Sons of Apollo (feat. Portnoy & Sherinian)

[Anxiety35]

Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal: ...It’d be wonderful to play together, I doubt it would ever happen...

Pretty much all we need to know.

[deggs37]

 

[cramx3]

From MP's social media

MP New Year Update: Back To Work!!! Starting TODAY: myself, Derek Sherinian and Bumblefoot will begin the writing/recording process for the new Sons Of Apollo album and (along with Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto) we will continue to work on SOA2 throughout the year for a release towards the end of the year or possibly early 2020 when we will begin touring again...(I also will continue work on the SOA Live in Plovdiv release that will be coming out early summer)

[Nachtmerrie]

Let's hope they give themselves enough time to come up with better structured songs.
These guys should be capable of delivering a masterpiece when there is more focus on the songwriting.

[MirrorMask]

Let's hope they give themselves enough time to come up with better structured songs.

And Here’s my upcoming schedule as it currently stands:

with Sons Of Apollo:
Jan 8th to 15th - Writing Sessions in PA

 

(But he did say that there were to be more sessions in the year though)

[Cool Chris]

Let's hope they give themselves enough time to come up with better structured songs.

[deggs37]

Writing sessions commence today! Ron and JSS's enthusiasm for the project have increased my hype a lot for the next release. I think these guys have a lot of potential, as long as they give this next album the time and attention it deserves.

[cramx3]

Writing sessions commence today! Ron and JSS's enthusiasm for the project have increased my hype a lot for the next release. I think these guys have a lot of potential, as long as they give this next album the time and attention it deserves.

  I literally wrote something so similar in the MP thread just now

[Anxiety35]

I listened to Psychotic Symphony in parts yesterday in the car and I wound up skipping more songs than I thought I would. Guess I wasn't in the right mood for that album at the time.

I'm interested in the follow up. PS wasn't bad. It's solid. But I think there's more within the guys that will allow them to put out something better. Glad they're moving forward but here's my concern - meeting at sporadic times to write and record and not having everyone there at the same time. I get the advent of technology but I think this approach could hut the quality of the songwriting as opposed to blocking out 2 months or so to focus totally on the project, unless they're all really good at compartmentalizing.

I appreciate what these guys are doing but when they're all in multiple bands/projects I sometimes wonder if the creative juices get spent in other areas.

[cramx3]

I listened to Psychotic Symphony in parts yesterday in the car and I wound up skipping more songs than I thought I would. Guess I wasn't in the right mood for that album at the time.

I'm interested in the follow up. PS wasn't bad. It's solid. But I think there's more within the guys that will allow them to put out something better. Glad they're moving forward but here's my concern - meeting at sporadic times to write and record and not having everyone there at the same time. I get the advent of technology but I think this approach could hut the quality of the songwriting as opposed to blocking out 2 months or so to focus totally on the project, unless they're all really good at compartmentalizing.

I appreciate what these guys are doing but when they're all in multiple bands/projects I sometimes wonder if the creative juices get spent in other areas.

Yea, it's like the opposite of what DT did for D/T.  What's interesting is during one of the DT interviews on the writing process they were asked if they listen to other music while writing and it seemed they all said no and the reason is to not cloud their idea of what they want their music to be and yet these guys will be touring other music in the process.  Such a different state of mind for writing music.

[deggs37]

Writing sessions commence today! Ron and JSS's enthusiasm for the project have increased my hype a lot for the next release. I think these guys have a lot of potential, as long as they give this next album the time and attention it deserves.

  I literally wrote something so similar in the MP thread just now

Great minds 

[emtee]

I've been following MP's tweets. When this band was initially announced by Mike I was pumped.
The first album was good. Not great and not something I go back to often, however, with the pedigree
of all the musicians involved, I figured it was a strong debut effort with plenty of room for improvement.

So...I was a little bummed to read that the 2nd album was written in basically 6 days. By no means does
this mean it won't be good or even excellent, but I have to admit I'm a little bummed that they didn't take
longer. It seems like it was an available hole in Mike's schedule and they pounded out what they could during
that time. Given what he said, that this was going to be a major focus and a full time band, I figured they
would schedule more than a week.

Oh well, I'll keep an open mind and hope for the best.

[bosk1]

Given what he said, that this was going to be a major focus and a full time band, I figured they
would schedule more than a week.

Why?  What does spending more than a week have to do with anything?

[Adami]

Given what he said, that this was going to be a major focus and a full time band, I figured they
would schedule more than a week.

Why?  What does spending more than a week have to do with anything?

Because how long it took was decided in advance. Huge difference between nailing something in 5 days and only allowing 5 days. Not saying it’s 100% going to impact it, but artistically it’s not always helpful. Especially given the many criticisms that his stuff isn’t very well thought out.

[MirrorMask]

Also, wasn't it said in interviews that Derek worked on his own for some time on God of the Sun? the song that required more work is, go figure, the song that the majority of fans agree is the best on the record.

This of course does NOT mean that songs worked on most are always best, no way - but still, it makes you think.... anyway, I too remember from interviews that they were gonna use 2019 to have more than one session for the album, and suddenly it turned out to be "yay, we wrote it in six days, I've already recorded all the drums".

[cramx3]

Given what he said, that this was going to be a major focus and a full time band, I figured they
would schedule more than a week.

Why?  What does spending more than a week have to do with anything?

Because how long it took was decided in advance. Huge difference between nailing something in 5 days and only allowing 5 days. Not saying it’s 100% going to impact it, but artistically it’s not always helpful. Especially given the many criticisms that his stuff isn’t very well thought out.

Yup.  Without hearing or knowing anymore, if you told me DT went into a studio for a couple months to write and record and live together and make their album vs SOA went into a studio and crunched out their album in 6 days.  Without knowing anymore, I'd bet that the DT album would be better just based on the way it was created.  Change those bands names for anyone, it doesnt make a difference (just using familiar examples definitely not a DT vs SOA thing in this post).  It's just about the creative process IMO.  Of course it isn't until I hear the albums to potentially compare them and see if that actually does hold true (which may not be the case), but that would be my initial feelings about the process.

[emtee]

Well, as an example, with DT, his main focus pre-departure, they (usually) spent several weeks, if not months
in the studio. I guessed, incorrectly, that when he made the announcement about SoA, that he was going to
approach SoA similarly, by blocking out a healthy chunk of time to create, hone, perfect, analyze, etc.

In my experience, following him since 1991, his side projects (all zillion of them) are usually recorded in far less
time than DT albums. Sometimes the results are amazing. As I said, I'll keep positive and see what happens when
the album is released.

[Setlist Scotty]

While I agree that it would've been nice for them to work on the songs more together in the studio, it's more than likely that they all shared their ideas with one another ahead of time via e-mail so that they were familiar with them and had ideas about how they could fit together. Then when they got together, they could skip those steps of becoming familiar with the individual ideas and move right into piecing them together and making adjustments to what they came up with. Again, not the perfect solution, and it probably would've been better for them to spend more time together to work them out, but I doubt it's just them literally banging everything out in a week. Besides, there's plenty of time before the album will be released, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are adjustments made to different songs to improve them. Maybe it might even require MP returning to the studio to re-record some of his drum parts, like what he did for The Great Adventure. I wouldn't slag off the album just yet.

edit: Two other differences I just thought of that could also have changed how MP operates is the fact that he's got many more side projects and other bands going on at the same time, in comparison to when he was in DT. I think if SoA took off the way DT did back in 92, MP would probably increase the priority of SoA over all those others. While he may consider SoA his main band or one of his main bands (TWD being the other), he's still gotta keep busy with these other bands/projects to keep up the financial flow that he had while in DT.

The other difference is that it seems there was a bit of a rule when writing DT albums not to bring in pre-written ideas. Most everything was jammed out together, although there were some exceptions to that rule throughout the years. With DT's stature, it seems that wasn't a problem, but I doubt SoA could manage to do the same thing at this stage.

Finally, let's not forget that MP is an amazing multi-tasker - from what little insight I've had, I'm amazed that the man is able to do as much as he does, both while in DT and even outside the band now.

[bosk1]

Yeah, so far, I'm not really seeing any valid criticism.

[TAC]

I wouldn't slag off the album just yet.

The first album was so blah. After years of doing things I had no interest in, I was so pumped for SOA. It was basically what I had been waiting for. That is, until I heard it. It sounded like there wasn't any time taken on it.

Unfortunately, the way it is is to just get something out to tour on. Initial reports sound like this could be more of the same. That blows.

[wolfking]

This band are working on another album?...........oh.......good for them.

I listened to the first album once and thought it was crap.

[Adami]

Yeah, so far, I'm not really seeing any valid criticism.

Because you have no issue with the first album. Which is fine. But a lot of us did. I highly doubt if the band spent 6 months working on it, you'd hate it or like it much less than if they spent 5 days.

For instance, I once wrote an album (musically at least) in 7 days and I still consider it some of my best work. But sometimes it takes me 2 months to write one song (or even longer). It takes as long as it takes. If I said that I have 5 days to write an album, that very well may impact how good it is. Sometimes I have to write a song, demo it, sit with it for a few weeks, then go back and re-write parts that I wouldn't have done if I made a hard deadline to finish it after a few days.

The main criticisms Portnoy gets (which I think are fair, but largely overblown) are that he does the same drumming all the time, never changes things up, and that some of his projects don't seem too well thought out. Those criticisms might go away (to some degree) if he spent more time doing this stuff.

If they all got together and banged an album in 6 days, cool. But to determine ahead of time that it's all you got, then it might very well suffer.

Like I said, I doubt you'd complain if they did things the way we are saying.

If a chef cooked up a quick 5 minute meal and 1/6 people (making this up) loved it, and the other 5 thought he should really spend more time getting it better and fine tuning it, the chef would be a fool to say "well...the one guy liked it, so everyone else can eat somewhere else".

Just because it doesn't have any impact on you, doesn't mean it's not valid criticism. 

[bosk1]

Because you have no issue with the first album. Which is fine. But a lot of us did.

You are right that I have no issue with the first album.  But that is largely irrelevant to my point.  Portnoy has worked on lots of albums under similar time tables that I DO have issues with.  He has also worked on plenty on similar time tables that I do not have issues with.  The time table is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything.  As you say:

For instance, I once wrote an album (musically at least) in 7 days and I still consider it some of my best work. But sometimes it takes me 2 months to write one song (or even longer). It takes as long as it takes. 

There you go.  Two of my top 5 favorite albums of all time were "written" in a similar timeframe.  They are true masterpieces.  Others that were written in that timeframe bore me to death.  Oh well.  Again, the timeframe is not relevant to that.

And another reason it is not relevant, and why I put "written" in quotes is because we already know from lots of other comments from other band members through the past several months that a lot of material has been written prior to this time.  And, as Scotty said, they have exchanged a lot of ideas and communication electronically before the studio time, and will likely continue to do so through completion of the album.  It isn't like they came in with nothing and said "okay, six days from scratch, and whatever we have recorded is it with no modification."  Far from it.

Just because it doesn't have any impact on you, doesn't mean it's not valid criticism.

You're right.  But as I said, whether it has any impact on me isn't the issue at all.  It's not valid criticism simply because it's not valid criticism.  We have no idea (1) what the actual time composing the songs actually was, or (2) what impact, if any at all, that had on the quality of the songs.  It's just a silly subjective feeling that they didn't spend "enough time," and therefore the album cannot possibly be good. 

[gzarruk]

I'm with Adami on this one. While I dig the album more than when it was originally released (well, some songs from it, the others I can't stand) it still feels rushed and has "Portnoy was tinkering with the production" written all over it. Some examples are the disjointed instrumental sections that appear out of nowhere, the same tired drumming we've been listening since FII, having almost the same chorus on Coming Home and Alive... You can definitely write an album in just a week and it could be your best work to date, but, as Adami says, it should be because the material is good and you totally nailed it in one week, not because you had x amount of days to write and x amount of days to record it inmediately after only because your drummer and biggest workaholic on the face of the Earth only has that many free days in his schedule.

MP posted during the recording of the drums for this album that he always improvises the fills and patterns when he records an album and that he always does 3 takes of every song because of it. That's exactly why we always complain about him playing the same exact parts and fills on every album, because he just plays whatever came to mind instead of taking more time to carefully craft his drum parts. In contrast, I saw a Gavin Harrison (one of the best drummers in the genere) lesson explaining how he comes up with drum parts for a song and the difference is night and day. Of course Mike's never going to do that, because he has a ton other bands to worry about, so he's more focused on quantity than quality, but the product ultimately suffers, imo.

You're right.  But as I said, whether it has any impact on me isn't the issue at all.  It's not valid criticism simply because it's not valid criticism.  We have no idea (1) what the actual time composing the songs actually was, or (2) what impact, if any at all, that had on the quality of the songs.  It's just a silly subjective feeling that they didn't spend "enough time," and therefore the album cannot possibly be good. 

It's true, we have no idea how the songs will sound like, but we DO have the first album to comment about, and if they're following the same pattern with the second, I think it's fair to say the results might not be too different.

[Adami]

Bosk, if Portnoy had said "We wrote it in 5 days!" then (while people would still be complaining) all of your points would be perfectly on spot.

But the crux is the time constraints. It was decided ahead of time to be 5 days. That is my issue. You can't decide how long something will take (especially art) before hand. When I wrote my brilliant life changing masterpiece in 7 days, I didn't decide to do it in 7 days. It just took that long. Perfect. No worries. But if I had said "I HAVE 5 DAYS TO WRITE AN ALBUM" it'll probably be lacking.


Your point about them sending stuff back and forth is very valid however. You're lucky you're not Stadler, or I'd disagree with that too.

[bosk1]

...not because you had x amount of days to write and x amount of days to record it inmediately after only because your drummer and biggest workaholic on the face of the Earth only has that many free days in his schedule.

I agree.  But we have no reason to believe that that actually happened, so it's kind of a non-issue.

[cramx3]

I think your perception of the first album will definitely play a role in how you perceive the next will be when the creative process is the same with the same people.  I can only speak for myself but I enjoyed the album and thought if they had spent more time on it, they could have done something better.  These guys have made it clear they can create music quickly, but I haven't seen them be able to create music that is truly amazing.  Also, as MirrorMask pointed out, the closest thing I thought to be an amazing song, and it is a damn good one and the best on the album was the one song that did take the most time to create.  I don't think it's unreasonable to think if they spent more time on creating music that the music will be better.  It's not a rule or anything, I'm just basing it on how the first album came out.

There's also other things like Setlist Scotty said to consider which is how we can communicate so effective at distances today that maybe they did work on this more outside of the studio.  Also them being on the road together probably helped when they came together a second time as they will now be much more familiar with each other and how they work together. 

[Madman Shepherd]

It's just a silly subjective feeling that they didn't spend "enough time," and therefore the album cannot possibly be good.

That's not what he's saying at all though. He's saying it *could* be good but it seems that usually the best albums have more time spent on them.

I also don't think sharing files and listening to them while you have reruns of The Office on pause is necessarily the best way to write either, and doesn't really constitute a more significant degree of writing time than hammering it out in five days.

[SwedishGoose]

Count me in on the ones wishing they would set of more time than a week to do an album.
I thought the first one could have become much better if they had gone back and reviewed what they had and continued working on it.

Well it's how Mike likes to do albums. Just get it out as quickly as possible to be able to tour it and still find time for a thousand other projects.

I think how the new Neal Morse Band was created is very telling.
After the first sessions Mike was happy and wanted to get the one disc out but Neal Morse was not happy.
He did a lot of rewriting and then they had another session for the same album that was now a double disc concept telling the second part of TSOAD.

Now... there is no telling wheather the new version is better than the first but I think that it's quite probable.

[emtee]

Yeah, so far, I'm not really seeing any valid criticism.

For the record, there was no criticism in my post whatsoever. Zero, zip, nada. I made it very clear that there
isn't necessarily any correlation between time-in-studio vs. results. Additionally, I made it clear that I would
keep an open mind--which I will. I was merely opining that the process seemed more in line with a side project
as opposed to a primary band project. That you interpreted my post as criticism is...interesting.

I hope it's a masterpiece. A statement album that stands against the test of time and one I want to spin often.

[Ben_Jamin]

As always, I won't have an opinion until I hear a song. And even at that, the entire album I'll have to listen to before I form an opinion.

The only song I liked was Labyrinth. Enjoyed the others live though.

[rumborak]

This is even independent of SOP, I think it's a lamentable development that both DT and MP have so steadfastly stuck to their "writing on the clock" approach. I have found over the years that quite of few things I have disliked about their collective output could possibly have been mitigated by a "second run" over the songs that would have weeded out weak sections. The classic example for me being "day after day, night after night", where they just couldn't make the vocals work, and instead of adjusting the underlying song they rather committed an inferior piece of music on tape. I don't think it's coincidence that the two top DT albums (IAW and SFAM) were that ones that matured over time.

[Stadler]

Interestingly, I don't have much issue with the writing schedule.  I agree with Bosk that we don't really know all the deets, and there could have been files back and forth, and each member could have been working on bits and bobs for months now. It's all speculation.

Where I have beef is:
- the recording
- the mindset involved


I liked, not loved, the last album, and one of the criticisms was that it was too... for lack of a better word, "flat".  Jeff sang in his  lower register, Billy's got that chirpy, trebly bass, and so you have five instruments all competing for the same sonic space.  (Contrast that with, say, Jimmy Page, who was a MASTER at arranging the various instruments (and parts of the same instrument) in a sonic space.   I'd like* to see more separation, more contrast, more dynamics in the arrangement.  Mike is so good at arranging (that's not sarcastic) that it should be in their wheelhouse to do (it's evident on the Flying Colors record...) that I think the time creeps in here to limit that.

The  mindset; I've long been critical - and have nothing to prove me wrong at this point - of the "I'm in 87 bands!" thing from a creative perspective.   I get it, it's "Mike Portnoy^TM" and so there's an element now of "you get what you get" (it's like asking Eddie VH to drop a solo into your song; you can probably sing that solo unheard and be in the ballpark).   One of the things that really grabbed me about DT back in the day (I bought I&W when it was released) was that it was a mix of so many good things; it was Rush and Iron Maiden jamming together with Steve Perry singing over it.  The last two (with Portnoy) seemed too much like him wanting to be in Pantera (or, more specifically, to be Charlie Benante).   Now, he's got his prog thing, he's got his metal thing, he's got his Deep Purple-esque thing, he's got his DT thing, he's got his Beatles-esque thing...  but maybe the magic was bringing those disparate influences in.   Maybe the "metal thing" needs more Ringo, or the Prog thing needs more Bill Ward.  I think - I sense - that he gets into these mindsets, and that's far more limiting than any time limitation or "playing the same fill over and over" (which I don't agree).

*  I fully cop that "what I like to see" is irrelevant; you're not buying Portnoy records to hear what Stadler wants, you're paying for what Mike wants to deliver because we like what he's delivered in the past.   

[Samsara]

One of the things that really grabbed me about DT back in the day (I bought I&W when it was released) was that it was a mix of so many good things; it was Rush and Iron Maiden jamming together with Steve Perry singing over it.  The last two (with Portnoy) seemed too much like him wanting to be in Pantera (or, more specifically, to be Charlie Benante).   Now, he's got his prog thing, he's got his metal thing, he's got his Deep Purple-esque thing, he's got his DT thing, he's got his Beatles-esque thing...  but maybe the magic was bringing those disparate influences in.   Maybe the "metal thing" needs more Ringo, or the Prog thing needs more Bill Ward.  I think - I sense - that he gets into these mindsets, and that's far more limiting than any time limitation or "playing the same fill over and over" (which I don't agree).

That's a really a nice way to summarize how I feel about MP right now, and about the albums you mentioned. MP is so "genre-separated" that it comes off as predictable. I get it, from a business perspective -- he's trying to show his diverse skills, but in a way that he maximizes his income. He spreads himself out to not only satisfy all his interests, but also so his work isn't contained in one thing, which is better for his bottom line. But I agree with your sentiment. He limits his playing (or it seems he does) to the genre in which he's now playing in, instead of letting everything come to the forefront.

[gzarruk]

And to compliment what Stadler and Samsara said, I think it has to do with Mike not having a “main” band anymore, he has a different outlet for each style of music. I think he’d be more diverse if he focused on one band like he did with DT at first and got to experiment through different styles/phases with that same band. That’s why most of his DT albums sound very different from one another.