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part one | part two
1) A curious track on your first solo album is "A Whole Nother Trip," which was originally written for TransAtlantic when Jim Matheos was still supposed to be part of that project. When one looks at the rest of the album, the song seems to be miles apart from what otherwise is pretty direct pop. Why didn't you save the song for later on with TransAtlantic? Neal: Well, because it was my first solo album and I thought, "well, basically everybody who buys this album is pretty much a prog fan, so I should have one prog thing on there." And I was actually so excited about it that I just wanted to do it; I didn't want to wait at that point. It looked like it was gonna be a while before what was to become TransAtlantic was going to happen. You know, I'm just impatient! 2) Something that I remember reading was that the instruments on the song "The Eyes of the World (George's Song)" were recorded entirely by you at home. Was playing it all by yourself very important, as the song was quite personal and touched upon the delicate subject of George Pappanostas' [Ed.note: who played bass live at one time with Spock's Beard] sad passing away? Neal: Oh, no, not really, it was just kind of a timing thing. We were about to mix some stuff on that record, and I was just home. I didn't really intend to necessarily have it be on the record…I just cut a bunch of demos. I decided that I liked that one and I wanted it to be a tribute to George, and it was just done that way. 3) When one looks at both your solo albums, what immediately calls one's attention is the fact that the songs on both releases span quite a long period of time, that is, from the eighties until now! Considering the length of time that you've worked with music, just how many songs do you have in the backburner? Neal: I don't know…a lot (laughs). I lost track - I don't know - maybe about two thousand or something. When I was writing I used to write about three songs a day…most of them weren't any good, but I used to write a lot of songs when I was young. When I was in my twenties I wrote tons of songs, a lot of material, most of which I don't even remember how it goes. They're all in storage somewhere (laughs). But like I said, most of them were not really good. 4) You have already recorded Merry Christmas from the Morse Family with, for the sake of being redundant, the Morse family…why not record another album with the other Morse family? That is, with both Al and Richard? Or is working with Al in Spock's Beard already too much? Neal: (laughs) No, it's not too much! I don't know…that's an interesting idea…doing a Morse Family record with Richard and Al; doing a Christmas album. That's an interesting idea…we'll do that for next year, ok? 5) All the members from your former band in the eighties are currently working in the computer branch, which means that you were the only one who really stuck to music. When you consider that, and the fact that it took you a long frustrating time to finally reach some success, are you glad that you stuck to your guns long enough to see something finally work out? Or better put, how would your life have been if you had kept working at Richard's restaurant instead of working with music? Neal: (laughs) Where did you read that? That's funny…well, of course now I'm glad I stuck it out for many years. But that's just one of those things I never thought of…"what else would I have done?" for me it's like "Well, what choice do I really have?" So yeah, I'm glad now, but I wasn't glad for many years. Who knows what life would have been like otherwise? I can't even imagine… 6) Quick question: Really short one that you might already be getting tired of: any news on the Hitman musical? Neal: Oh no, I don't get asked that very often! No, it's just kind of sitting around, gathering dust…I haven't really thought about it for a while… …I guess it's kind of complicated with all the resources involved? Neal: Oh yeah, putting a musical on and everything is very complicated. Somebody with a lot of money would have to get very excited about it! 7) Last question of part two: We've seen both your Beatles and progressive influences come back by means of your music. Are Black Sabbath and Deep Purple ever going to resurface? Neal: What about "Into Fire" man? …Oh well…yeah…I mean, more often… Neal: Right…I don't know, yeah, there's some heavy things on the new Spock's record, I'm sure you'll be pleased! For more
information, visit the official
Spock's Beard website |