With "Innocence & Danger", NMB (formerly Neal Morse Band) will release the highly anticipated follow-up to "The Great Adventure" (2019) on August 27. After two sprawling concept albums in a row, however, Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Randy George, Eric Gilette and Bill Hubauer have come up with a refreshing collection of individual songs this time. Nevertheless, it has become a double album.
It made curious when earlier this year in the update video for the recording of "Innocence & Danger" the master himself stated a dry "I didn't bring anything". Did the Neal Morse Band's fourth album actually come together without any initial Morse input? And why does the group now call itself NMB with the addition "formerly the Neal Morse Band"? We talked to the two guitarists Neal Morse and Eric Gillette
eclipsed: Neal, "Innocence & Danger" sounds more like a band affair than ever.
Neal Morse: That's what I wanted, that was my goal. I don't intend to take up a lot of musical space, it just kind of happens (laughs) - and I don't mean that in a pompous sense. This time I intentionally didn't come up with a lot of material because I wanted to give the others more space. Everyone shines on this album, and I'm very, very happy about that.
eclipsed: Your update video jokingly talks about the "Bill Hubauer Band Album".
Morse: Bill brought most of the demos. He told me that he went down to his basement every morning to sit down at the piano and improvise. And what he thought was good, he recorded. So he had these 25 minutes or so of little piano improvisations - and a draft of what would eventually become "Beyond The Years." But a lot was added later, by all of us
eclipsed: But you are exclusively responsible for the lyrics?
Morse: Yes. But I didn't write those until later. During the sessions they were improvised lyrics, demos so to speak. The final lyrics were easy for me this time, by the way, which was partly because it's not a concept album. I could just say what I wanted.