| June 1, 2003
With the amount of songwriting and multi-instrumentalist talent in the band, there was little more than a brief pause when Neal Morse, Spock's Beard's lead vocalist and keyboardist announced he was leaving the band due to an increasing focus on his Christian beliefs. No question, Neal was a huge piece of the puzzle. And even though skeptics doubted the band could continue, fans and followers of America's premier prog progenitors knew with a wink and a smile, that Al, Ryo, Dave and Nick could rise and shine. The result is the band's seventh studio album, Feel Euphoria, a record that sees drummer Nick D'Virgilio emerge from behind the set and turn in the biggest, widest, most diverse vocal tour de force of the band's career.
PROBLEM SOLVED. Perhaps in even more convincing fashion than templates for this idea, Phil Collins and Dave Grohl, given that Nick has already proven himself as a co-lead vocalist for Spock's Beard, given that Nick is already established as a solo artist, and given that Nick can master just about any instrument you hand him - look for him to sing and play rhythm guitar most of the time when the band play live. "Losing Neal was kind of a surprise at the beginning," explains Nick, "something none of us really expected, that's for sure. Then after we realized he was serious, I basically decided that I didn't want to quit yet and I kind of went for it and took the reigns and had the guys jump on with me."
Nick describes Feel Euphoria as "more experimental and harder rocking. It's different because everybody in the band is writing. It's got more edge and it's darker." Which is not to say the album strays from elegant, Spock's Beard trademarks. In addition to myriad solos, amazing melodies and stellar production, there is, in fact, an epic in six parts called "Sid." "That was the first thing I wrote for the new record," says Nick. "Basically, I wanted to write something in the style of the old Beard to prove to the guys that we should keep doing this, and to have something to show the fans that we're still a prog band. So I went for it. It's about a guy who grows up a bully and fights his way to the top of corporate life by being fierce and mean, a back-stabber basically. He gets all the way up there and realizes that he's all alone and doesn't have any friends. He looks at himself and towards the end of the song and realizes that he can't live his life that way because he's lonely."
The track is a maelstrom of exquisite Spock's Beard playing, and in fact, pure unbridled creative freedom. That freedom virtually sings throughout the entire album and throughout the line-up. Keyboardist Ryo Okumoto is particularly impressive on the album, hard-charging with Purple-esque Hammond B3 and C3 amongst many other textures relentlessly prog - yet appealingly modern - in nature.
D'Virgilio says that after his own, the biggest change in band roles happened with respect to Ryo and then perhaps Al. "Ryo has now taken over almost all of the keyboards; he's playing everything. Before, Neal used to play the piano and the synth lines, and Ryo was pretty much the organ and mellotron. Ryo is now the 'everything' keyboards guy. And Al has changed in that he's writing a lot more. He didn't have Neal around to kind of... he was his own guy in the studio making up his guitar parts basically, which freed him up a lot. He definitely had a little weight come off his shoulders in that respect in the studio. He really went for what was in his head. He really played his butt off (laughs). All the guitar solos are great. The way he played the third section of "Sid," called "You Don't Know," just slays me; kind of Stevie Ray Vaughn meets... oh, I don't know, whoever does good guitar solos (laughs). It's really tasty stuff. Not to mention the Queen-like moments. Plus in "Sid" again, in the part called "Judge," there's a great Ted Nugent-style moment; I mean, it's full-on rock band, right down the line. He's definitely brought a cool rock element to the record. But Ryo, his piano playing on "Ghost Of Autumn" I think is great. I never had a chance to hear Ryo play piano like that. It's straight-ahead, not real fancy, but it's just cool pop keyboard playing there. And of course he's played great organ solos like he always does."
Another change that makes this record sound so forceful and cohesive is the new spirit of collaboration, or more accurately, of "consolidation." Not only has the band strengthened their team through the input of long-time "honorary member" John Boegehold (co-writer on four tracks - mostly lyrics), but engineer/mixer Rich Mouser stepped forth, having the band work more cohesively.
"Overall it went pretty quickly," says Nick, "about the same amount of time as our other records. But personally I was in the studio a lot more than ever before, just from doing all the vocals. We never really recorded like that in the past. Everybody always did their overdubs at their houses. We pretty much just hired Rich, our engineer/mixing guy and did it all at his place, with him there kind of helping us through things. So it was different in that aspect. Vocally, I just wanted to sing like a rock singer on this record, do whatever I could to try and make my voice be more powerful, and have a little more character to it. That's why it was really great having Rich around for a lot of things. And studying different singers and stuff, David Sylvian, Chris Cornell in Soundgarden and Audioslave, Stone Temple Pilots, Beatles, just practicing those types of things to see if my voice could actually do that." "And I think the guitars are definitely recorded better than in the past, because Rich had a firsthand in recording them. With him at his studio, miking up the stuff with his mikes... you know, we had a real engineer doing it, rather than Al doing it at his house; that definitely makes a difference. I mean, I don't think the guitars sucked in the past, but that's one of the bigger things, as well as recording all the vocals at Rich's house, having someone there to really dial in the sound and really listen to you sing, rather than you trying to produce yourself. It's a much better way to do it." "We were just trying make a good record," sums up D'Virgilio. "We wanted it to be heavier, a little bit more in-your-face, maybe not so nice sounding as a lot of things we've done in the past. And I don't know if that's because we were all mad. I don't want to overanalyze it. It's just kind of what we were all feeling. In some weird way, we never really had the chance to do this kind of stuff before, as a band, this idea of getting mean and dirty... turn the guitars up and go!"
"I'll be out front singing," re-confirms a justly confident Nick in closing, with respect to eagerly anticipated live dates in Europe, then America, then Europe again. "And we'll have another drummer playing behind us. We haven't decided who yet. And I'll go back and play on a lot of the instrumental sections. I have grandiose plans about it. I'll play on instrumental sections and I'll probably sing a couple of things from behind the drum kit. We'll have two drummers playing on certain things. We'll be trying to make it as showy and big and entertaining as possible (laughs)."
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