A replay of Peaches Pit Party which you can hear on KBEAR 101 weekday afternoons 2pm - 7pm MST
The Artist Interrogations podcast. How are you doing, James? I'm doing great, Brendan. How are you? Doing fantastic.
It's awesome to talk to you. You're my you're my first ever interview, to be honest. What? So Pretty good. Yeah.
Thank you very much. What? Should we just dive right into the new album? Absolutely. Okay.
You, go for it. Yeah. No. I was gonna say a View From the Top of the World. I've been listening to it nonstop ever since it was released October 22nd and just wanted to ask because your last album was in 2019 and 2020 obviously with everything that happened, did that put some inspiration or creativity when it came to this album?
I think that, you know, to be honest with you, I think the pandemic really made us, you know, take a step back and and, and and think about what really matters in life and that is, you know, we have our health, we have our family, we have our friends. And then as far as the ban goes, you know, we we realized that, you know, hey, man, we can't take any of this for granted. I think it was a spirited, endeavor because of what was going on around us that we, you know, it was a welcome put it this way, a welcome distraction to go into the studio and focus on music. But there was like a it was a spirited effort because, we just realized that, you know, like, so easily something could be taken away from you, you know. And, so I think going into this album, you know, we we knew the kind of album we wanted to to write.
We knew that we wanted it to be high energy, you know, from beginning to end. You know, we knew we wanted to write an epic track and and so on and so forth. But I think with the events, the the current state state of of affairs around us, I think that it really kind of did give us that inspiration to, you know, wanna have this this union and really be able to celebrate what it is that we do as artists. Yeah. So I think it it it really lent itself.
You know, it was unfortunate. We had to pull down the, the world tour, before we were even anywhere near. I mean, we we our last show was in Glasgow on February 23, 2020, and we were supposed to be out until, yeah, like mid October of that year, you know? And Wow. You know, so anyways, it but we, you know, I think what we need to be thankful for is that we're all healthy and we're all doing well and we got a a great album out and that we're all looking forward to getting back out and and touring and supporting it and doing what we love to do.
Oh, absolutely. And I'm a guy that loves amazing album covers and obviously over the years Dream Theater has had a ton of these amazing album artworks. So what's the inspiration behind this one? Well, we were once again working with Hugh Seim who's who's world renowned for all his works with Rush, you know, and he came in from Caress of Steel and onward. You know, he's just a phenomenal talent.
Hugh is, he, you know, he always loves to start with, the the title of the album. So that's what he likes to get first. And from there, he's very prolific in the way in the way that he comes up with the imagery. He comes up and it's his it's it's his art. It's his imagery that that really describes, what it is that we're trying to get across visually.
And, with him, you know, like, he he right away, like, the title track A View From the Top of the World is actually talking about the daredevils that live in our in our world. You know, they like to push, to the the physical extremes even with the risk of paying the, the ultimate price. So people who love to skydive, mountain climb, you got it, white water rafting, you know, anything that is almost like to a certain degree death defying. And, so that's what really what that that title track is about. So he, has that that the the album cover is a place, I believe, it's in North, Norway.
And, it it actually exists. Like, that's a real place that people go and they stand on that rock between 2 of the, you know, the cliffs or the edifice there. And you you can go up there, and I think it's 300 meters in the air, which is what? Like, 900 feet, a 1000 feet? Jeez.
Something like that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, would you do it? I wouldn't do it.
I was gonna say at that moment, there would be, like, a slight tremor and then you fall. Yeah. I was gonna say yeah. I was gonna say, how did he find that place? Did he already know about it?
You know, that that's Hugh. Like, you know, I'm sure he has his way of researching and and looking at, you know, places or or anything, you know, that that will conjure up something that will, you know, support what it is that he's going after. He he probably just that's his homework. I'm not quite sure all he does his research. Yeah.
But, yeah, but, you know, that then that's the thing. And if you look at the rest of the booklet, of the album and the way that he supports each lyric and each song with the imagery behind each each song, it it's it's phenomenal. I mean, the guy is just, like, he's just so cool. Yeah. And, and so unique and he and he's identifiable.
You know that that's Hugh Syme's artwork, you know. He just has an identity. And obviously, for that last song, A View From the Top of the World, it's 20 minutes long. It's an epic song. I love it.
But did you guys all collaborate on saying, hey, we're gonna make a 20 minute long epic song for this album to end the whole entire thing? Yeah. Well, we knew that we were gonna do that that kind of a track before we even set foot in the studio. We we knew that we wanted you know, it was about time. It had been a while since Illumination Theory, which was our last epic track.
We we knew that we wanted to to write another epic, and so that kind of, you know, set the tone for the rest of the album. We knew that, you know, with an epic track, then that also opens the door that we can go down these avenues and explore here. And I mean every Dream Theater, album is, you know, pushing everything to the limit, to the maximum. There's no, there's no predictability as to where we wanna go until we get in the room with each other and then everything starts to come together. A lot of conversation and a lot of, you know, ideas like seeds to to each and every song or idea that that, eventually morphs into a a complete song.
So we definitely knew we were doing an epic. That's for sure. Yeah. Did you, so that goes into my next question about, do you guys all go into the studio at once and collectively just jam and say we kinda like this sound, we'll go along with this, Or do you go in there with sheet music and, like, are prepared for No. No.
Doing the whole album? Yeah. No. No. I I we we we kinda go in, to the studio so we're all together, and then we we have a, you know, like I said there's a lot of conversation.
And then every, you know, everyone, has seeds. You know, a lot of a lot of the ideas in that stem from the writing instruments and that being the keyboard and the guitar. So Jordan and John, you know, they they do have a lot of ideas and seeds and then from there, mushrooms to the rest of the guys and then we all have our input and so on and so forth and not that we're not coming in with ideas as well. So it's it's a matter, you know, for a band like this to be able to put together, you you you have to be in the same room, you know. Now that being said, as instrumentalists, you have to be in the same room because there's a lot of chemistry, there's a lot of feeding off of one another.
Myself, with this particular album, I was at my studio in my house being pumped through to those guys via Zoom, and then their instruments were pumped pumped through my studio speakers at my house. So but, you know, that didn't really change the game because normally, I would be there and sitting in the in the corner with my mic, you know, and then my headphones on and then that's how I would communicate to them. So the only difference being is that, you know, I was a 1,000 miles away or whatever, and they could see me. They had me up on a big monitor screen, and they could look at my big face on this monitor screen. And then I was able I was able to communicate to them right then and there, the same way that I would if I was sitting in the room.
So it didn't really change the game for me, but for them, they have to be together in the room. Because the it's it's so prolific the way that things happen. Things happen quickly. And, you know, one's feeding off the other, whether it be John and Mike, you know, feeding off a rip or John and Jordan or or vice versa. The all of them, you know, and and that's the way that it goes.
But, you know, we're we go in with these ideas. We jam out the ideas. One thing leads to another, and eventually, that's how songs, become who and what they are. Oh, that's tremendous. Yeah.
So I have a feature called Yeah. My my I go by Peaches on on k barrel 101. So my last name's Peach. Okay. Yeah.
That's why I go by Peaches. It's just a funny little gimmick. But I have this little feature called Peaches Powerballad, and I played Invisible Monster, like, right as it came out. Could you tell the listeners what is the idea behind that song? It's about, like, just basically that we all have, you know, our, we all have our demons, like, we all have our doubts, we all have our, our faults in that, and it's how much attention are you going to give to the, to the voice that's, you know, constantly dubious or or anything like that?
And it and it's I think that it's a matter of transcending that which kind of can always make us less of who and what we are or what our potential our full potential is. So that's it. You know? It's dealing with this voice of conflict. And are you ever are you going to be able to suppress it?
Are you going to be able to get past it? Are you going to eradicate it completely? That's what it's about. That basically puts it in a nutshell. The artist's interrogations podcast is a production of Riverbend Media Group.
For more information or to contact the show, visit riverbendmediagroup.com.