Rocket Scientists Reflect on Revolution Road Album
The band's excellent double album came out 15 years ago, back in 2006.
Rocket Scientists delivered their first ever double album 15 years ago with the release of Revolution Road — a collection of 18 songs of progressive rock bliss. It’s a testament to Erik Norlander (keyboards), Mark McCrite (vocals, guitars), and Don Schiff (NS Stick, Chapman Stick) that Revolution Road somehow manages to stand out among a run of excellent melodic yet complex releases by the band.
The gap between albums was the band’s longest to date when Revolution Road came out on Norlander’s Think Tank Media label. The band’s debut, Earthbound, came out in 1993 and Brutal Architecture followed two years later in 1995. Then came a four-year gap until the well-regarded Oblivion Days was released in 1999. It was seven years before Rocket Scientists released their double album in 2006.
“That was at a time when we had a bunch of different projects going on and it kept us busy,” Schiff recalled. “And then we thought we'd get back together and let's think of a concept, and Mark and Erik just got writing away and wrote up a storm. And then we started putting it together and it was kind of like a reunion again. It was really nice to get back together.”
The band started to prepare for a new album and had intended to bring in Shaun Guerin, a skilled drummer, vocalist, and keyboardist, to play drums on the new Rocket Scientists album. Guerin, who had been the drummer and lead vocalist for Peter Gabriel-era Genesis tribute band Cinema Show, and who was working on his own solo music, actually worked with McCrite at Line 6 — an amplifier manufacturer. McCrite said the idea to pull in Guerin for what would become Revolution Road began at a jam session.
“He was really into prog music,” McCrite said. “Basically all of our parties were like big jam sessions and so the very first party we had, Shaun and I and the founder of (Line 6) and another guy did (ELP’s classic song) “Karn Evil 9.” It was really cool, I really got along with Shaun, but when it was time for Rocket Scientists again, we decided to pull Shaun in.”
After working up the song “Better View,” the first song written for the album and one of the true gems on Revolution Road, things took a tragic turn for the band’s new lineup.
“We recorded it and everything. It was really cool,” McCrite said of the song. “Unfortunately, Shaun was going through a lot at the time and Shaun took his own life. It really just kind of took the wind out of our sails. We had all this music that we were working on, and we had all this momentum. We finally had settled on a drummer that we felt like was a good fit, and like a member, not a session player. And it just kind of threw us for a loop and it took us a couple of years to kind of get it back together and work things up.”
The band ended up using a piece of a live performance by Guerin on the final album, which serves as a nice tribute to his all-too-brief time working with Rocket Scientists.
The gap between sessions of working on the album led to more songs being written and subsequently brought in by the band members, primarily Norlander and McCrite, with Schiff contributing a couple of songs as well. There was so much material that the band decided to make its first double album.
Schiff brought in two of the album’s six instrumental songs, “Outside the Painted Walls” and “Hold That Thought.” McCrite joked that he still can’t count “Hold That Thought.” Schiff said that Gregg Bissonette picked it up and was on his wavelength for that song.
“With drummers, over the years I've learned to adjust my sense of where I feel time,” Schiff said. “And it's kind of like a clock. And there's — every once in a while — a few drummers — Gregg Bissonette, Greg Ellis…Shaun Guerin was another one that just naturally feel that, and I know they do the same thing too. And other people you just go, ‘OK, they're always on top of the beat, so I will make that my center of gravity field.’”
With six out of 18 tracks being instrumentals — though album opener “Look Up” is a short introductory piece for “Sky is Falling” — of course the band wasn’t going to miss the chance to have another ‘Rocket Scientist song.’ The band always includes an instrumental named after a famous pioneer of astronomy. On Revolution Road, that song is “Ptolemy.” The second disc closes with an epic, 13-minute instrumental called “After the Revolution,” which seems like it could have included a vocal melody but McCrite said it was always an instrumental.
“I’m really pleased with how that one came out, you know,” McCrite said. “Just different kinds of solos, different kinds of diversions and what have you, and I really, I really liked that one.”
McCrite said he didn’t remember if he got a writing credit on the song (he did). After listening to one section of the song, he added, “those sound like my chords but I'm not sure. It's definitely Erik's brainchild.”
One aspect that sets Revolution Road apart from previous Rocket Scientists releases is that McCrite took on more of the lyric-writing duties. One of the tracks he wrote the lyrics for — the aforementioned “Better View” — ended up being his favorite on the album.
“Erik wrote all of the lyrics up until this record,” McCrite said. “And so, “Better View” and “Savor Every Moment” were both mostly mine. And “Better View,” that one I feel like really came together.”
Recording began at Norlander’s studio but took place in multiple locations.
“We did all the demos there,” McCrite explained. “Some of the tracks ended up getting used for the final record. And we did all of the drum tracking and some of the vocals at Steve Vai’s studio, The Mothership in Laurel Canyon. And I think there were also some overdubs that were done at at Erik's home studio later. So, it was kind of a combination of those things.”
“For my two contributions, I think I recorded a lot of that stuff in my home studio and sent some tracks,” Schiff said. “They’re kind of complicated and I can't imagine that I put them together with a bunch of people standing in the room going, ‘Oh, how's that working?’”
Bissonette contributed most of the drums aside from what Guerin had recorded for “Better View.” Simon Phillips filled in for the rest of that track. Vocalist David McBee was brought in to do the higher, more rock-style vocals on songs such as “Sky is Falling,” “Dream in Red,” and the title track. McCrite handled the breathier, lower-register vocals on the more atmospheric songs like “Better View,” “Forever Nights,” and my personal favorite on the album, “Enjoy the Weather.” The latter song includes some accordion in the bridge, played by Norlander’s brother-in-law, Greg Phelps, and bass from McCrite.
“What I thought was really cool about (“Enjoy the Weather”) — I think this was Erik's idea — is that with every verse and every time around of the song, it gets shorter and shorter and shorter, and it was kind of the feeling that your time is running out,” McCrite said. “And I thought that was a really interesting idea.”
The band also included a cover of the Moody Blues’ “Gypsy (of a Strange and Distant Time)” from that classic band’s To Our Children’s Children’s Children album.
“I had always wanted to do that Moody Blues song and we had worked up a demo of it a long time ago,” McCrite said.
Norlander did the producing and the other band members generally trusted his judgment to make the right decisions, which, given the way the album came out, seems wise in retrospect.
“Erik is a great producer, and I enjoy that kind of a thing but he's just really good at it, and I defer to him,” McCrite said. “I think it's important for a band to have a strong vision so he's kind of like the Jeff Lynne keeper of the vision and the sound and the identity in the band. And I'm real happy with that.”
“Yeah, I couldn't be happier either,” Schiff said. “'Of course, playing the low end of all the instruments, I always feel like it's not loud enough and Erik always just finds that perfect slot. It's always a proper volume and I feel the intensity of what I intended.”
Looking back 15 years later, the band still seems proud of Revolution Road and the three musicians who make up Rocket Scientists have every reason to be. It’s an excellent collection of songs that outshines many of the band’s progressive rock contemporaries.
“It's just very well written, well crafted…even for some things that go beyond whether you like the song or not,” Schiff said. “There's another level of appreciation that Rocket Scientists has and it is the ‘what’ it takes to get it to sound like that and the caliber of musicianship.”
“I would agree with that,” McCrite said. “I'd also say I know that it's important to Erik to create an atmosphere, and he wants the listener to be transported to another place and another time and just to be kind of taken away and swept up in the music.”
Revolution Road pulls that off beautifully, and is best enjoyed while staring at Jacek Yerka’s distinctive cover art.
To see my entire interview with Mark and Don, you can watch it on YouTube. There’s more on the album artwork, more anecdotes about some of the songs, and just more information in general than I could possibly pack into this newsletter.
A Treat is On the Way for Rocket Scientists Fans
What’s next for Rocket Scientists? Well, McCrite said that a live release is in the works.
“We're actually working on finishing up a live recording of us at our farewell show from Progstock,” he said. “(Erik) has been editing video, mixing audio, stuff like that. It's just been kind of sitting on the shelves for a while. And we're finally getting around to doing that. That's one of the things he's working on, and then as you know, Lana Lane, his wife, just got a new record deal with Frontiers Records and they’re doing work on that as well.”
That’ll be great news for Rocket Scientists fans.