John Myung

Transcript

Interview with John Myung of Dream Theater

Evan Ball:
Hi, I'm Evan Ball. Welcome to Ernie Ball's Striking A Chord podcast. Today we have Dream Theater bassist, John Myung on the show. John's got a brand new Ernie Ball music man artist's series six string bass that is set to be released in just a few days, so we dig into that. John also discusses his experience attending Berklee College of Music with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy. We talk about the early days of Dream Theater, tips for practicing base, songwriting, and more. Ladies and gentlemen, John Myung. John Myung, welcome to the podcast.

John Myung:
Thank you very much, Evan. Thanks for having me.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. We'll start here. You guys, as in Dream Theater, obviously known for your musicianship. What drove you to reach this high level of musicianship?

John Myung:
It's just something that happens. It's been over 30 years in progress, and it's just been a serendipitous musical journey that no complaints, very happy with where we are. Every year brings new challenges and surprises, and this year being no different, for sure. Just feel very fortunate to be part of the whole thing.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. But going back early days, you could have gone in lots of directions. There are lots of kinds of rock music, but you chose this path of very demanding musicianship. Were you pulled in that direction early on?

John Myung:
Right, definitely. The art influences were bands like Rush and Yes, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath. And we found all those bands, it'd be really interesting and the way they compose their songs. It wasn't necessarily formulaic or repetitive in any way. It was very creative rhythmically and melodically. And it was the prog era that really brought me into wanting to be a musician.

Evan Ball:
So once you set your sights in the prog space, did that entail lots of practice?

John Myung:
Yeah. It entails lots of just getting in tune with the albums that we thought were great, playing along to Rush albums, Iron Maiden Albums, and then getting together and rehearsing songs as a group, as a band. And one thing led to another, and eventually we created a band while at Berklee College of Music, and that eventually became Dream Theater.

Evan Ball:
Right. Right. I guess I assume when I look at a band like Dream Theater that any member of the band must have a crazy work ethic. Does it ring true to you?

John Myung:
Yeah. We take what we do seriously. And even prior to when we actually got our first record deal, we would rehearse Monday through Friday from like 6:00 at night to midnight wherever we could, basement of stores or someone's apartment. But we would find a way to do it. That started up at Berklee. We were doing that Monday through Friday. We would sign out rooms. Each guy could sign out a room for like two hours. So we would all get in line and sign out the same room. The room was E19. And we would just set up at 6:00 at night and just be there till midnight playing whatever, jamming and writing stuff.

Evan Ball:
That's pretty amazing that that can be your college experience.

John Myung:
Yeah. It was pretty busy between that and the classes during the day and all this stuff that we had to get done. There wasn't a minute when we weren't doing nothing. That was for sure.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. I want to get back to that. I want to back up a little bit though. How old were you when you started playing bass?

John Myung:
I made the switch around like 16.

Evan Ball:
Oh, wow. So fairly quickly.

John Myung:
Yeah.

Evan Ball:
Switched from where?

John Myung:
Well, I was a classical violinist from like five to like 15.

Evan Ball:
So you have 10 years under your belt on the violin?

John Myung:
Yeah. And then one thing led to another, and I picked up the bass, and fell in love with it, and kind of wanted to understand that side of music more, the rock side of music more. So that's when it really started taking hold, at around 15 or 16.

Evan Ball:
That's interesting. So you must have a lot of your left hand skills in place from the violin. So the right hand I would think is where you'd have to sort of catch up.

John Myung:
Right, yeah. Definitely. There was a curve, but it felt right.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. So as far as technical ability goes, I assume growth isn't perfectly linear, but when did most of that happened for you? Was that early on where you feel like you had your chops up to par pretty quick?

John Myung:
I think it was just a matter of directing influences, the energy that we got from listening to bands. After awhile, when you play along to records and if that gets to gel and sit with you for awhile, then you start redirecting it, and taking that influence, and giving it a different direction. So I think that that was a big part of it in how we developed. We didn't just play for no reason. It was because we heard it from somewhere, and we practiced it, and then it turns into something else over time. And so it was definitely rooted in our influences and what we're listening to. And a lot of it still is to this day. It has to come from somewhere. It has to come from some sort of reference point.

Evan Ball:
Right. Hey, when did you first meet John Petrucci?

John Myung:
When did I first meet john was probably in high school, junior high school.

Evan Ball:
Same high school or junior high school?

John Myung:
Yeah, yeah.

Evan Ball:
Okay. Did you bond over music initially, or was it just a general acquaintance because he went to the same school?

John Myung:
No. We were both into music. He played guitar. I knew he played guitar. He played in a different band. Just one thing led to another over time. Our bands knew each other. We were friends. And then it just got to the point where it was just like, "Well, if we got together, that would be like the ultimate situational or the ultimate band." And then eventually it did happen. We were playing in the same group prior to leaving for music college.

Evan Ball:
What was that band called in high school?

John Myung:
He was in a band called a Centurion at the time, and then his bass player left. So I guess that's kind of where we were at, but when we started working together, it started changing and turning into a different thing. So I don't even know if prior to Berklee, if we ever really officially called ourselves anything. We were just really good friends, and we'd get together and jam on musical ideas together and write stuff. But that's a really interesting question, because I don't know if we actually considered ourselves part of any one band. I guess, if anything would have been the band that he was in, Centurion. But it wasn't until we got into Berklee, and then it wasn't until that period where we started thinking of a band name. And the original name during that period was Majesty, and then after a while eventually changed to Dream Theater. And it's been that ever since.

Evan Ball:
And I guess I'll call him JP or Petrucci. I'll try to do that to distinguish the Johns, but did you and JP jointly decide to go to Berklee college of music?

John Myung:
Yeah. Well, it was no question that we wanted to continue with music, and it seemed like the logical place to go being that we had heard of so many other musicians that we admired, Al Di Meola being one of them that had gone and visited the school. And it just seemed like a really good idea at the time. And so luckily we-

Evan Ball:
Yeah, luckily you did.

John Myung:
Yeah, luckily we did.

Evan Ball:
So was the goal partly to actually maybe find a drummer, start a band at the school? What was the main goal in attending Berklee?

John Myung:
That's a good question. It was just a very free moment. I don't know. It was just, "All right. Let's go there and learn," because we kind of had a base of a band back on Long Island with Kevin Moore, who played keyboards. He went to a different college of music. He went to Fredonia College of Music. It was kind of just very free flowing then. It wasn't things sent in stone. I guess when we had gone to the level where we're off and running and going to college, that was just the next stepping stone where it was like, "Okay, well, let's see what we can learn here and see where it takes us." But the natural thing was finding a drummer that we could really gel with. And-

Evan Ball:
Yeah. Did that connection come about pretty quickly?

John Myung:
Yeah. We had jammed with a couple of different drummers. He would walk around school, and I think John saw Mike playing. And then I think he asked Mike there during the next day in the cafeteria something: "If you want get together and jam," and he said, "Yes." And then from that day, we just hit it off.

Evan Ball:
And was he into similar kinds of music?

John Myung:
Yeah. He was totally into the same kind of music. And he also lived on Long Island. It all kind of clicked.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. So besides coming out with a world-class band, what else did you get out of the schooling?

John Myung:
It's an amazing melting pot of musicians where you were very immersed in a situation where there were people that were very into punk music, jazz, funk bass, classical. It was just a real melting pot of cultures and stuff, musical cultures. And I kind of thought that was the greatest thing about it, was the people that we met and got to see.

Evan Ball:
What was the decision like to leave Berklee?

John Myung:
We just really didn't want to do anything other than play and be a band. And we saw a school is sort of, "Well, that would just deter us from doing what we thought was more important." So it was a definite change that we weren't expecting, but it became the logical thing to do. It just seemed like the right thing to do that made sense.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. If that's your end goal, then do it.

John Myung:
Yeah.

Evan Ball:
So with the original concept of the band, did you all have the idea mapped out of what instruments you'd want to add, like "We want to keyboardist, not a second guitarist. We want a singer?" Was that concept mapped out?

John Myung:
Right. Well Kevin Moore, who had gone through Fredonia School of Music, we just immediately would hook back. It was just implied that he was part of the team and that he was the keyboard player. The only thing that that really decided was the vocalist aspect of the band. But we were with a few different vocalists before James LaBrie actually came in. There were like two or three other people that were working with.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. It seems like there's this kind of phase between you getting your new name and then finding a permanent singer. Did you ever think about breaking up, or was it rocky, or were you guys always steadfast in pushing the band forward?

John Myung:
We definitely had ups and downs where we were just like, "All right, we got to audition another vocalist audition." It was definitely tiring sometime, but in no way did it ever get to the point where it was like, "Well, we've had it." It was just foraging forward.

Evan Ball:
And this is late '80s basically?

John Myung:
Right.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. So this time, a lot of bands are a little more on the glam side of things, really good shred-y guitar solos, but are there other bands more in line with what you guys are doing? Or where did you think you'd fit in genre wise at the time?

John Myung:
I don't think we were worried about fitting in. I think we were just creating music that we hoped that would become popular or would find its listeners. Just based on like the demos we would do and the feedback that we would get, it was all pretty positive and kind of inspired us to grow and to keep doing it, because we felt that there was something about it that was inspiring. It was something that we hoped that would happen over time, which it did.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. I guess you guys are playing gigs around New York City in the beginning?

John Myung:
That's a interesting part of how things happen for us, is we really didn't have the whole club playing ritual that a lot of dance have. A lot of our everyday life prior to getting an album deal was mainly just practicing, just jamming from, we would just rent a basement of a store. And Monday through Friday, we'd be there every night. So that was more of our ritual, and not so much playing out live. We did play out live, but it wasn't like an every weekend thing or anything like that. Occasionally, we would have a show somewhere

Evan Ball:
What kind of store? What kind of store would you be playing in, the basement of a store? Is it just a store that would need to supplement rent, so they'd rent out their basement?

John Myung:
Yeah. We'd find one situation, and then it will get to the point where we'd have to leave. So I'd go out; John would go out, and sometimes we'd go out together just knocking on storefronts and seeing if they would have something available. It was a couple of different ones. At one point we were underneath a hair salon, and that worked out for awhile. And then eventually we wound up in the basement of this meat locker, this butcher store. In the basement, he had a couple of different rooms that he would rent out. So we were lucky enough to get one of those.

Evan Ball:
Did you have to walk through hanging meat slabs to get to your jam room?

John Myung:
No, no, no, wasn't like that. No, no. You go down there, you could hear all the refrigeration, all the machinery. It was separate. We had our own entrance.

Evan Ball:
Were there any contemporary bands that you're influenced by at that time that are doing similar things, or were you still into the Iron Maiden influence and Yes?

John Myung:
It was pretty much those bands, but then everything changed once we went to college: we met Mike. A lot of music was changing. Metallica was the buzz. "You have to hear this band." And I think Mike was actually one of the first people turn me on to them. I remember hearing, it was Master of Puppets. So then the whole heavy turn in music, it became an influence as well. As a result of just meeting different people at music college, we got turned on to a lot of different styles of music. So then it would broaden. So that's where going to a school like that really came into play, because it just opened me up to so much more than what you initially was exposed to as a musician.

Evan Ball:
I'm curious on these early gigs, I know you said you weren't gigging a lot, but on some of them, were you guys just blowing people away with your musicianship? I would just think an unknown band, if people aren't suspecting the level of musicianship that you guys bring, that they would just be blown away to walk in and see what's going on. Do you remember making an impression on people that way?

John Myung:
Heck no. It wasn't like there was a whole lot of people. It was always a modest gathering of people. People would comment on what we were doing, and some people really dug what we were dealing. By the time we were done, it was probably like 2:00, or 3:00, or 4:00 in the morning, looking to pack up and get back home. So it wasn't like a big social experience. By the time the set was done, it was time to pack up and leave before the sun came up.

Evan Ball:
Right. You didn't have time to hang out and soak compliments. Let's talk about song writing in the band. So as far as writing credit, it looks like sometimes Petrucci will write a song; you'll write a song; other times it's just the band in general. Do you guys write and share ideas through creating demos and then sharing those demos with each other?

John Myung:
What usually happens is there'll be a spark. And in the case of a lot of songs, that spark is usually the intro or the riff of the song. But when we're all present in the room and someone will play something and it sparks everyone's attention, it just kind of sparks a rhythm, and then things start developing, and it just kind of turns into a journey.

Evan Ball:
Interesting. So you guys are actually all in the same room. I guess it shouldn't be that unusual, but it seems like more and more, I'm talking to people who are writing remotely with their band mates. But often you guys are in the same room working on ideas.

John Myung:
Yeah. I guess it's sort of like we're just working on a sculpture or painting together where we're trying to connect with what's going rhythmically, which is driving the flow of the song. And as the song continues, everyone will have an idea of where to go. It can be a very sort of interactive and spontaneous situation. And in even the latest album, Distance Over Time, we just went to each guy, "All right. Well, what do you got John. Let's hear this and work on. What do you got, Mike? John, what kind of a bass rift do you have, or what are you thinking?"

John Myung:
And then we go to Jordan, and then the spark could be thrown out there, and then we'd kind of all develop it. And then demo it and listened back, and then edit and start making changes based on what we were hearing. A lot of times, everyone is really into something, but then one person will not be into something. So then we revisit it until everyone is happy. And I think that's sort of what makes things happen, is when everyone is finally happy with it.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. Run those ideas through the gauntlet.

John Myung:
Yeah.

Evan Ball:
I've noticed lyrics are written by different members of the band. Does the person writing the lyrics also write the melody?

John Myung:
No. Usually want a song is finished, John, Jordan, and James will construct what they think is the best sort of guide melody that is working with the songs in a way with the sections that have vocals. And then the challenge lyrically is, depending on song you're working on, the lyricist will have a basic guide track. The only thing that's really holding you back from just saying, "Okay, here. Here's a bunch of words, and hopefully it will work out," is a lot of times they'll come up with words or something that is written on paper, some sort of concept. But to make it work melodically, it's the biggest challenge. So then that's when you have to break out the dictionary, the thesaurus and start blowing out all these, "What's a good word for this melody?"

Evan Ball:
"This many syllables."

John Myung:
Yeah, exactly. So a lot of the times it's good to just work with James, because it'll kind of tell you, "Well, that's really hard to sing," or, "That's easy sing," or something. "Try to find a word with only three syllables." It'd be-

Evan Ball:
Yeah. You could have a great lyric, but it just sounds awkward smushed into that melody.

John Myung:
Right. So that's the biggest challenge to lyric writing is finding the right words that work with the melody and in such a way where you don't lose the initial intent or meaning of what you were trying to convey.

Evan Ball:
Is there a certain way you think about your role as a bass player in Dream Theater's music?

John Myung:
I think my role is to just be the best that I can be and find and contribute things that are relevant. So there's that whole side of it, and the other side of it too is, being a bass player, it's also a supportive instrument too. It's also a lot of listening, and laying back, and finding always to embellish upon what's going on musically. But it's hard to really think of it like that, because I just see us as a big team, and we all just know what to do. It's just everyone is just doing their own thing, but it's the right thing. I think that's cool part of being in a band or any other band, that what made that situation work was that group of people and everyone was just doing that one thing that they did, and that's what made it work.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. And it's a fortunate chemistry.

John Myung:
Right.

Evan Ball:
Do you have any practicing advice for bass players?

John Myung:
I think the best sort of practice for me, two parts. I still love playing along to records. And then the other type of practicing is where I'm not thinking; I'm just playing; I'm just my fingers. There's a time to think, and that's when you're actually focusing on playing along to a record or learning a piece of music, classical music or whatever. And then just a whole other part where I think it's just good to play, and to not think of what you're playing, and just to have it be a set exercise or something that you like to do that keeps your hands in shape. But it's just more of mind, body, and spiritual or physical state that you go. But it's void of thinking, just letting yourself go. So to me, that's part of the balance I think, because sometimes thinking is overrated.

Evan Ball:
So is that a way that, if you're just letting yourself go and letting yourself flow, that new ideas might come up, in a way getting in tune with your fretboard?

John Myung:
Yeah. That definitely triggers, or I believe it makes you more receptive to coming up with ideas. That's one way of going about it, and the other way of coming up with ideas is sometimes the first thing you play when you pick up an instrument comes an idea because you're not thinking about it, right?

Evan Ball:
Right, yeah.

John Myung:
You just pick something up, and all of a sudden it's like, "Oh wait, what was that? Wait. Quick, hit record."

Evan Ball:
Yeah. That definitely happens to me. That's true. So you guys have 14 studio albums. Do you have a favorite?

John Myung:
No. You know what? They're all important to me because they all reflect a certain period of my life. The important ones like Images and Words and that whole period, closest to being my favorite would probably be those records because of what those records did for us, and how pivotal and important they were, and all the memories and experiences that were attached with that whole period. It was unbelievable just going from the basement of a retail store to all of a sudden the world knows about you. That was a really unbelievable time how quickly that happened.

Evan Ball:
I bet. Is there a Dream Theater song that is hardest to play technically, either in the studio or live?

John Myung:
Well, the most challenging stuff would probably be instrumental based songs, like Dance Of Eternity. That will always be a challenge to play.

Evan Ball:
What countries are you guys biggest in?

John Myung:
We have a fan base all over the world, but the places where we tend to play to the most people would definitely be Europe, whether it be playing festivals and arenas. We tend to play more small, medium sized arenas in Europe more so than anywhere else in the world.

Evan Ball:
Does any country stand out in your mind as a favorite to tour in?

John Myung:
They're all amazing for their own reasons. It's incredible. It's a really kind of unique situation where we get to see that aspect of the world and go to places like Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Or we played this one place up in Norway that was really far, pretty close to the North Pole. I forget what it was, but we get to go to some pretty remote places as well.

Evan Ball:
Not only do you get to visit these remote places, you have adoring fans in these places that know and love your music. It's a pretty amazing and unique job.

John Myung:
No, it is really amazing. I don't know. I guess it's its own kind of phenomenon in a way.

Evan Ball:
What do you enjoy doing apart from music?

John Myung:
That's a good question because my idea of getting away from doing what I'm doing happens once in a while. And then if I do do something it'll maybe like I'll go play around and golf with a bunch of friends. And on tour, maybe on a day off, we'll go golfing. But the day goes by really fast right now, so I have no problem just staying home and playing, or listening, or learning more about recording software. Where my head is that right now is just, there's no reason to really leave what I do right now because I'm not really bored with it. In fact, it's the exact opposite. I wake up every day and try to find as much time as possible to spend it musically.

Evan Ball:
That's great. Word on the street is that you have a new Ernie Ball Music Man Bass.

John Myung:
Yes, I'm totally psyched about it.

Evan Ball:
So it's a Bongo, but definitely not a standard Bongo. So maybe you can point out some of the key features.

John Myung:
Back in 2007, that was when the first Bongos sixth string was made. And then in 2008, I started getting into the custom modeling of the bass. One thing led to another, and it got to the point where I wanted to see if we could take this further. So I asked Sterling Ball if there was the opportunity to do something, and he agreed to do something. So I am forever grateful for being given that platform. So we came up with a six string version of the Bongo that has a real great feel, unique qualities. It looks really cool. It's very inspiring.

Evan Ball:
I love the fretboard, how it's rosewood and maple.

John Myung:
Yeah, that definitely is one of the cool things that worked out. Origin of that idea is the spiral of life.

Evan Ball:
The golden ratio, right?

John Myung:
Right. The golden ratio. And the golden rectangle is what gave me the idea, because it sort of looks like a fret marker when I initially looked at it. And I thought, "Well, that would be cool to implement on the neck." And then after delving into it a little more, it turns out when you map out the golden rectangle from the nut of the neck all the way to the bridge as you work your way up the fretboard, that way, as the rectangle expands, it gets larger. The lines of one side of the rectangle, the lines line up exactly on the second and on the 12th fret where the harmonics are on the string.

John Myung:
So you have natural harmonic unity within that shape, within that geometric shape. So that's something that you won't notice unless you actually study it and break it down. Because what I did was I took the neck off the bass, and then I traced it onto a bunch of paper that I taped together so that we had an exact sketch model of the surface area of the neck. And then we would work out how this golden rectangle, how we would actually map itself out. And then we discovered how it just correlates with all the different harmonic points in the string.

Evan Ball:
The ratio of the rosewoods, the maple is the golden ratio. So the Rosewood has 1.6, whatever the decimal is, bigger than the maple portion. Just so people can picture it, this runs the length of the fretboard.

John Myung:
Right. When you look at the golden ratio, every fret, the rosewood would be the A section, and the maple would be the B section.

Evan Ball:
And it looks like it lines up right about it on the D-string.

John Myung:
It's exact-

Evan Ball:
Exactly on there? Okay.

John Myung:
Yeah. That was another cool thing that happened. It's not like one side or the other. It is exactly down split.

Evan Ball:
That's really cool. And on top of that, it looks really cool. I haven't seen it on another instrument. I don't know if it is out there, but it looks awesome on the Bongo. And we should mention, so one of the key features is that it's six string, but it's basically on a five string neck. So the spacing is a little tighter.

John Myung:
Right. Well, that's just what wanted. It just felt right.

Evan Ball:
Are you able to play faster with that spacing.

John Myung:
I don't know if necessarily faster, but what you do realize is where you go musically with an instrument is very much dependent on the instrument or the tool that you're playing that is available. And the best situation is to have something that works with you and doesn't you back in any way. So that was the motivation, the pursuit to, "Well, okay. Well, this doesn't feel right. Let's try something else." And it's a really long journey, and it's a really big challenge. And I'm very thankful to the patience that the developers had in working with me and trying all these things out, because a lot of times I try something and it wouldn't be a good idea, but that's also part of the process.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. I think everyone feels how rewarding it is to actually come up with such a quality product at the end.

John Myung:
Yeah. That's something that I don't think everyone will realize. When you pick up something, sometimes you don't realize it's very easy to upset the balance of something. So where I feel we are with the Artist Series Bongo that will be coming out, six string Bongo, is that I definitely feel that we're at a balance point right now where it's like being at the top of a mountain. We've been on this journey, climbing this mountain, and now we're at the top. And then someone's like, "Well, I don't want to do anything at this point to throw it off. It's at a good balance right now.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. I'll just mention one more feature. It only has two knobs, correct? So it's a volume and then a blend knob, but it's actually, I don't know, what do you say? It's notched the, blend knob. so you have five settings on there?

John Myung:
Right?

Evan Ball:
I should say it's two pickups. So it's a blend between the neck pickup and the bridge pickup.

John Myung:
That happened because I never really used the toner or the bass control that was originally a part of what I was using. I just never found the need for them. So being that I wasn't using using them, it was like, "Well then, let's just get rid of them." Because that aspect of the sound, I can dial in what bass, or treble, or tone from the bass preamp or the onboarding EQ on a mixing board or something. It seemed like most useful thing was just the pickup blend knob, because from there, it was like instantaneous, you can change the weight that the sound. And a lot of times when I'm trying to get comfortable with the sound where I feel like it's doing something in the track, it has to do with the level or the weighted-ness of the sound. And the pickup blend knob accomplishes that.

John Myung:
The further you deviate from the center towards the bridge, the thinner the sound gets. And when you deviate closer towards the neck from the center, the tone tends to get a little bit more weighty. I found that that was the best for me. If I needed something different, usually it was one of those settings that got the job done.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. So I guess you have one setting where it's just neck pickup, one where it's just bridge pickup, and then you have those three options in between. And it's nice because it does click into place, because otherwise you really are just guessing where you are in a blend knob.

John Myung:
Right. That's definitely why I do it that way.

Evan Ball:
Yeah. Well, John, thank you for your time. I know you have a busy day tomorrow. Speaking of this space, you're going to film some promo material for the bass.

John Myung:
Yeah.

Evan Ball:
Well, John Myung, thanks for being on the podcast.

John Myung:
Oh, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Evan.

Evan Ball:
Thanks for tuning in to Ernie Ball's Striking A Chord Podcast. Thanks, John Myung. Don't forget to check out his new bass. And why not give us a kind review on your favorite podcast [inaudible 00:37:12]. If you'd like to contact us, please email [email protected].

John Myung:
Where'd you fly in from?

Evan Ball:
Flew in from a Newark, New Jersey.

Evan Ball:
Okay. So it's 11:00 for you.

John Myung:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:37:40]-

Evan Ball:
Thanks for doing this.

John Myung:
Oh, no problem.