Dave Meros (Spock's Beard)
March 2007
Your new album is simply called “Spock’s Beard”. How come?
Well, we did the normal process and tried to think of names and we were also think about the obvious thing to name the album after one of the songs. But we just finally decided that we just keep it simple. We wanted to have a simple title and a simple graphic that is up for a lot of interpretation. Unfortunately we didn’t think that it would backfire on us and that we have to explain about this every time. There’s no real heavy reasons why we did it this way, we just thought that it would be cool.
Now it’s been some time since the album was finished. Are you satisfied with everything if you look back on it?
That never really happens. On every CD you’ve done there’s always a few things that you’d like to change or you’d do differently. But I think that’s normal and part of the process. When the album is finished you have to let it go and you have to live with it. But for the most part I’m happy with it.
So far I thought “Octane” was your best album. Now with the new one it’s very close. How do you see that? Can you make favourites?
To me, for what I like, I like both of them. I think the new one has more energy and it will be more fun to play and listen to live. Except for the different influences they were very enjoyable for us to do. A little bit more jazz, fusion, R&B on this one that might be a lot of fun when we play live. In that regard it was a really cool thing that we were trying to do.
Musically I find Spock’s Beard a lot more interesting since Neal quit. I loved the band before, but the newer albums are more diverse and have a lot more to offer...
Yeah, it’s more experimental and more varied, that’s for sure. There’s two types of people, some really prefer the old Spock’s Beard and some prefer the new one and that’s a natural thing. As far as the band it was a very good opportunity for us that we were provided with this thing that already existed, so now we can express ourselves and write more. It’s very satisfying to be able to do that. There’s always gonna be people who liked the old way. We’re just doing what we like.
Which current member is the closest to the old Spock’s sound as far as songwriting goes?
That’s a hard question because sometimes I think that John and I write the most traditional progressive kind of stuff. On this record Al and Nick wrote “On a Perfect Day”, which is probably the most old Spock’s Beard sounding song we’ve done. So, it kinda depends on what just comes out at the time with each person. It’s not that one person writes more in that style than the rest of us.
How does the songwriting process look like since Neal left?
With him leaving everything changed as he wrote everything before. He wrote the songs, recorded the demos and then he just sent us CDs and we learnt the songs. Now we’re all writing. It’s like going from zero to 100% as far as our songwriting.
How is the relationship between the band and Neal?
He’s a very good friend of ours and will always be. Of course we were disappointed when he left and that was a really scary time for us. We didn’t know what was gonna happen. All the emotions you can imagine were involved, but in the long run he handed this whole thing to us, so in a way I’m very grateful to him for providing us the opportunity. And Neal has his own thing, so if you like Neal there’s his stuff and also there’s Spock’s Beard, so it’s like two things instead of one for the fans. So, yeah, we are in contact and I talk to him in every month or two.
Do you like his solo albums?
Yeah, they are really great. I like everything that he writes. He’s a complete genius as far as I’m concerned. I’m just amazed at the volume of music just comes out of him and the quality of it.
Do you see yourself ever working together with him on a project?
Yeah, I wouldn’t rule that out. I don’t see that happening right know though as he has his group of people and we have our group of people, but if there would be an opportunity I wouldn’t say no, that’s for sure.
I’m sure this will never happen, but what if Neal called you up and said that he wanted to get back into the band? (Laughs)
(Laughs) I don’t know. I can’t even think about that. That would be like it: your girlfriend broke up with you, then you get on with your life and then se said that she wanted to get back. That’d be kind of a complicated issue to deal with in a lot of different ways. It’s an interesting thing to think about though.
Well, let’s get back to your new album. What are the songs about as far as their lyrics go?
In general it is about all different things and it’s not a concept CD by any means. There’s a few songs that are just basic personal issues, a love song, relationship song type of things. The songs that John and I wrote, I know a lot more about that than the others. “All that’s left” is pretty much a relationship song with a melancholy lyric. “Slow Crash Landing Man” is about a guy who’s involved in a plane crash where everyone else is killed and he walks away pretty much unharmed and how the rest of his life goes on after that. It shows how he sees his life before and after the crash. But the lyrics were written very openly so it’s up for a lot of interpretation. One guy on a message board had a very interesting concept that had nothing to do with our idea, but it made sense. Then the big one “As far as the mind can see” is an open ended kind of thing. It's kind of a very loose general commentary on the state of society right now. But again John wrote the lyrics very open to leave enough room for interpretation for the listeners to make up their own stories.
What would be your favourite song if you could pick just one?
That is changing from day to day. One day I really think that “Sometimes they Stay, Sometimes They Go” is my favourite one, then the other day “On a Perfect Day” or another song, so it keeps changing from day to day so can't really answer that.
The song I like the most is “With Your Kiss” with Nick's drumming thing in the middle of the song. Now, that's awesome.
The tribal kind of drumming? Yeah, that's great. There's been a lot of people mentioning that part. That's Nick's song, he wrote the whole song. He had the idea that some tribal sounding drumming would be really good there and kinda went for it and it turned out great. In fact it used to bass in that part and we just took the bass out, so the drums could be completely loud. It worked out better and more powerfully by taking the bass out from the mix. And that was fine with me, no problem. It sounds a lot more powerful this way.
Ryo and Nick already had solo albums released a few years ago. How about you and Alan?
Actually Alan has a solo record that is finished and is going to be released in a few months. It’s a great album, all guitar stuff. John and I have been playing around with ideas for a solo record for about a year and a half now and eventually we might do something.
Are you planning an all instrumental or a vocal album?
I think it’ll be both. We haven’t decided yet. We have to audition a lot of different voices. It depends on the material we are writing. I consider it to be pretty hard rock. We are thinking maybe of a female vocalist too, I don’t know. Or maybe we’ll just have a couple of singers, so we could switch back and forth and use different voices for different songs. The music is gonna be a lot darker than what we write for Spock’s Beard. A little more harder edged and a little darker.
Btw, do you like Nick’s and Ryo’s solo stuff?
Oh yes, they are good. Everybody did a great job there writing music. Actually I think that these solo albums help Spock’s Beard too because not everything we write is a Spock’s Beard song, so if we have an outlet for the other stuff then when we do Spock’s Beard we can make it more what it needs to be rather than our own personal creativity thing.
When it comes to today’s music are you keeping up with the scene?
I try to. I’m not really super up to date on it but I do listen to a lot of stuff and I buy CDs on a regular basis and I like a lot of the new music that’s coming out. I really like some of the newer progressive bands like Porcupine Tree, Tool, The Mars Volta and System of a Dawn.
You’re going on a European tour starting in May. Are you going to have a support band coming along with you?
Right now it seems that it’ll be only Spock’s and possibly a local opening act depending on the venue. With two drum sets that we use and all the keyboards and all the stuff on smaller stages it’s almost impossible to have a support band. When we tour smaller venues normally we just do by ourselves. At one time we were thinking of doing a tour with Frost but they already broken up after not even doing any shows. (Laughs) But without a support band we can play two hours a night or even a little bit more.
With a back catalogue of nine studio albums how can you compile a proper setlist for a two hour show?
That gets harder and harder every year because the fans obviously wanna hear your new stuff but we also wanna do some old stuff and there’s more and more material to choose from. It used to be really easy. When we first started we just played every song we knew but now we have to make decisions of what to choose from which album. Nick is usually doing a really good job in picking the songs. He’s been deciding the setlist on the last two tours and I think he did a really good job kind of balancing between the new stuff and the old stuff.
Did you make up your mind about what songs to play from the new album?
I think we can probably do most of it. I doubt we would do “Hereafter” because that one is very very quiet and also very difficult to play. Most of the rest of it we could probably do. We are talking about using samplers on this next tour because we have a lot of stuff that’s impossible to make the other way. I mean stuff like real strings, real horns and all these weird different sounds and different things that we would really to have live, so we might have samplers on this tour, which would allow us actually to do almost everything on the CD. But it’s yet to be decided.
How about the live drumming? Will you have Jimmy joining you again?
Yes, definitely. He’s really amazing. Both Nick and him are extremely good players and both have similar styles. They can play really well together. And added the fact that Jimmy has a really nice voice and he can sing high harmonies, which is a very valuable part of our live touring. Some of the songs on the new CD have really nice drum parts in there that will allow them to play together. That’s gonna be great fun on this tour.