Question and Answer

More than anything else you've recorded, "Secret Story" really seems to follow an arc or storyline. I guess that's not a brilliant observation (hence the title... duh), but wow! The peaks, valleys, twists and turns on that album are downright cinematic. Without getting too personal here, I'm wondering if you consider that level of intensity/drama/passion to be rare or unique in the course of a career? And how do you feel about playing those songs again, with the Group or in some other context? I caught the tour and will never forget the intensity of songs like "Finding & Believing," "The Truth Will Always Be" and "Tell Her You Saw Me."

hi mark,

that was a really special project - and yes, the idea was to have the kind of storyline thing that you are talking about from the beginning. i would love to do something like that again - except for filmscore projects like "map of the world" or "passagio", that is really one of the only times that i have addressed some of those issues (orchestration, larger forms, playing basically all the keyboards myself, etc) in a project outside of the group format - most of the projects that i have done away from the group have focused more on the improvasational interests that i have, specifically with guitar in hand.

with secret story, it was also fun after it was all recorded to put together a band designed to specifically play that music, rather than writing a bunch of music for a particular group of personalities or band in mind. with secret story, i did a full version of it by myself with synths before any live musicians came in at all - and the original idea was just to keep it like that. but as time went on, i started replacing this, that and the other thing (which of course, always improved it) and the next thing i knew, there were something like 60 people involved. but i do think that that process can often offer very personal results, even with the technology that is involved, and of course, many of the group songs are developed the same way. glad you like the music.

best from pat