Voted “Best Keyboardist of All Time” (Music Radar Magazine), virtuoso musician/composer Jordan Rudess, will embark on an Australian & New Zealand tour this November performing his solo piano performance, FROM BACH TO ROCK: A MUSICIAN’S JOURNEY. Fans can expect dazzling performances of material ranging from George Gershwin, David Bowie and John Lennon, through to Pink Floyd, Liquid Tension Experiment and King Crimson. And of course, fans will relish an abundance of magnificent Dream Theater material. We caught up with Jordan to discuss the tour and much more.
Metal-Roos: Hello Jordan, thank you for taking the time to talk to me today! Your career in music is about as extensive as a musician can have, from Dream Theatre to side projects, solo albums, an online conservatorium where you offer complete lesson plans for several instruments as well as your entrepreneurial endeavours into musical technology, you really have achieved amazing things. Now you are bringing your solo performance from Bach to Rock to Australia… Is this the first time you have toured solo?
Jordan: Pretty much, yeah. These last couple of years I’ve been really focussing on putting energy behind my solo work, and specifically been enjoying solo piano for a couple of reasons: it’s kinda like a home-base for me, I’m really comfortable expressing myself through piano. I love playing piano, it’s a different side of my musicality that is so important to me and I really love to share it and when I do share it, I get a really wonderful response. For the last few years, I have been using live streaming systems, I just put my phone or little device next to my piano and record or stream out live. It’s really rewarding for me, very satisfying. I love the idea that I can instantly share with a worldwide audience, it’s so awesome.
But there is nothing like getting out there in person, so with help from my wife Daniella, who is a theatrical producer, she really helped organise and manage this whole concept. We made it happen! We did a bunch of shows in the US and Europe, we went out as a special guest of Al Di Meola, so on every level it’s been very rewarding.
Metal-Roos: These performances are a demonstration of your musical journey and inspiration through the years. Out of all the music that you have heard and oved over the years, how hard was it to choose the songs that are in the setlist?
Jordan: The hardest part was to understand what I was gonna do. The original idea was that I was going to come out and play some music. Even the idea of just improvising came up, I love improvising, just sitting at a piano I would be very comfortable improvising a whole show. Maybe some people would like that, but, Danielle said “your music is great but we need a kind of concept, we need something that’s more than just music, something that’s a show that people could sink their brains into and be entertained”. We came up with this idea of doing Bach to Rock: A Musicians Journey and I felt like it made a lot of sense, cause my journey has been pretty unique.
I felt like wow, it made a lot of sense, because my journey has been unique and interesting I enjoy telling it and I can use music as a tool to tell this path that I’ve been on. Starting with from when I was young at Juilliard kid at 9 years old and even before that of course when I first touched a piano at 2 years old with local lessons. So, from Juilliard, through 10 years from when I finally left Juilliard to pursue my interests and went out to the crazy world, I don’t know what I was going to do, but I have been exposed to progressive rock and the Moog synthesizer and all this stuff. Those days there was no Berkeley, no Musicians Institute, and I was like wow this stuff is really turning me on what do I do with it all…
So that’s what I kind of take people through, basically I start by playing some music. I come on stage and improvise at first, let’s call it a song. I put some musical energy out there and try to get a response from the audience a vibe from the room, and then I go into the story and I play some Bach. If I feel comfortable I’ll throw in some Chopin, maybe a little Blues, other kinds of music that I used to play in hotels or lounges when I used to support myself. Then I tell a funny story about that, some sick prog things, kind of just choose things that were very meaningful to me. The whole Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, those groups had major effect so I took in some of that, so I do like a kind of medley, play some songs from those groups. Then I do a whole segment that’s on Liquid Tension and Dream Theatre and original music and it’s all woven into a story. The journey, which luckily in Australia is going to be quite comfortable because everybody speaks English…I think…hahaha
Metal-Roos: Is performing at the Sydney Opera house a tick off the bucket list?
Jordan: I’m really excited about it! I mean every time I go to Sydney with the group I walk around there and think it’s so beautiful and I really enjoyed the town, there’s a great Vibe. So now that I can actually walk into the building, I’ve never even walked into the building! Dream Theatre has never played there, so it’s really cool, I don’t know what the venue is inside (Opera House Studio). But I’m sure it’s cool and I’m very excited about it. I love coming to Sydney
Metal-Roos: I had a quick look into the geo-shred app offered by Wizdom Music. It seems an exceptionally powerful tool! Have you incorporated this into your solo performance? How so?
Jordan: Yes, I have actually! In telling my journey, of course a part of my journey is a journey with music technology and how I started my own company Wizdom music. The show is 95% at a keyboard, but the other part is with a geo-shred way out shredding… I go nuts on it. So, it’s pretty fun I switch gears and I show you what I’m doing my technology, but the geo-shred is definitely a part of it.
Metal-Roos: Is it just yourself or do you have musicians on stage with you?
Jordan: It is solo! I play the piano, I hum, I’m going to stamp my feet, just do a lot of things to keep it going… haha
Metal-Roos: You are offering meet and greets at your performances, do you offer these through the entire tour?
Jordan: This is the new thing, this type of formal meet and greet, on this leg of the tour, and actually I’m really excited about it. The whole tour is quite intimate. They’re not huge places, but they’re really nice places and it’s a really cool vibe, so it’s kind of an extension to that. We’re doing these meet and greets where I can do them in a way that’s not the usual way when I go out with Dream Theatre, which is fine. We’re all standing there and people come up and get something signed, take a photo etc… where with this solo tour, I can actually open up at a bit more, so the concept is people come in I’ll be at the piano they’ll see me doing a bit of soundcheck. I’ll talk to them a little bit about my musical process and they can ask questions about whatever they want. So, fans get to engage on a different level, and then I’ll open it up to yes, I’ll sign your things and we can take a picture etc…so it’s a little bit more intimate and more engaging which is possible in this format.
Metal-Roos: I bet there are hundreds of amazing experiences during meet and greets with any project, do any stand out?
Jordan: A funny thing does pop in my head that I can share: when we do meet and greets all the time, people say hello and sometimes people will be told, please don’t shake their hands. Sometimes you just have to be very careful, but, you know, people do a little fist bump or whatever. Actually, two things stand out, but I’ll tell you this story first. So, we’re in Canada, just starting a tour, it’s the first show and I’m used to being very aware of people and their approach to me at the meet and greets. You know, like are they going to have a really strong grip and let them know to go easy. I’m not against touching anyone, but I need to be aware of they are going to crush my hand… haha
So, it’s the first Dream Theatre show in Canada, I’m the first one in line. The first guy starts coming and I kind of put out my hand and this guy just takes his hand, like as if he wanted to give me a huge slap, and he hit me so hard. I screamed out in pain! Everyone in the group was like, “what happened, what happened” I didn’t. have my guard up, then, I looked at my hand I was like holy s*** this is not a good way to start a tour!
On the other hand, something more gentle happened when I was in Turkey we’re inline all of a sudden this guy came up… this is so unexpected because it just doesn’t happen he walks up to me and kisses me on the cheek! It really threw me because the customs are very different, for guys to give each other kisses. Also, at a meet and greet you don’t really know these people! “Oh my god this guy kissed me on the cheek!”. Kinda bizarre, strange things can happen, you know.
Metal-Roos: I read that you have two albums coming out next year, a solo project and a Dream Theatre album. Where does the inspiration for each project come from? How do you keep your sound unique in each project?
Jordan: Yeah, well, luckily for the most part I’ve got enough kind of ideas and styles and weird stuff. When I think about it, things come out and there is a good chance it will be different. I would have more of a difficult problem if I were a musician of a specific style. Even Dream Theatre is pretty wide, we incorporate a lot of things, so that makes it a little bit easier to keep it separate. The other thing is when I’m doing my solo project like a piano thing, a mellow piano thing would be different. Even when I am doing Prog, when I’m going for it myself. I can get pretty crazy with lots of orchestration and weird sounds, stuff that I like to do which is not necessarily part of the Dream Theatre thing. Where I play a role which is part of a metal progressive metal outfit, it’s a great question cuz it’s a concern that you don’t want to sound the same.
Metal-Roos: You have so much experience with composition and have composed full orchestras before. When writing and composing, do you hear each instrument playing the parts or does everything start with piano?
Jordan: When I write for an orchestra, generally what I did when I wrote my big orchestral piece, Explorations for Keypord and Orchestra, I mocked it up in my studio. I got all these programs that would allow me to make all the sounds of the orchestra. I’ve always been into that since the beginning of keyboards I like to play orchestral sounds. I have always been interested in, how do I play this when it doesn’t sound like a keyboard, when it sounds like what I’m trying to emulate. So, I can experiment in the studio when I can hear something in my head and try it and build my orchestration like that. Then what I do personally is to send it to someone who is more familiar with writing with that exact instruments. As an example, I might play something on a keyboard that’s a string sound like a four-note chord, but obviously a violin doesn’t play a chord, so obviously someone’s going to have to go and say all it’s nice what you did in the studio but we need to separate those parts. I was always busy with my piano stuff and my improvising and all the rest of it. I didn’t go to advanced orchestration classes to learn how to do that the way some guys do.
Metal-Roos: Your musical education is well documented. You have been called a virtuoso and voted the greatest keyboardist of all time, but Jimi Hendrix is considered the greatest guitar player of all time, and he had little to no formal instruction in the instrument. In your opinion what makes a musician truly great?
Jordan: I think what makes a musician great is to be able to take what’s in their mind and translate it out into the world as sound. You have a feeling, or a thought, or some kind of an energy that you want to be able to bring it out, how do you bring that out? If you are a guitar player, you gotta put your fingers on the fretboard work out the connection with your spirit, your mind and your body, then make it through your fingers. If you’re an Aphex Twin or Audica and you’re working at a computer you learn the computer tools to make that happen. It’s all about the translation and building the inner tools to be able to express your music. Hendrix was able to take his cool a cool that no-one else had and just put it out into his music and how did he do it because he could play!
Tour Dates:
Wednesday Nov 21 Brisbane – Triffid
Thursday Nov 22 Adelaide – The Gov
Friday Nov 23 Melbourne – Art Centre Playhouse
Sunday Nov 25 Auckland Tuning Fork
Tuesday Nov 27 Sydney Opera House Studio
Wednesday Nov 28 Canberra – the Basement
Tickets: davidroywilliams.com/tours/jordanrudess
