Progressive Nation Tour (Valley Scene Magazine)

Progressive Nation Tour
By Rei Nishimoto

Progressive rock music is a genre that has been overlooked by the mainstream but still attracted a fan base unlike other styles of music. Since its earliest acts in the 1970s, such as Kansas and King Crimson, musicians have been keeping the spirit of progressive music alive through various forms.

Dream Theater has been one of the biggest bands to fuse progressive rock influences with heavy metal and fusion to create some of the most exciting sounds that fans have grown to love. For almost two decades, they have created music that incorporates concepts from mystery stories to various theories that is played along to occasional instrumental jam sessions.

Tonight's set was a condensed version of what Dream Theater fans expected from the band. An exciting video intro that flashed a computer animation of an ant that set the tone for the evening, giving fans the feeling of the musical journey the band was taking the fans on.

Keyboardist Jordan Rudess set the tone for the band, bringing the crowd into each song. His swiveling keyboard dome was set up to give a Sci-Fi like feeling when on stage, and somewhat like the Master of Ceremonies like persona throughout the night. But, drummer Mike Portnoy is the star of the band, with his rock n'roll personality behind his two dimensional drum kit, switching kits in between each song. His energetic style kept the crowd excited for more, and his arms waving to keep the crowd participating throughout the evening.

While frontman James LaBrie's role live was minimized, as the band incorporated more instrumental jams than songs with vocals. While his vocals are in no way a weak point within the band, Dream Theater fed off of the crowd reactions to the instrumental portions of their set.

Their overall show was very energetic and the fans loved every moment of the night. But one downfall was that they cut out long time favorites such as 'Pull Me Under' from their setlist, which was a surprise. Whether this will be a move that will continue onto future tours will be seen when they come back through.

Swedish progressive doom metallers Opeth have come a long way since their underground death metal days back in the early 1990s. Since that time, they have been through numerous lineup changes and have traded Pink Floyd-like parts in place of simple blasting drums and roaring guitars.

Frontman Mikael Akerfeldt is the sole original member of the band, and his vision of creating music that fused death metal and progressive rock has began to take on a life of its own. Much of their songs they performed still have the heavy guitar tones, rooted to their death metal influences. But they have cited influences such as Uriah Heep and worked in swinging guitar melodies to alternate with the heavier parts and keyboard parts to compliment the rest of the music.

Akerfeldt mainly belted out raw, guttural vocals throughout the set, but on occasional moments, there are some cleaner vocal parts that have drawn in new fans over the years. Songs like 'Wreath' had won over fans over the past few years, and the fans singing along with them proved that metal fans are not the only ones who have grown to appreciate Opeth's music.

Between the Buried and Me is part of the new wave of neo-progressive metal/rock, and their exciting sound incorporates thrashy guitar parts with guttural vocals, that fans of modern heavy metal and metallic hardcore have grown to love. While much of their sound is on the metallic side, they have a slowed down progressive style that are equal parts ISIS as much as Porcupine Tree. While they appealed more to the younger fans, Between the Buried and Me are definitely an exciting band to watch out for.

Show openers 3 played a brief set of traditional progressive rock music, featuring two drummers, a bassist, a guitarist and a vocalist who also doubled on guitar. They brought a modernized twist to progressive rock while bringing their own fresh approaches to their sound. Frontman Joey Eppard fused lots of energy into their sound and gave the people in the crowd a taste of a new generation of progressive rock.

Soilent Green (Blistering.com)

Soilent Green
By: Rei Nishimoto

The kind of hardships the members of Soilent Green faced is something no one would ever wish upon their worst enemies. But each member took the time to work through this and place their energy into creating their strongest release to date.

Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction is Soilent Green’s latest release and is a new beginning in many ways. Overcoming many obstacles, from personal troubles to dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Soilent Green had to work through these issues in order to refocus the band towards creating this record.

Being from the New Orleans area, they were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, where many people in the region lost their homes and belongings due to one of the worst natural disasters in the area. They also learned that the band’s original vocalist, Glenn Rambo,

Guitarist Brian Patton spoke to Blistering.com about the making of the new album, the ups and downs of existing in Soilent Green, and what the future holds for the band.

Blistering.com: You have more of a refined sound this time around. Why did you choose to use Erik Rutan as producer?

Brian Patton: Actually,we used Erik on our last record as well (Confrontation). We met Erik when he was on tour with Morbid Angel. We had toured with those guys for a while. We got to know Erik pretty well. It’s like a friend doing your record. It’s actually really good. He’s in a brand new studio now, compared to the one that we used to record Confrontation. It was really smooth and nice. He knows our sounds. He knows our tones. He could adjust his abilities to be able to capture the organic tones that we look for, opposed to a lot of metal bands kind of go for the really over digital sound. We’re not fans of that at all. He was able to do what we needed to do. We love working with Erik.

Blistering.com: What was it about Erik that you really connected in the studio?

BP: He’s like one of us. He knows what’s going on. He’s a smart guy. He’s been in the business. He knows what sounds good. Like in the old days when all of these bands were all going to Scott Burns back in the early 90s. Every production that came out there sounded exactly the same. Erik has the ability to adjust his talent to what the band needs and what their natural sound actually is. At least that’s the experience I’ve gotten from him. I don’t listen to a lot of metal so I’m not listening to everything Erik churns out.

For us, it felt like a glove and we bonded on tour. We had a good time. We’d sit around. We’d smoke a little; drink a little; and having fun when you’re on tour. You talk about things and pretty soon you’re flushing him out. He was playing around with producing way back then. We recorded at one of his houses. When we moved to do the new record, he has this massive, incredible studio now. The room he has now is amazing. [It is] huge, [with] big wooden floors. Completely professionally done and practically the first time we’ve had that kind of situation. It could be uncomfortable at times. It’s hard to get that locked up in a jam room feel when you’re sitting in this big ass building sitting with headphones on top of your head and everything separated. He was able to pull it off for us.

Blistering.com: How’s Metal Blade treating you? You switched record labels recently.

P: They’re treating us fantastic so far. They’re really behind us. Actually a bunch of the people in the office is a fan of our bands before we went with them. It’s a nice feeling to have that. Unfortunately, our relationship with Relapse became slightly tainted towards the end because of all of the drama that had been going on in our career. They were frustrated at that moment. It’s hard to work a band that gets crippled every time they go out. I understand their frustration. It was a mutual agreement at that point to part ways. We had finished our contract and were in limbo for a little while. Metal Blade seems enthusiastic about what we could possibly do and what we have done in the past. They showed complete confidence, not even worrying about listening to our stuff. [They were] giving us freedom in the studio and having confidence in our abilities as a band.

Blistering.com:Was the album title (Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction) based on a theme?

BP: It’s where our mind was at. Like I said before, we had developed an extreme distaste for the music business and for everything in general, as far as everything outside of the practice room. We had a lot of personal issues that helped that along, as far as a lot of friends dying and a lot of obvious accidents and stuff that we’ve had in our vans. It stripped us basically and we were able to sit back and write this record with clear heads. With a slight distaste and a little bit of a feeling that at this point there was no hope that we’re not going to do anything. So let’s just write stuff for ourselves. It brought us back full circle to when we were kids. It’s our purest writing process that we have had in quite some time. I’ve had a few issues with myself.

It’s really no secret that I’ve been a drug addict for years. I’ve been cleaned up for quite some time now. It’s been at least four or five years since I’ve stopped doing drugs. It takes a while for your mind to clear out. I feel like I’m 18 again when it comes to the writing process. The way it came out, it was probably the truest Soilent Green record since Sewn Mouth Secrets.

Blistering.com:Were there any songs on this record that surprised you on how well it turned out?

BP: As far as the songs go, there are parts in all of the songs. For me, when I’m writing, what we do as a band, we do the parts, flush it and move on. For me, there are groups of parts in about every song that stand out for me. There’s times when I stand back and I’ll be like, ‘yeah! I like that.’ I’m pretty much a perfectionist and I don’t like to suck my own dick, so to say. I stand back, and if I’m proud of it, then I’m proud of it. I don’t think I’m doing anything that is extra special that anybody could do. I just like to have fun and play music and I try to write the best.

As far as picking out certain songs, like I said, it’s hard for me to do. These songs we’ve started to write now for our next record – we don’t write everything within a two month period of time before we go into the studio. It’s a process that I like to start immediately to keep us on our toes. We write our songs throughout a year or two’s period of time before we go in there to record. They’re all personal about the time of life of what I was going through at the time. There are parts of songs in parts that really stick it for me instead of entire songs in general.

Blistering.com: On Confrontation, that was the most amount of touring you’ve done within the history of Soilent Green, considering everyone in the band has multiple bands and projects, and balancing schedules. Do you feel that you got to connect with fans more than ever?

BP: To be honest, we didn’t do a whole lot on that rotation. We were leaving our label and they weren’t willing to do a whole lot for us, as far as booking stuff. We were working with a booking agent that was feeling the same way. We took it with a grain of salt. It is what it is. We were looking forward to our next release at that point.

It’s a little rough. We’ve got to realize that we love playing music to play music. We’re never going to stop. Otherwise we would have given up a long time ago. Those accidents really crippled us. Ben [Falgoust, vocals] was lucky to be walking at all. That dude should have been in a wheelchair the rest of his life. His legs were completely crushed. His entire body was. I’ve had my share of stuff over the years. We’ve a bunch of old, injured bunch of individuals! But we have to truck on. It’s all we know. If we’re able to go play live and do it for people, man it’s great. We’ve got a good rotation coming up with these tours. We’re excited to get out and play for people because we haven’t been able to do that for quite some time. We feel that we’re a live band. We come across better live than we ever have on record, as far as I’m concerned. That’s usually the trick is trying to capture our live tone when we get into the studio. We hope people get a chance to see us. The more we’re out, the better.

Blistering.com: Some of the band members were greatly affected by Hurricane Katrina. Are you all back in New Orleans now? What are your situations now?

BP: We’re all back here at home. It took us a little while. Everybody was doing their own thing, trying to survive at the time during the hurricane. Obviously you couldn’t live here for quite some time. We were separated and it definitely hurt the band. We weren’t able to do anything at that point but try to survive. We lost a couple of friends, which affected a lot of the band, more than anything. We lost our old singer [Glenn Rambo]. He went back to me when I was 16 years old. I’m 38 years old. That’s a long time. He’s a very good friend of mine. A couple of people as well, not to mention family and friends that lost their entire lives on top of it, and material possessions got washed away. Luckily, most of the band, they was slight damage and slight loss, but nothing that major. So we were personally able to bounce back on a material level pretty quick.

Emotionally, it took a little while and as a band, it took quite some time. We weren’t able to get back here and jam. Actually, a story that’s amazing and off the beaten track, but Eyehategod, which I play with as well, we played the first show ever in New Orleans since the hurricane. We were playing in this gutted out restaurant with generators. The entire city was destroyed, but the people that were there – 300 people crammed in this club, drinking and having a great time and playing. That’s what this area is about. You don’t dwell on the bad. You accept it for it is and try to rebuild and move on. We’ve pretty much recovered at this point as a band.

Blistering.com: Soilent Green has had a revolving door of members throughout the history of the band. Do you stay in touch with any of the ex-members?

BP: I keep in touch with all of them. They’re all my good friends. You’ve got to realize a lot of times when people leave bands they don’t leave because of issues within the band. They leave on personal issues that are going on outside of the band. For us, it seems to be the trend. My first guitar player…he’s a hippie. He can’t handle being on the road. He can’t handle traveling. He can’t handle the lifestyle. He wants to have a guitar in his hand and sit in the corner. He’s living in North Carolina now, in a trailer with no power and won’t even eat food that falls from a tree because he feels bad for picking food. He’s a full blown nature boy. It wasn’t his lifestyle.

Our old bass player (Scott Williams), that’s one of the tragic stories. He ended up getting shot. Our last guy that was just with us, he left basically because he got really good work opportunities. He wasn’t in the band that long. He didn’t have that much invested. When you have all that money staring at you to stay at work and do what you’ve got to do, then more power to you. You’ve got to realize that a lot of us are trying to maintain a living. We’re getting up there in age. It’s not that easy to drop everything and take off when we want to. Luckily, the four people that are in it right now are able to. So when we tour, it won’t be an issue. That’s why we’re comfortable where we’re at. We don’t want a fifth member at this point. Why have a wrench thrown in the gears? We’ve toured as a four piece before, when we toured with Morbid Angel and Deicide, and Napalm Death. We toured Japan as a four piece. We’re fully able to pull it off. Why go through the drama, not to mention the time of trying to break someone in at this moment.

Blistering.com: The members in Soilent Green are well known to be involved in multiple bands. How do you balance schedules to make it work?

BP: You have to have a love of playing music. You make the time. You make schedules. Sometimes it overlaps. Sometimes it doesn’t. When Ben’s not out with Goatwhore, he’s working with us. When I’m not doing stuff with Eyehategod, I’m doing stuff with us. When Tommy [Buckley, drums]’s not doing stuff with Crowbar and vice versa. There’s really no priority. You have communication from within each other. Then there’s no issue working this out. I was the first one to do that. I used to tour quite a bit with Eyehategod quite a bit back in the day. It wasn’t an issue. They did what they had to do while I was gone. When I got back, we set up shows locally. There was enough of a gap in between touring to be able to do what we needed to do. Jimmy [Bower]’s off in Down and everybody’s doing all this stuff. It’s hard to get it together. That’s why we put records out more sporadically, I guess, than we’d like.

Blistering.com: Back in the day, Pantera took out on tour both Soilent Green and Eyehategod. Is there anyone on a bigger level that you would want to tour with?

BP: I’m willing to tour with anybody. We’ve been around for so long, we see a couple of our friends that is doing great now, like Randy [Blythe] from Lamb of God. I’ve known him forever. The cats in Mastodon, we toured with those guys back in Today Is The Day, and listened to them when they played in Lethargy. We’ve known them for so long. Obviously if we toured with people like that, it would be touring with our bros.

When it comes to touring, it’s more of a political thing. It’s unfortunate but a lot of the bands are slaves to their management. They go out with whoever they put them on tour with. The reason why the Hate Eternal thing worked out was because we were on the same label. We have a new record coming out together. It works out great. We would go out with anybody bigger that would have us, especially on a bigger level. It would be stupid to turn down a tour. Like Isis touring with Tool. That’s an amazing thing. I’ve known Aaron [Turner] forever. I’ve worked with him on a label thing doing stuff with Hydrahead. They’re doing great now. Ipecac’s treating those guys well. To put it plainly, if I could tour with a bigger band, that were friends of mine, then I would prefer that.

www.myspace.com/soilentgreen