trying to show you or dazzle you with his 64th notes or whatever” and that’s what really impressed me was that he approached playing in a very mature sense, cause I’m not not, I mean, granted, you know, when I was younger, you know, everybody’s out there going “hey mom, hey dad, look what I can do!” (laughs) but when you get older, you start saying “hey, man, what makes most sense for the song?” The song’s construction or structuring is what it all boils down to. So, Bryan Beller was defiantly, you know, great, and I think he did a superb job on the album. I really did.

PS: I’ve actually noticed that, when you were mentioning about doing things in terms of feel rather than shredding, something I’ve noticed in DT with Falling Into Infinity were more song-based and less chops for the sake of doing chops.

JL: Right, yeah. I mean, it just comes with, you know, the more you’re involved and the more you’re exposed to all these different, you know, styles or genres of music and just with maturity and evolution you come to realize that you become more focused on the song than you do on the individual playing or the self-indulgent kind of feel. You know, it’s one thing to be totally immersed in your playing capability and that in trying to bring that out to show the people but it’s another thing to try to be able to hone in, to zone in on that and make it even speak louder in the sense of feeling and expression through the instrument, I think is much more telling of what separates the men from the boys.

PS: I know within the past year, we’ve had quite a bit of solo releases from John and Mike and Derek and whathaveyou. Was this originally your idea or was this Magna Carta coming to you and saying “hey, would you like to do this solo album?”

JL: Magna Carta approached me when I was doing the Falling Into Infinity tour. It was actually Mike Varney who first contact me and said “Hey, James, listen. Pete Mortecelli and myself have been speaking lately and are you interested in doing a solo project for us?” and I said “lemme think about it and I’ll get back to you” so I thought about it for a bit and then I did eventually call Mike back and say “yeah, listen I’m into it but I wanna get the right players and I wanna get guys writing in this type of direction so I wanna think about guys that I wanna work with and write with” and it eventually all fell into place and, I went for it. You know, as soon as I was done doing the last show of Falling Into Infinity which was in South America. Then, when I got home and I started putting all the material together with these other writers and started piecing it together which was last October, I guess and then I was finished doing it by... I finished all the mixes in April.

PS: We had spoken in December and you were just about ready to put the vocals down.

JL: Yeah, which I actually didn’t start until January. You know, because just things... there’s always a delay here or there. Never a reason, cause of people’s schedules and whatever. Yeah, it all worked out for the best.

PS: As I said, it’s a great record. I’m actually loving it quite a bit.

JL: Thanks! I’m happy with it. I’m very proud of it.

PS: How does this output with the solo album effect the writing (or your writing) in DT? Because, let’s be honest, your writing credits haven’t been too “out there” with DT – it’s been more Mike and John. How does this effect how you come in with material for...

JL: Well, you see the other thing is, is that a lot of people will look at things and they’ll say “Does James have a lot of involvement in the writing?” and I do. I actually have a lot of involvement, especially in the melodic sense – and maybe not necessarily in the lyrical sense, but that’s just the way that things fall into places. You’ve gotta take what makes the most sense. So it might come across that I’m more, you know, off to the side while these guys are writing the material but that’s not the case, and that’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions I think out there. But anyways, I think that when you’re doing a solo album and all that and you’re writing with different people, it just helps to bring more to the table for your priority project being Dream Theater because it just keeps you well-tuned and really in there, in sync with the writing sense, so that... you know, I was just finishing the Mullmuzzler stuff and bang – we’re jumping into the new Dream Theater, getting into that headspace and hearing the material and coming up with melodies and coming up with lyrical ideas and all that stuff. I think it just helps in the fact that these guys were doing this Liquid Tension – I mean, really up on their chops, I think it’s an incredible album. It fucking blew my mind.

PS: Speaking of DT, and you know I had to get to this eventually, how does the new album sound?

JL: Well, it sounds amazing... and that’s basically all I can divulge to you.

PS: I’m not going to ask the obvious question...

JL: It sounds... I think people... I think the fans worldwide are gonna be completely blown away and completely exhilarated by this. I think it’s the epitome of Dream Theater. It’s really... you know, we’re all extremely excited about it and I think that it’s gonna solidify our place in the progressive music thing. You know what I mean?

PS: I do.

JL: When everybody talks about progressive music and all that, they’ll go “Have you heard of Dream Theater?” and you hear of all these other progressive bands... well you have that magazine out, what’s it called, Progression?

PS: Yep!

JL: It’s a great, fantastic magazine... and there’s so many fuckin’ progressive bands it blows my mind! And it’s great, cause all these bands really keep all this kind of music in people’s mind and brings it to a more accessible kind of area in the sense that it’s in a bigger forum when you see a lot more bands doing it. There’s obviously a lot more people aware of it, and it’s really exciting in that sense. It just helps for bands like us because when we get out there... there’s one thing you have to realize, and I think a lot of people haven’t realized this – and it’s not to come out sounding pompous or pretentious – but of all the progressive bands in the world today, and there’s a lot of them out there right now – we are the one progressive band out there right now today that has a signing with a major label, you know? When you think of it, everyone is on this independent or this label or that label – and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that we really realize and appreciate how fortunate we are to be doing this kind of music and to be on a major label, cause you hear a lot of these bands that are terrific and are really great players but they’re not able to get this major signing, which is really a shame, and if through us we can bring the major labels more insight to this kind of music and maybe have them give some of these great bands out there even a chance to get a signing to them then it’s great, know what I mean? It helps to keep everything alive in this genre of music, the fact that there are so many bands out there like that.

PS: About DT, I’m not going to ask the most obvious questions because I know you can’t answer them.

JL: No, I can’t.

PS: Mike would kill me.

JL: No, No. We’ve all made a pact and it’s just something that we really...it’s just a veil of secrecy.

PS: I actually think that’s a good thing.

JL: It is.

PS: Because with the last album, everyone knew about it...

JL: Fuck it, everybody’s downloading sound files...

PS: Of course!

JL: (Laughs) by the time the album came out they were like “Yeah, man, it’s fucking yesterday’s news!” It’s like “so what?”, but... we just thought this would be really cool and it’s even that much cooler just because of the kind of album that we created here is even that much better, so...

PS: How does the other band members like the Mullmuzzler disc?

JL: They dig it! They dig it big time. Even Mike came in yesterday to the studio and was like “Hey man, I just got the actual CD (you know, with the artwork and all that) and I love the fucking artwork (laughs) man, it’s fucking amazing, I dig it!” And I’m [JL] like “thanks, thanks a lot” and Mike goes “yeah, it’s fucking cool” so everybody’s very cool about it. It’s great.

PS: What’s in your CD player right now?

JL: In my CD player right now is the new Jamiroquai. I love him. I’ve always been into him and I just started listening to it today, in fact. It’s really cool.

PS: They have that one song here that’s being played all the time.

JL: Is that Black Capricorn?

PS: I think so.

JL: Yeah, it’s really cool. He’s got an unique voice and I just love... once again, you listen to Jamiroquai and he’s very groove oriented, you know what I mean? It’s very driven and very rhythmic and then he’s got a very cool sounding voice as well. And the other stuff I’m listening to is Miles Davis, which is... I think he’s just incredible – been listening to “A Kind Of Blue” CD which is great. Right now, that’s it. I’ve been listening (laughing) to a lot of the new Dream Theater right now as well, you know, cause of the mixes and all that shit going down.

PS: I know that Mike and you guys are doing the mixing now.

JL: Right, yeah, yeah, with David Bottrill.

PS: What’s the plan for the tour?

JL: You know we’re taking off... we’re going to Korea, so we leave for Korea this Wednesday.

PS: It’s just a one-off until the album comes out, right?

JL: Exactly, we play there this coming Saturday. We play in Seoul, Korea and it’s like for 20 – 25,000 people. We’ll do one show and then turn around and fly right back and then I guess we’re gonna chill out, but I mean chilling out really isn’t really chilling out. We’ll be doing a lot of press and start getting into the press thing and, you know, all of that will take some time – which will probably, eventually bring us right up to the release of the album and then shortly thereafter I would imagine that we’d get out there and start the tour.

PS: At the Korea show, you guys gonna play of the new tunes?

JL: No. Absolutely not. No way.

PS: Damn!

JL: (Laughing) I know! Everyone’s gonna bootleg it! Fuckin’ right, I know that’s happening. We’re completely insightful to that but, no, there’s no way. We’re gonna do a bit from everything – the previous albums – and we’ll still give them a really good show.

PS: How does Jordan fit into the music now?

JL: You mean with the new album?

PS: Yeah.

JL: He’s fucking amazing! Unbelievable. I mean, people are gonna just like completely blown away by this guy. He’s incredible, he really is. I mean, you talk about a guy who was like 9 years old and going into Julliard Music School, you know, he’s just a protege of the keyboard world and he’s incredible, he’s a really cool guy, he’s very comfortable to be around and talk with and that really means something to this band cause everyone for the most part is pretty down-to-earth, pretty laid back – and I don’t mean boring and old man – but I’m just saying that we’re not wild and crazy and flamboyant...

PS: That’s actually one of the things I thought Derek brought to the table was that flamboyance.

JL: (laughing) I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

PS: I didn’t say it was or it wasn’t.

JL: (Laughs) Maybe save that for the fucking glam but not for a band like this. I’m not even going to get into that circus.

PS: Don’t even.

JL: It’s just not worth it.

PS: I hate to cut that short [James laughs] but we’re running a little late on time. With that in mind, I wanted to thank for you for “taking the time” to sit and talk to me about Mullmuzzler. Although it’s not due out for release in the US until mid-August, I’ve got a good feeling about the record.

JL: Thanks, man. I appreciate it.