Your Controversial Opinions on DT

[rumborak]

I think just about everything interesting was said in Lifting Shadows. I've said it before, but none of the DT guys are Neil Pearts. I just don't think that, outside their musical endeavors, they would have a lot of things to say. And particularly from MP I could see his book being titled "Shattering the Fortress" or something.

[Sycsa]

I think just about everything interesting was said in Lifting Shadows. I've said it before, but none of the DT guys are Neil Pearts. I just don't think that, outside their musical endeavors, they would have a lot of things to say. And particularly from MP I could see his book being titled "Shattering the Fortress" or something.

Have you read Neil's books? Which one is the best?

[rumborak]

I haven't read it myself yet, but several diehard Rush-fan friends recommended Ghost Rider.

[TAC]

I haven't read it myself yet, but several diehard Rush-fan friends recommended Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider was cool if you want to hear how Neil got through the tragedies in his life, but there is little about the band. He talks about meeting Alex on some of his travels and that sort of thing. I would recommend it if one were to go through some trying times in their life. But it is NOT a rock n roll book. By any stretch.

[King Postwhore]

Ghost Rider is a must.  It humanizes the band and you can't help and feel for Neil.  I don't know what I would do in that position.  I'm not talking taking my life but what depths would I have sunk to.  Amazing read.

[RodrigoAltaf]

 I read all of Neil´s books all the way up to "Far and Away", which got me quite disappointed when I realized it was simply a collection of his posts on hos blog, which are available for free anyway. Some of them are quite interesting, although some passages are quite dull - especially the ones when he describes his bird watching experiences.

 I was really impressed with Ghost Rider as well, but my favourite, hands down, is The Masked Rider, mostly because of the exotic setting. I really enjoy travel writing, and I think Neil´s prose would benefit from riding on different locations than the US. If I was to suggest one place for him to ride and write about it would be New Zealand.

[the_silent_man]

My controversial opinion: Whilst DT12 was a good album and still way better than 8VM, Sc & BC&SL, I feel the lyrics seemed quite weak. They seem really "sugary" (for lack of a better word) and downright cheesy  and clichéd at times. My hope for the next album is that they add a bit more "grit" and they spend a bit more time crafting meaningful lyrics with more depth to them.

[erwinrafael]

Doesn't that just apply to AFTR, and some parts of IT and TEI?

[gmillerdrake]

My controversial opinion: Whilst DT12 was a good album and still way better than 8VM, Sc & BC&SL, I feel the lyrics seemed quite weak. They seem really "sugary" (for lack of a better word) and downright cheesy  and clichéd at times. My hope for the next album is that they add a bit more "grit" and they spend a bit more time crafting meaningful lyrics with more depth to them.

Ehh....they most certainly weren't I&W and Awake style.....but IMO they were WAY better than SC and BC&SL. ADTOE and DT12 got them back on track IMO as far as lyrics are concerned....not saying they were their best but they were at least in the ballpark of 'good' again.

[TAC]

My controversial opinion: Whilst DT12 was a good album and still way better than 8VM, Sc & BC&SL, I feel the lyrics seemed quite weak. They seem really "sugary" (for lack of a better word) and downright cheesy  and clichéd at times. My hope for the next album is that they add a bit more "grit" and they spend a bit more time crafting meaningful lyrics with more depth to them.

Ehh....they most certainly weren't I&W and Awake style.....but IMO they were WAY better than SC and BC&SL. ADTOE and DT12 got them back on track IMO as far as lyrics are concerned....not saying they were their best but they were at least in the ballpark of 'good' again.

I agree.

[erwinrafael]

My controversial opinion: Whilst DT12 was a good album and still way better than 8VM, Sc & BC&SL, I feel the lyrics seemed quite weak. They seem really "sugary" (for lack of a better word) and downright cheesy  and clichéd at times. My hope for the next album is that they add a bit more "grit" and they spend a bit more time crafting meaningful lyrics with more depth to them.

Ehh....they most certainly weren't I&W and Awake style.....but IMO they were WAY better than SC and BC&SL. ADTOE and DT12 got them back on track IMO as far as lyrics are concerned....not saying they were their best but they were at least in the ballpark of 'good' again.

I think they should actually stop writing dark lyrics because they just do not have the angst anymore. Awake worked because  those lyrics were really honest.

[Rodni Demental]

I dunno, I've never taken issue with any of the bands lyrics really. There might be a few moments where I turn my head, but that can happen with any artist if you miss the point of the message or have  preconception about a phrase.

I think the direction for ADTOE/DT12 had a bit more of a positive light to it with perhaps a few contrasts to reflect the other side of the coin sometimes, which personally I find refreshing. But probably comes across as 'cheesy' to some. But I think at the end of the day it's important for the lyrics to be honest or sincere and not contrived. So deliberately trying to replicate their I&W/Awake lyric writing style probably wouldn't work today unless they can honestly access how they felt then and express that sincerely.

[the_silent_man]

I agree that I think it would be difficult to write lyrics as good as I&W/Awake (Voices has possibly my favourite lyrics of any song, every line is so well thought out), but it would be nice to attempt some of the more obscure (deeper?) lyrics of those albums that take a few listens to grasp.

As for the "grit" I was talking about, "Behind the Veil" comes close in its verses, but the chorus completely kills it for me as is a good example of the "sugary" lyrics I previously mentioned. I'm not saying to go back t the "dark master" / "my cup overflows with my enemy's blood!!"  bollocks, but something more girtty would be nice.

I did think ADTOE was more of a step in the right direction with it's lyrics, though.

[Calvin6s]

Well, unless you intimately know their early history, right down to the nitty gritty, then it's still an incredibly insightful and interesting 2/3 of a book.

I probably knew their early history better than their 2002-2010 history.  BTW, bought the book, scanned it in (for tablet reading) and read while listening to their official albums in chronological order.  If a certain event was referenced, I'd stop and do a google search to watch the concert or whatever.

The first 200 pages I read pretty quickly.  The last 150 were kind of tedious, which is odd considering that was the history I was less familiar with (outside their official releases). 

It really felt cut and paste at the end.  One chapter = one album.  Coming off tour.  Come up with a theme.  Decide on studio team. Talk about some of the songs.  Read review snippets (with an obsession on Kerrang).  Go on to somewhat uneventful tour.  Repeat.

Jordan confirms

It's a very boring rock band really. The most interesting things about us are our chord progressions and our meter changes!

Even the big rock drug scene was summed up as

Yeah, but put it this way, I've seen a lot, lot worse," says Barclay who had previously toured with the likes of Motley Criie. "Mike wasn't hitting the drugs that hard and it wasn't that bad when it was around.

None of this is a knock on the band.  It is hardly negative to say they put their focus where it needs to be and don't succumb in any great excess to the vices associated with rock bands.  It just makes for a somewhat boring book.  (And that isn't a knock on the writer either).

Reading the book brings something to mind on the upcoming album and what I'd like to hear.  From album to album they'd slide the scale between prog and metal.  FII is about Petrucci trying to improve his commercial songwriting chops.  One album they really spent a lot of time trying to nail the perfect chords.  Then they experimented with current influences instead of past (growl vocals and keyboard sounds).

But one thing they always did.  Music first.  Lyrics/Melody second.  Switching that around would probably be very interesting.  Their music has always been stronger than their melodies.  It would be kind of cool to hear DT make the music fit the melody instead of the other way around.

[rumborak]

I always felt that, yes, while MP had an alcohol and drug problem at some point, it was somewhat ... "milked" for inspirational purposes.

[RodrigoAltaf]

I always felt that, yes, while MP had an alcohol and drug problem at some point, it was somewhat ... "milked" for inspirational purposes.

 I don't think anyone would mess with addiction this way. Mike goes to AA meetings every week,  regardless of being on tour or not, and he's the only one who can feel how this affected him. Regardless of frequency and quantity,  it's how you feel about your addiction that counts.

[Mosh]

Agreed. I think making grand assumptions about someone's personal addictions like that is actually pretty rude.

[rumborak]

I'm not making so much a statement about his level of addiction, that is indeed something only he can judge. My point was rather that he decided to make this issue his "artist's angst", for lack of a better term, and then stuck with it for a long time, maybe because he had a hard time to come up with topics to write lyrics about (with CM and HTF for example being clear " meh" examples).

[Madman Shepherd]

I always felt that, yes, while MP had an alcohol and drug problem at some point, it was somewhat ... "milked" for inspirational purposes.

 I don't think anyone would mess with addiction this way. Mike goes to AA meetings every week,  regardless of being on tour or not,

I don't think he does anymore.  I think I remember him saying that he doesn't go a whole lot. 

[rumborak]

Even when he still went, I kinda have a hard time imagining him sitting in a Chilean AA meeting, not understanding a word. While I can see him having attended the meetings during their North American tour, I'm pretty sure he didn't do it in any non-English speaking countries.

[Calvin6s]

I didn't think rumborak was implying it wasn't a problem worth dealing with.  Just that MP took care of it before it hit the classic definition of rock bottom.
 

[Skeever]

I didn't think rumborak was implying it wasn't a problem worth dealing with.  Just that MP took care of it before it hit the classic definition of rock bottom.

I think he may have been close.

Granted, had he already hit "rock bottom", he wouldn't have been in a band with a platform to tell everyone about his alcoholism. But, I think a lot of people maybe don't realize that it was about more than booze for MP, despite the focus of the AA Suite being on alcohol. But when he's talked about things, he's said that he was a heavy drinker and drugger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F7CtuoMnpc

I also seem to recall reading elsewhere that it would come down to like partying with fans after shows, Mike not being sure if he had cheated on his wife because of how faded he was, etc., anyway, no need for me to speculate. It's all there in the lyrics.

[Nearmyth]

My controversial opinion: Whilst DT12 was a good album and still way better than 8VM, Sc & BC&SL, I feel the lyrics seemed quite weak. They seem really "sugary" (for lack of a better word) and downright cheesy  and clichéd at times. My hope for the next album is that they add a bit more "grit" and they spend a bit more time crafting meaningful lyrics with more depth to them.

I'm actually going to half-agree. I think the lyrics themselves are good, but they're all getting way too life-lessony, and cheesy and cliched like you said. So many songs from ADTOE and DT12 can be summed up as "life is tough just live it to the fullest." Like yeah they have good messages to them but that gets really boring. Then again, I'm not really sure what else they could write about at this point.

[Stadler]

I'm not making so much a statement about his level of addiction, that is indeed something only he can judge. My point was rather that he decided to make this issue his "artist's angst", for lack of a better term, and then stuck with it for a long time, maybe because he had a hard time to come up with topics to write lyrics about (with CM and HTF for example being clear " meh" examples).

"Meh" to you, but one man's opinion is irrelevant.   To some people, their sobriety is the biggest part of their daily, conscious life from that point forward.  Who are you to judge whether is appropriate or not for him to "decide" to "make this an issue"?   Is this any different than any other artist with recurring themes? 

[erwinrafael]

I'm not making so much a statement about his level of addiction, that is indeed something only he can judge. My point was rather that he decided to make this issue his "artist's angst", for lack of a better term, and then stuck with it for a long time, maybe because he had a hard time to come up with topics to write lyrics about (with CM and HTF for example being clear " meh" examples).

"Meh" to you, but one man's opinion is irrelevant.   To some people, their sobriety is the biggest part of their daily, conscious life from that point forward.  Who are you to judge whether is appropriate or not for him to "decide" to "make this an issue"?   Is this any different than any other artist with recurring themes? 

I think rumborak's point is that MP used his experience of addiction as a sort of crutch, even when he has already ran out of interesting things to say about his experience by the second half of the 12 Step Suite. One need only to see how much stronger the lyrics in The Mirror and The Glass Prison is compared to Repentance and the almost-redundant The Shattered Fortress.

[rumborak]

Yes, thank you, at least someone gets it.
There's also the thing that the AA steps are actual steps of personal evolution, transforming the addict into someone who is at peace with himself and the environment.
Now, those steps, to my understanding, take most people decades, if not their lifetime to achieve. With MP they kinda had a forced (and I felt rushed) pacing, since he had scheduled X steps per album. I always felt he should have done another AA song when he felt he had achieved a new step, not because their tour had ended and it was time to write lyrics.

[Stadler]

With MP they kinda had a forced (and I felt rushed) pacing, since he had scheduled X steps per album. I always felt he should have done another AA song when he felt he had achieved a new step, not because their tour had ended and it was time to write lyrics.

Assuming that's what happened (and I'm not suggesting it didn't), that's a fair point.  I understand a little better where you're coming from now.

[abydos]

JP hasn't had a decent guitar tone since ToT and a great one since SFAM (and actually a shitty one since SC). In my head this is just common sense but I have a feeling it might be a little bit controversial around here. He should probably get in touch with Jim Matheos or something.

[hefdaddy42]

JP hasn't had a decent guitar tone since ToT and a great one since SFAM. In my head this is just common sense but I have a feeling it might be a little bit controversial around here. He should probably get in touch with Jim Matheos or something.

lol I think his tone is decent, but I don't think he's had a GREAT one since Awake.

His bigger problem for me is volume.  As in, way too fucking much of it.

[abydos]

I haven't listened to DT in a while and now that I actually went back and listened to some samples I'll have to agree about not having a great tone since Awake. FII and SFAM sounded better in my mind/memory . But I still think he's been sounding very bad in the last 10 or so years.

[hefdaddy42]

Well, maybe I sold him a little short.  FII had outstanding tone.

[bosk1]

I have always liked JP's guitar tone. 

JM's bass tone, on the other hand, has been hit or miss since TOT.

[hefdaddy42]

Agreed. 

I think it sounded best on FII.

[rumborak]

I was really surprised how weird JP's guitar sound was on LALP. There was no bottom end during palm-muted sections, it was all harmonics.

[bosk1]

I was really surprised how weird JP's guitar sound was on LALP. There was no bottom end during palm-muted sections, it was all harmonics.

True, yeah, I was only thinking of his studio tone in my post above.  I agree about LALP.  I mean, to me, it wasn't way out there, but there were definitely times when it seemed odd, like what you mentioned.