TRANSATLANTIC

Roine Stolt- guitars, vocals, keyboards
Neal Morse- vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar
Mike Portnoy- drums, percussion, vocals
Pete Trewavas- bass, vocals

The vision behind Transatlantic initially came from Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, who first decided to call Spock's Beard frontman Neal Morse with his master plan. Morse explains: "Mike said, 'Hey, I have a cool idea for a project together with you and Jim Matheos from Fates Warning, are you interested?' I said yes straight away, of course, but Jim couldn't do it. Anyway, that's how it got off the ground." As Jim Matheos wasn't an option, the two searched for an alternative guitarist. Morse had been already corresponding with Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings by e-mail since the two performed together with their respective bands at Progfest '97 and he seemed an obvious choice. Pete Trewavas was invited to take on the bass duties as Portnoy had been listening to Marillion for many years and had always been a big fan of Pete's style. When the four musicians met up to record, they had all brought with them a collection of ideas for the project. Neal Morse, in particular, took with him an arsenal of ideas, including bits and pieces of some songs and entire concepts for others, all of which were adapted, added to and refined throughout the recording. "Neal is incredibly creative," says Stolt. "There's no stopping him once he's started to play and has thought up new stuff. He also wrote most of the lyrics."

Recording took place at Millbrook Studios in upstate New York, where Portnoy had recorded with Liquid Tension Experiment. Overall production duties were shared by the band and engineering came courtesy of studio owner Paul Orofino. The first song the band recorded together was the six-part, thirty minute plus epic "All Of The Above". Stolt says, "Altogether, we must have produced nearly 25 parts for that song." The studio session finally ended with a cover of "In Held (Twas) In I", an obscure Procol Harum track. The completed material was then sent on to LA and mixed by Rich Mouser, who had worked on several Spock's Beard albums. The project was originally called Second Nature, though dissatisfaction with that name within the band resulted in a more descriptive moniker for this truly "Transatlantic" supergroup.

Stolt describes the resulting album as "real strong progressive rock!" Morse takes the description one step further by saying: "It's lots of high energy prog and pop fusion, a combination of Marillion, The Flower Kings, Spock´s Beard and Dream Theater. There's lots of Hammond organ and lots of hard, fast and progressive drum rhythms. The bass is a very important factor and sometimes sounds a bit like McCartney and then Squire, so lots of notes and rhythms." Portnoy believes the album has more of an affinity with old school prog rock à la Pink Floyd, The Beatles or Yes, than with metal: "The album has lots of fantastic vocals and instrumental flights of fancy. It's definitely the third milestone that I've accomplished this year besides the new Dream Theater CD and the birth of my son Max."

All four musicians agree that SMPTe (the name not only comes from the musicians initials, but also from a communicative code used in studio recording) shows such diverse influences as Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Steely Dan and The Beatles. Or, as Portnoy, Morse, Trevawas and Stolt put it: "All good music!" Stolt goes on to discuss future plans for Transatlantic: "We do have plans for a second album. It might sound a tiny bit different though, because we know each other a lot better now." Material for a second Transatlantic release was developed during rehearsals for this concert.

Transatlantic is definitely a rare supergroup effort that is far greater than the collective sum of its parts. NEARfest is delighted to present to you this assemblage of four of the best musicians in modern progressive rock. We are extremely proud to host the debut performance of Transatlantic as Day Two headliner for this year's NEARfest. Be prepared for a few surprises….

Discography:

SMPTe (2000)
SMPTe Limited Edition (2CD set, 2000)

Website: http://www.transatlanticweb.com

Contact: info@radiantrecords.com