Thanks for saying this, man. As much of a beating as Spock's and Neal Morse's music take here, the fact is the music takes a lot of discipline and concentration to master. You always have to get thru a complicated section before you can relax and play the poppy sections. It won't be an easy gig for anyone that's for sure.
EDIT: When I was jamming with Ryo 10 years ago (!) we needed a drummer and I brought a friend in. I told him, "Learn this one song (Freefall), it's in 7 so you need to nail the groove. Don't try to fake your way through it, learn the changes."
Man, the dude didn't even practice it. He comes in and we kick it off and he's completely, utterly lost. I was embarrassed and Ryo wasn't happy and told him the audition was over. He just dismissed the dude, it was pretty awesome. "You're not the right guy, bye."
My friend was like, "Well, I hate prog rock anyway."
Thing is, he was a solid drummer, he had an XTC tribute band that killed. I was in an original band with him (The Abe Lincoln Story) and we rocked in our own goofy way.
To this day, though, I thought it was lame that he didn't even learn one song for an audition for Christ's sake. I still rib him about it.
Bookmarks