Casey McPherson is in a unique position. The Austin-based songwriter, singer and guitarist already tasted the adulation and acclaim that comes with success when his band Alpha Rev’s 2010 album New Morning set up camp inside the Billboard Top 10 for 17 weeks. Meanwhile, Peter Collins, who’s produced records for Rush and Queensrÿche, was developing a record with guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs, ex-Kansas) drummer Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Winery Dogs, ex-Dream Theater), Neal Morse (Transatlantic, Spock’s Beard), and bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse Band, Steve Vai). Supposedly, Portnoy suggested bringing in McPherson to make the music more commercially palatable. Once that was done, the foundation was set for what would become Flying Colors.
McPherson’s experience in the progressive rock world, of which the core members of Flying Colors originate, was limited, but it somehow broadened the possibilities of what the band could achieve. They could be at once melodic and majestic without sacrificing their integrity or more-than-ample capabilities. The songs could be catchy, but difficult to break down. Not a bad thing at all. With a warm, inviting voice and a natural tendency to maneuver within often complex, unwieldy arrangements, McPherson made songs like “Kayla,” “Everything Changes” and even the smooth-talking “Better Than Walking Away” sound fresh and accessible without stepping on the toes of his band mates. A short and feisty 2013 tour cemented the band’s chemistry, leading to the writing and recording of a second album with the snappy title of Second Nature.
Having chatted many times with Steve Morse about Deep Purple and his solo work, and meeting Portnoy at Bonzo Bash for a quick run-down of his laundry list of activities, it was nice to get McPherson’s perspective — very much a kid in a candy store, thankful to be on the frontlines with two exciting bands, working on soundtracks, and keeping mindfully afloat in a business with few survivors. Ask the other members of Flying Colors how critical McPherson’s role in their music is, and they will be unanimous in their praise, referring to him as the “X-factor” of the band. Humble to a fault without a lack of confidence, McPherson explains himself fully and sincerely in the following discourse.
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Congratulations on Second Nature.
Oh, thanks, man. I’m really, really proud of it.
As you should be. I’ve been tracking through it and I’m really loving it. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that everybody in your band is really busy and active in a lot of different things — so how did you manage to get this one together?
For me, it was more how did I manage to get invited to this one, you know. I was kind of the odd man out, and Mike had heard of my band and asked me to sing. I was pretty sure that I would be fired the first day that we wrote a song together, and I wasn’t. It’s been a challenge for me to keep up with these guys in a really great way. They’re so patient and understanding of my lack of progressive rock experience. But man, I’ve got to tell you, it’s been so freeing to get into this world, being from the pop/alternative rock world where there’s definitely a structure involved for radio and major label releases like that. Being able to not have any rules again like you did when you first started playing music has been a real inspiration.
Like I said, I tracked through this record a few times, and I reviewed the first album and the live album. We’ve got a lot of stuff on Flying Colors on VintageRock.com. My initial reaction to this new record is it does sound a little more developed, a little more intricate, and as I’m sure you know, it’s a little more progressive than the first record. Is that how you’re seeing it as well?
Oh yeah. When I joined Flying Colors, I was looking forward to seeing melodies where progressive rock kind of peaked. I think from the progressive standpoint, those guys were looking forward to making more of a pop record. We all wanted to be kind of out of our element in some ways, to stretch us. For some people, it’s hard to play a hundred 32nd notes on the kick drum at the same time; for Mike, it’s not. But for Mike to just lay down a beat and stay there for a while is a different thing for him too, and to kind of create motifs of a simpler nature. The first record we had a producer and I think that we were kind of looking at making more of a pop record out of progressive material. This time, we’ve made more of a progressive record with pop material. So in terms of when I say “pop,” I just mean melody that is palatable, you know. And so, I think what kind of ties all that stuff in together for me a lot is Steve’s melodic stuff, Neal’s melodic stuff and my melodic stuff from the vocal. Those things kind of tie all these weird little tangents that we’ll go down. It’s been a fantastic experience to watch it unfold as it’s created itself by all of us being in a room together.
Speaking of prog, the album’s opening track, “Open Up Your Eyes,” clocks in at 12 minutes, 24 seconds, and it’s got this big, epic four-minute beginning. But again, you guys are scattered all over the country, if not all over the world — so how do you take an intricate piece like that and put it together? What’s the process?
The funny story about that song is that I showed up late to the studio. I believe that was the first song that we wrote, so I got there and there was already four minutes of grandiosity going on. So I knew I had to set up my amp and microphone really, really fast if I was going to get a chorus before 10 minutes. I think that was great; me being late to the studio ended up being a great gain because I think it allowed the guys as a band to be themselves. I think they were probably just jamming before I got there. It allowed for this epic entry into this record. Then, after those four or five days, we ended up Skyping a lot and going through each of our ideas and kind of voting on or giving our opinion on the ones that we love, and putting those all into one Dropbox. Then our final session together, we took all those and created songs out of it.
We have not thrown one thing away; we have not reversed one decision in terms of a direction that we’ve gone. It’s really, really interesting. I’ve never been in a band like that. We don’t get halfway through something and say, “No, this isn’t working.” Every decision we make is a movement forward, and that’s really odd. But it’s a really freeing process because we’re not trying to do anything; we’re just creating. Whatever we end up with, that’s what we’re going to play.
The next song on the record is “Music Machine,” which has been making the rounds on YouTube. Watching the video, which is not actually a live performance, you get a really good sense of the musicianship and the chops that everyone has. Was that sort of the intention behind that?
Yeah, I mean it was important to me for a band like this that we didn’t do something cheesy, because we’re all musicians. We’re all blue collar dudes that practice our stuff at home and go on the road. I was going to say we’re not flying our planes, but Steve flies his plane. But not a guy in a private jet flying a plane — like a guy who’s brilliant enough to get his pilot’s license and be one of the world’s greatest guitar players. That kind of flying. And so, I felt like it was important that we had a video that’s us rocking out. We all had amps on stage and we all turned them on and we all played the song through that video. It was a very live experience for us. That’s us rocking out on stage. That felt normal and good. There’s not a bunch of hot chicks dancing around trying to promote it or something.
No, I didn’t see any of that.
That scene got cut, I guess. I don’t know (laughs).
Of course, the record is not strictly prog. You have a great variety. You’ve got heavy songs like “Bombs Away” and you’ve got lighter songs like “The Fury of My Love,” so it really makes it tricky to pigeonhole this band, which from my point of view, is kind of the whole idea.
It’s nice to be in a band that is hard to pigeonhole, because it’s a rare thing. But it was also nothing that we intentionally did. I think the intention was that we used everybody’s ideas, and there’s not a primary writer in the band or a primary idea guy in the band. You have even multigenerational ideas coming from different stages of where music has been, so you get this really interesting hybrid thing where I might be drawing from Muse, whose influence is Queen, and Steve might be drawing from Queen in terms of Brian May. If we’re going to say we’re drawing from somebody on a certain song, or a certain band. I think from the first record you can hear us drawing from serious influences, because we’re kind of mixing and matching each other. But this record, we’ve worked together so much that the line started really getting gray. You can hear touches of influence, but it’s almost like hybrided out between everybody else, filtered in a way that makes it ours.
You have definitely stamped your identity on this record. I think the last song, “Cosmic Symphony,” really captures everything that’s good and right about Flying Colors.
Yeah, that’s one of my favorite ones, too. For me and Mike — Mike’s very much about trying to go for anything, he’s very much organic, let’s see what happens. For me, I was most excited about trying to get something that’s progressive in nature and felt like a modern-day Pink Floyd tune. So something that was like pop, because it was accessible, and yet something that took you on the journey that progressive rock took you. And I feel like “Cosmic Symphony” does that.
You have a short tour coming up, and I’m hoping to be at that first show here in California. You did a short tour last year and released a live album and DVD. I would imagine because it was your first tour, there was a bit of trial and error with regards to what songs to play from the first album, as well as your respective catalogs and developing this live chemistry between the five of you. That being said, how are you feeling about this upcoming tour?
At the beginning of the tour, I had about 12 cheat sheets in front of me and by the end of it I maybe had one. This music is really challenging for me, but in terms of our chemistry on-stage, Mike really likes to be a part of the set list. He’s already sent one around and we’ve been kind of massaging, talking about it. It’s a mix of the last record and this record, and then each one of our bands and playing a song from there again. From an energy and a touring perspective, none of us are worried about how a person tours. Usually that can create a lot of stress if somebody’s kind of crazy on tour, but everybody’s pretty chilled out. So that part is figured out.
This time, I get to play a lot of Steve’s parts. We put a lot of room in this last record, and I asked Steve to do his guitars before I did mine. A lot of people don’t realize what a composer he is. If you give him four or five tracks, he can create this really incredible symphony of guitars. You can’t do that when there’s more than one person; you kind of have to make concessions with each other — one person plays rhythm and the other plays lead. So this time around, there’s a lot of it like, it’s not lead, it’s not rhythm; it’s a piece. I’m going to start rehearsing that, learning some of his parts and secondary parts. That I’m really excited about.
As with last year, you have a lot more dates in Europe than you do in the States. Is there more love for Flying Colors in Europe? What’s the deal with that?
Man, I don’t know. All I know is we get very little time to tour. I really don’t know, because the prog world is still pretty new to me, but I know that this time around, we spend three days in the U.S. instead of two, so it’s building.
I’m glad you’re doing one here in LA because I’m really excited about seeing the show. Going back to the beginning when the band formed, the story I heard was that Mike Portnoy pitched that idea to the others about you joining Flying Colors. As you said at the beginning, you’re just happy to be in the band. What was your reaction when you were first asked to join up?
I don’t think it was legal for me, because I was under contract with the label at that time. But I was going to try it out and fight with them if I loved it. Because obviously, getting an opportunity like that doesn’t just come waltzing in every day. So as soon as we got together the first day and saw the chemistry, and they didn’t fire me, I was just like, “Man, I’ll do anything to continue this.” Because everybody was coming from a place of creativity. We just wanted to make something great. It’s not about … it’s not about fame or fortune or anything. I guess the prog world is kind of like that; there’s a thing about making great music and that being the primary goal. That’s really refreshing for me, because in the alternative rock/pop world, it’s not that way. Success is not about making a great record, it’s about selling a lot of records. No one really cares if it’s good or not, in terms of how they equate success. I’ve been really enjoying a shift in that kind of definition of what that means.
These songs are obviously very radio-friendly, but unfortunately not in this day and age, radio not being what it used to be. I guess that frees you up, not really having to live up to that, I would imagine.
Yeah, for sure it does. The cool thing though with this record, is I feel like “Mask Machine” as a single is very modern. It’s very relevant to some of the harder rock bands that are out these days that are doing well. It makes me feel possibly as a prog band we can be in both worlds, can exist in both worlds, without compromising any integrity, which is pretty cool too.
You’re in a band with guys like Steve Morse, Dave LaRue and Mike Portnoy, and, of course, you and Neal Morse bringing the vocals and the melodic side to it — it’s definitely a winning formula.
Thanks man, I’m really stoked to get to play this live. I think it’s going to be pretty badass.
Is there going to be a third Flying Colors album in our future?
I’m sure there will be, but we take it one thing at a time with this band. Those conversations exist after this tour or after the next tour. Everything happens real organically. I’m sure towards the end of the tour we’re going to have a handful of ideas that’s going to spark making more music.
I listened to the first one quite a bit when it came out, and have been getting into the new one more and more, so I definitely see legs with this project. But you, of course, you have a busy life outside of Flying Colors with your band Alpha Rev. I saw you have some live dates coming up this month and next month, and then you did a record last year, Bloom.
I’m writing for the next record, which will probably come out next year, and I’m doing some film scoring for a couple of films. I do a lot of writing and stay busy with an assortment of projects. It’s nice to not have to do one thing and to stay creative that way. It keeps my ADD in full-blown action.
