Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess spoke in an interview with Lots of Muzic. He explained what we should expect from their upcoming album. He said:
“Dream Theater has had a very long career, and when it came the time to do the album that turned out to be The Astonishing we wanted to do something that was created a little bit different than usual. We wanted to do a concept album, and John Petrucci and I decided that the best way to do this kind of album was to sit in a room and really write this thing, like a musical or a rock opera, and that’s what we did.
We took some very focused time writing all this music, an it’s an album that I’m extremely proud of – It’s one of my proudest achievements with Dream Theater. But I know it was a very polarizing album for the fans, and I think the reason is that Dream Theater fans are varied anyways.
You have the guys that like the heavy stuff, while other like the progressive and more melodic stuff – and there’s a lot of different kinds of music within what we do, so it creates this situation. You can’t really please everybody, and in The Astonishing we couldn’t please everybody.
A lot of our metal fans kinda dropped off and said “what the hell are you guys doing with these sweet soft parts?” [laughs]. And I get that, that’s fine – you can’t please everybody all the time. But I’m excited because I feel like this new album is going to be a home run. I get it – Dream Theater fans don’t like to go for too long of a gentle ride.
Maybe a ballad here and there, but I think the bulk of them are not so into the Disney-esque influence [laughs]. We did that and we loved it, we had a great time, it was the biggest production ever.
But now the next stage is back to the roots, back to the core of the sound – screaming Hammond organ, killing leads, chunky riffs, slamming drums, and everybody will be there moshing! [laughs].”
Click here to entire interview.
