Kevin Moore has shared a second demo through his Chroma Key Patreon campaign, which launched last year and invited fans to pledge an amount of their choosing to help fund new music. The 4:28 tune, titled "Bonewalk," was mastered by Jens Bogren of Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, who also mastered and mixed Fates Warning's new album, Theories of Flight.
"It started with a sample of some spontaneous chanting my brother Patrick captured at an 'ecstatic dance' gathering he organized in Costa Rica," Moore said in a post on Patreon. "I started messing with some Rhodes piano riffs to accompany the chanting loop, and built the song up from there. For the verses, I tracked the vocals and Rhodes part at the same time, which is new for me. Later I replaced the improvised vocals with words that made (a little) more sense."
The demo is available in MP3, FLAC, and Apple Lossless (M4A) versions, with a bonus track for Chroma Key Enablers and multi-track stems for Chroma Key Collaborators to come.
To visit the Chroma Key Patreon page, click here: https://www.patreon.com/chromakey
July 28, 2016 - Matheos talks Moore in interviews with Loudwire, The Prog Report
Fates Warning and OSI guitarist Jim Matheos mentioned Kevin Moore in interviews earlier this month with music websites Loudwire and The Prog Report. In the Loudwire interview, Matheos discussed working with Moore in response to a question about working with Fates Warning's original vocalist John Arch.
"With so many things I’d like to do outside of Fates Warning – and John is among them, or OSI is among them – it all comes down to my schedule and their schedule and then the question of inspiration," Matheos said in the interview, which was posted on July 8. "In short, the answer is no, but I would love to. No solid plans right now, but of course with anything I'm open to anything if John is available or if Kevin is available. I'd love to work with either."
Matheos also discussed deciding which songwriting ideas go to Fates Warning and which go to OSI. "I tend to write for whatever project I'm working on," he said. "So if I'm working on an OSI record, I don't remember coming across something I thought was interesting and saying to myself, this doesn't fit, better save it for Fates or visa versa. There's things on this record, songs like that last song we talked about 'Theories of Flight,' that could be adapted for an OSI record. Kevin just hasn't gotten his hands on it."
In The Prog Report's interview, Matheos praised Moore's songwriting abilities and explained why he invited the keyboardist to appear on Fates Warning's A Pleasant Shade of Gray album in 1997.
"Kevin first played with us on Perfect Symmetry, which was 1989," Matheos said in the interview, which was posted on July 6. "I'd been good friends with Mike [Portnoy] for a long time and he turned me on to [Dream Theater], and I just loved the band. We knew with Perfect Symmetry that we wanted to have some keyboards that Kevin would be a great addition to it... Getting back to A Pleasant Shade, we wanted to do something completely different, so we knew that there was going to be less of the two guitar parts that we'd traditionally had and the second guitar part's space would be taken up by keyboards. For me, the first person I thought of to add those keyboards would be Kevin, because number one I love his writing and two even though a lot of the keyboard parts were written in advance I like the sounds he brings to the table. Even if he's just playing something that I wrote, his sounds and his inversions, the way he interprets it adds so much to it. He was the natural choice for us."
To read the interview with Loudwire, click here: http://loudwire.com/fates-warning-jim-matheos-theories-of-flight-writing-process/
To hear the interview with The Prog Report, click here: http://progreport.com/jim-matheos-interview/
June 20, 2016 - Matheos talks about OSI, Moore in new interview with Noisefull
Fates Warning and OSI guitarist Jim Matheos briefly discussed OSI and Kevin Moore in a new interview with the music website Noisefull. The interview, which was posted online last week, was in promotion of Fates Warning's upcoming album, Theories of Flight. The album will be released through Inside Out Music on July 1.
Regarding the status of OSI, Matheos said: "Kevin and I are both busy doing other things. I believe Kevin is experimenting and working on some Chroma Key material right now, so who knows... In the future I would love to do it and if it happens that's great, but there are no plans right now. My main focus for at least the rest of this year and probably next year is going to be Fates Warning."
Regarding the possibility of performing Fates Warning's 1997 album A Pleasant Shade of Gray (which featured Moore on keyboards) in its entirety for its 20th anniversary, Matheos said: "I would definitely consider it last year, when we did the reissue, which was a lot of fun and that was pretty much celebrating the 20-year anniversary. We talked about doing some live shows for it like we did for Parallels and Awaken The Guardian, but the logistics of it are very difficult with Mark [Zonder] being busy and Kevin being busy. So to bring it over with that lineup would be very hard at this point, and I'm not sure I want to do it with a different lineup. Unfortunately, I don't think that’s probably going to happen in the near future anyway."
Regarding the possibility of working again with Fates Warning's original vocalist John Arch, Matheos also mentioned Moore: "Well, I'd certainly love to, I love working with John as much as I love working with Kevin in OSI. Those are things that I really enjoy doing because it gives me a chance to do something outside of Fates Warning and it allows me to collaborate with people who I really admire and like working with."
To read the full interview, click here: http://noisefull.com/interviews/fates-warning-jim-matheos-0
Aug. 25, 2016 - Sherinian shares his thoughts about stepping in for Moore in 1994
Ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian, who replaced Kevin Moore in the band after his departure in 1994, shared his thoughts on the topic last week as part of a question-and-answer session with fans. The Q&A video, which is posted on Sherinian's YouTube channel, features the keyboardist replying from Beachwood Manor Studios in Burbank, CA. Questions were solicited last month by Dream Theater Forums member shadystraz360, a student of Sherinian and patch designer with Space4Keys.
"Well, I'll say this, it's not fun replacing an original member – it really isn't," Sherinian said. "I know, as being a Van Halen fan, when they switched Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth, I was not down with it at all. Because you discover a band and that lineup is your band, and that's what you're used to. Anyhow, members change. I had to come in and replace Kevin."
Regarding Moore's keyboard playing, Sherinian said: "I think he sounds great on [Images and Words and Awake]. And I thought his keyboard parts were very well thought out. I thought he used really good sounds. I liked his solos too. I tried to stay as true to his parts as possible. During the solos I would start using his licks, but I wanted to put my own thing in there as well, so I tried to balance it as much as possible. I really think Kevin did a great job on both of those records. He should be proud of his work on that. I think between the two, I would say I like Images and Words better."
In closing, Sherinian said there are some things he learned while studying Moore's parts on Awake that he still uses to this day. "The way he distorted the choir sound and also the strings," Sherinian said. "He had some distortion internally on the sounds and it made it cut through the tracks better. And so, I use that on some things today. So that's where I learned it from, from Kevin."
To view the full video, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJEaOwUeMI4&feature=youtu.be
Jan. 18, 2016 - Moore referenced in Patreon article on prog blog Proglodytes
Kevin Moore is among a handful of musicians mentioned in an article posted today about the crowdfunding platform Patreon. The article, which appears on the new prog blog Proglodytes, explores the increasing popularity of Patreon, which Moore is using to fund the release of his first music under the Chroma Key name since 2004's Graveyard Mountain Home.
"I didn’t pay this site much attention until I noticed one of my favorite artists, Kevin Moore, using Patreon to launch Chroma Key after a decade-or-so absence (he has of course been releasing music in OSI in the meantime)," wrote the article's author Arthur Hatton, whose username is arthur42 on The Mooreatorium Forum. "Unable to contain my enthusiasm, I chose to pledge the full amount to show my still-raging love for Chroma Key."
In the story, Moore shares his thoughts about using Patreon over the past few months. His first song, a five-minute demo titled "Mission," was released last month through Patreon with plans to release about one home-recorded song per month, along with its associated bonus tracks and submixes, he has said.
"Definitely feels too early to come to any conclusions about the Patreon approach and how it will influence my music," Moore said in the article. "I know Spotify isn’t the answer. :)"
To read Proglodyte's piece citing Moore, click here: http://proglodytes.com/2016/01/18/the-patreon-model/