Derek Sherinian interview (excerpts)

So how did Platypus originate?

Platypus was originally John Myung’s idea. He asked me to get involved with it and he brought in Ty Tabor. I wasn’t familiar with Ty, but I think he’s extremely talented. Rod Morgenstein... I’ve admired for many years. He is one of my favourite musicians. John brought up Rod’s name and we decided to go with him. I was very star struck working with these great musicians.

How would you describe your song writing/recording process?

What’s amazing about this album is that we wrote and recorded it in a two week period. Each member basically had some song ideas they brought in and worked on the arrangement and found something that suited all of us.

When Wakeman left Yes in 1997, there were stories concerning you as a possible replacement. Can you shed some clarification on this matter?

What happened a couple of years when that fiasco happened was that I was touring Europe with Dream Theater. And there was an answering machine message that Rick Wakeman was not doing the tour and they were looking for someone to replace him. No one from Yes had ever approached me. And that got somehow turned into this rumour.

How do you feel about the whole Dream Theater situation?

I feel that bands change members all the time. They had a distinct vision of where they want to take the band and I have no hard feelings. The last four years have been very good for me and I’ve had a lot of good opportunities. I don’t want to get into a negative thing because I don’t have any bad feelings. Jordan is a friend of mine and he’s an amazing keyboard player and I’m sure they’ll do great with him.