On The Page – An Interview with Kevin Moore of O.S.I.

On The Page – An Interview with Kevin Moore of O.S.I.
By Melanie “Sass” Falina

Certain musicians have the courage to step out of that label that is their band, their sound, or that thing that they’re already known for. They take the ‘how about’s and the ‘what if’s and actually make something out of those ideas. Keyboardist and composer Kevin Moore is one of those musicians.

Former member of Dream Theater and founder of Chroma Key, Moore is also the co-founder of O.S.I. - his joint effort with Fates Warning’s Jim Matheos. Having just released O.S.I.’s third full album, Blood, Moore found the time to chat with NoneLouder about O.S.I., his composing techniques, and what it’s like to be somewhat of a modern day nomad.

Now that Blood has been released and the reflection time can commence, is there anything in particular that stands out for Kevin Moore with this particular album?

“I think lyrically there was a change. Usually the way I write lyrics - the way I approach them is – I have this way of just playing a song and hooking up the microphone and getting everything to sound good and sort of just mumbling melodies and stuff and recording what I do, and then sort of trying to interpret what I was saying. And if I get a good melody I try to work it as that, which usually has a certain effect,” Moore laughs, “Sometimes the lyrics come out a little bit obtuse. Maybe sometimes I’m the only one who understands what I’m talking about. So I think on this one I did it a little bit differently, I tried to get an idea for what I wanted the song to be about before I started it. I listened to the music as I wrote the lyrics but I didn’t do that same recording process – I really tried to make something coherent – something that I know what the song’s about and what somebody else is going to know the song is about.”

So was that kind of a deviation in writing technique more for the benefit of Moore himself or for Jim Matheos and the others participating in this project?

“I think in all. It’s all one thing to me really. I do it for myself but it’s because I want people to understand what I’m playing,” he chuckled. “That’s just how music is, but if I’m writing it for myself or the listener usually I think it’s all one thing.”

Are there any songs on Blood that Moore is particularly fond of?

“‘Be The Hero’ is one of the songs that was like that. Musically it came together really fast. Jim sent me this sort of really heavy riff and I love it when he does that, I’m always asking him to do that but he likes to write mellow stuff just like I do too. So when I got that and started editing it and moving stuff around and did a lot of programming stuff to it; and like I said lyrically I had an idea of what I wanted to do with that song. And I feel like I did it and that came across. It’s catchy - a catchy song, I like it.”

Jim Matheos had commented that he really enjoys the songs that he has handed over and Moore has reconstructed them to the point that they sound completely different. But was that ever odd for Moore to take someone else’s creation and alter it almost beyond recognition?

“It wasn’t hard for me to work on, I mean from the very beginning I was working on it and having a great time but the awkward part came when I sent it back to him, you know? And then just waiting to see if he was totally pissed off or was never going to talk to me again. But the more it was clear that he enjoyed what it was that I was doing to it then the easier it became. I was always really surprised actually, how tolerant he was about that. Especially in the beginning because I was doing stuff to them that he didn’t do, working in a style that he wasn’t working in before, and really changing them from this raw quality to something else – more produced really. So once I got comfortable then it was ok. But on the occasions where the songs he sent me were really songs then I didn’t mess with those so much, I didn’t mess with the structures and stuff – not where it was like his baby and I’m completely tearing it apart.”

Since Moore had a more defined idea of how he wanted the songs to sound on Blood, did Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt’s guest performance on the song “Stockholm” differ from how Moore originally envisioned it?

“Yeah. It felt great. And that’s exactly what we’re doing – that’s what I had in mind when I wanted to get another vocalist to try and see if somebody would do something completely different from what I would have done. Just to mix things up a little bit. So when he sent his take on that song we were both like ‘Wow, what did he do?’ We liked it a lot but especially because it was an approach I wouldn’t have taken and he sang in places that I wouldn’t sing and didn’t sing in places where I would have sung all over it; that kind of thing so it was interesting. We don’t want to do the same album over and over again so new people breathe a breath of fresh air into the project. It’s great.”

It’s refreshing to see Moore and Matheos – two musicians who are both so flexible and open-minded with their writing…

“Well, we’re very polite during interviews,” Moore laughed.

Some performers might stay true to their vision of the song their working on and that’s that.

“If anybody’s going to have those feelings it’s going to be Jim and he does have them now and again. If there’s something that he doesn’t want to change and he really likes and he wants to hang on to it, so that happens once in awhile. I think what happens is he’ll send me an idea and I’ll email him and say ‘this is what I’d like to do,’ and seeing if he’s open to that, especially if it’s something radical then I’ll ask him first.”

Is there anyone else Moore would like to eventually work with – be it for O.S.I. or a different project?

“Not off the top of my head, not really; those things usually come to me last minute. When it was my idea to bring in another vocalist to try a track Jim was the one who started thinking of ideas for who it could be – seeking people out.”

Does O.S.I. allow for that level of freedom – to bring in new people and experiment with new sounds more than Moore’s other projects?

“I don’t think of it as freedom really, what I get out of this is structure. It’s a collaboration and it’s sort of a sound that we’ve come to agree on and a style that we’ve come to agree on, and it’s neither his baby nor my baby or our ideal, it’s its own thing and you have to participate within it. It’s not so much about freedom, like with my solo stuff that’s one of the most difficult things to deal with is how much freedom I have there. You can go anywhere with it. And after – we’ll give the example of Chroma Key – the second two; it gets easier every album because it starts to have an identity of its own. So you know you can’t go too far off that or else you might just as well be doing a different project. It gets easier as it goes along.”

So are there any plans for a new Chroma Key album?

“I think I just talked myself out of it,” Moore chuckled. “I don’t have any plans for it not right now at all. I don’t have any plans in general. That sort of always happens when I come off of finishing an album, I don’t really know what’s going to happen next. When I start writing again I’ll have a better idea. It’s a lot; especially towards the end of producing an album like it consumes your life sort of, so you just have to decompress.”

When not focusing on music, what things take up Moore’s time?

“Usually I’m exploring the place that I’m living at the time, but I’m back in America now. I’ve lived in Costa Rica for several years and I’ve lived in Istanbul, Turkey and I just got back from there a couple years ago.”

It was in Istanbul where Moore composed the soundtracks for two films.

“It’s not something that I would pursue again but I really enjoyed doing it. Especially under the circumstances that I did it because it’s not like a Hollywood film direction where I just think there’s a lot more hoops to jump through, there’re a lot more bosses. But this was for two directors, actually who are brothers, and both of the films I did were by these guys. And we became friends right away so it was really just like working with my friends and they knew what my music was like so there weren’t any battles or anything like that. We didn’t have to get approval from producers or anything like that which I imagine would be the case in Hollywood. So it was a pleasure, the whole thing. It was great, it was really satisfying. I loved writing for picture – it’s another case for being thankful for the structure. You have set times of scenes and you know pretty much what the actions are in terms of mood or contrasting mood. So if there’s dialogue the music can’t be too busy; the role was pretty clear and that’s a great way to work.”

Costa Rica and Turkey are pretty different places from one another. What was it that beckoned Moore to each of these areas?

“People, really. My brother was living in Costa Rica – in Monteverde – so I went to visit and then I went back a few months later to stay. And then I ended up in Turkey because a friend of mine from school was teaching in Istanbul and I went to visit him and the same thing happened. I was about to start the last Chroma Key album and so I wanted to sort of be in a different place, I didn’t want to be in Costa Rica – so I went over there and got set up there. It’s nice to travel but it’s also nice to live in a place you’re familiar with – you have a lot of the same friends and you grow up with them, I can appreciate that too.”

So any ideas for future projects?

“I think unless something else comes up I might just start working on my own thing. I don’t know if it’ll be a Chroma Key thing or maybe it’ll just be whatever – a solo project. But I think I’ve always wanted to do something a bit more organic, less programming and with more piano and with a real band – group of musicians – something a little more raw. So that’s something that’s been in my head, maybe that will happen if nothing else comes up I’ll be forced to.”

O.S.I. Related Links:

O.S.I. Official Website

Chroma Key Website

Kevin Moore Website (in progress)

Info on 'Okul' (Soundtrack by Kevin Moor)e

Info on 'Küçük kiyamet' (Soundtrack by Kevin Moore)

Tags: Chroma Key, Dream Theater, Kevin Moore, O.S.I.

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