Interview with Erik Norlander, Mark McCrite and Don Schiff of the Rocket Scientists

 By Jill Hughes 

Rocket Scientists composing of Erik Norlander (keyboardist), Mark McCrite(vocalist/guitarist) and Don Schiff (NS stick) just finished a live show at the Rites of Spring festival in Phoenixville, PA.  We all gathered in a small coffee shop across the street, along with Lana Lane.

USAProgMusic:  My first question is: What made you choose the name of the band [Rocket Scientists]?

Erik Norlander:  Originally it came from my uncle who is a deputy district attorney for the city of Los Angeles and he is the guy who would always prosecute criminals and at family gatherings he would always talk about the really stupid criminals ..who I don’t know…

Mark McCrite: (interjects) Hire a taxi to rob a bank.

Erik: Right, hire a taxi to rob a bank or something (laughs) and he would always refer to them as rocket scientists.  So he would be like “Yeah, these rocket scientists come in and would go hire a taxi to rob a bank…” so growing up my whole life I heard this term and I thought when we were doing this progressive rock music it was a really fitting name because I think everyone would agree that we take the music very very seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. And so to have a little bit of a tongue in cheek band name was kinda clever. That’s where it came from.

USAProgMusic:  Very interesting. I thought maybe you chose that name because composing progressive rock is in a way almost as hard as rocket science (laughs).

Erik:  Well, it goes along with that, too. And that’s why I think that the name is appropriate. But the true origin of it was almost like the opposite of it.

USAProgMusic:  More in a fun way.

Mark: All of our instrument rigs, needless to say Erik’s keyboard rig and I have this all digital guitar rig and Don playing his NS stick now and in the past he has had bass pedals, midi stuff and all sorts of things so yeah that’s part of it as well.

USAProgMusic:  I have some individual questions for you as well. Erik, how long have you been playing the keyboards?

Erik:  I started piano lessons when I was 8 years old and I will be 40 in July, so 32 years I guess?

USAProgMusic:  So you started first with the piano and then moved onto the electric keyboards?

Erik: Right, I started with piano and then I took guitar lessons which really didn’t stick and then I played the saxophone and clarinet in junior high and high school and then I got my first synthesizer when I was about 16 years old. I worked like a horrible fast food job and saved up enough money to buy it and then that was it and I was hooked. I started playing in bands.

USAProgMusic:  Do you go back and play the piano at all?

Erik: I studied piano all throughout college and even a little bit in graduate school so I have a lot of education but you know from the time I was about 16 I played in rock bands as well and I made it a point to play with guys who are older than me and I try to learn what I could from people who are actually doing it. Because it is one thing to actually learn something out of a book and it’s another to go live with the people who you admire. In fact it’s funny because I actually put Don [Schiff] into that category but now we are all old (everyone laughs) so we are all in the same group. When Don & I met, you know I was 20 and he was 30 and that is a huge difference. I mean now 40 and 50 that is nothing but 20 to 30 is a huge difference or 18 to 28 whatever it was at the time.

Don Schiff:  It just was when he called me gramps that I was …

(everyone laughs)

Erik:  Right. But I played with a lot of people like Don that I really admired and learned a lot from them and listened to what they had to say so I tried to parse that with the classical rigid training and all the music that I loved - YES, ELP, King Crimson, and all that stuff.

USAProgMusic:  I find that it is funny that you say all that because I grew up playing the piano and now I am trying to learn the guitar and I am finding it is quite a difference to go from one to another (laughs).

I have a question for you, Mark.  Do you have any special practice techniques you use to warm up with the guitar, to maybe strengthen your fingers?

Erik:  It involves tasty cakes, I believe.  (Mark has a mini cheesecake next to him that his promotions person bought him)

Lana Lane: It’s cheesecake.

Mark: Yeah, I am into sampling the local cuisine wherever we go. No, not really. I think that I am more about...how do I say this … I am more inspired by finding an interesting guitar tuning or whatever makes me play in a different way rather than working on technique. And I think that exploring different tunings is what inspires me.

USAProgMusic:  Are there any new techniques or new things that you tried out for your latest album [Revolution Road]?

Erik:  (turning to Mark) You should talk about some of your alternate tunings.

Mark: Yeah, “Savor Every Moment” is a very bizarre tuning. So I think alternate tunings are the things that I have explored the most lately and the most on the new record. Because I don’t think I’ve done that on other records.

Erik: You did it on some of Lana’s albums, like Project Shangri-La on “Tears of Babylon”.

Mark: Yeah but not for Rocket Scientists.

USAProgMusic: Did you try anything different for the album, Erik?

Erik: I’ve tried to take a different approach to soloing than a lot of progressive rock keyboard players. My heroes are any good prog rock keyboard player like Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman or Eddie Jobson. One thing that I’ve noticed about those guys is that they tend to approach almost every keyboard like a piano or an organ. And what I’ve tried to do is approach the synthesizer as more of a living instrument like the guitar where you can bend strings and vibrato and really mess with pitch and the tonality of it like a guitar player or saxophone player or a vocalist would do. So in the last ten years especially but certainly on the Revolution Road album I really tried to be a little bit more emotive and creative with the synthesizer and the soloing.

USAProgMusic: Instead of focusing on just the notes?

Erik: Yeah, not just play it like a piano. I really like to work with the controls of it and the sound of it.

USAProgMusic:  You really could tell that in your show today.

Erik: Thank you.

USAProgMusic:  I noticed that because you were always trying different things and it wasn’t like you were always playing [the keys] because your playing is amazing, too but I noticed the difference between what you’ve done and other keyboardists.

Erik: There was one spot when I went to one keyboard and it went horribly out of tune!

Lana: Yeah!

Erik:  And immediately I went over to the next one and I was like ‘Well, that didn’t work, how about this one?’

Mark: Yeah, I think other than the alternative tunings the other thing that I’ve tried on this record is that I’ve found my own style with singing in that early on in Rocket Scientists in its history I was very focus on singing in tune and it was pretty much all about that. I would sing in tune but it was kind of uninspiring so when we did our first album Earthbound, Erik produced the vocals and pushed very hard and got me to sing with some character and it was nice but it wasn’t me. And so we’ve gone back and forth with trying different approaches and what have you on the last couple records and I think that it is finally on the last two records that I feel like I’ve kind of landed somewhere that fits my own style but yet you know … something that is compelling…not forced.

USAProgMusic: I really do commend your ability to be able to sing and play the guitar at the same time. I don’t quite have that coordination.

Don:  And with me on the stick it is all new territory.  I have the first one so pretty much the ground that I lay will be, ‘ohhh, that’s what that is and that’s what I can do with it.’ But something for myself that I’ve developed a technique for this album is that the metal piece that I grab is karabiner and I never knew that word before either, but it’s the thing that you walk your dog with and it opens up in the middle with a hook and mountain climbers use it to thread through. So it’s a chunk of metal that fits right there on my finger and you can tap with it so you wouldn’t notice anything different but then it also works as a slide so you can get some very very beautiful runs with it and some slide techniques so I developed that into my own solo voice as a character of me that I really enjoyed and got to express well as a sound.

USAProgMusic:  So is learning the NS Stick is that like having to learn a new instrument, because you are a bass player?

Don: Well, I came a long way to get to the NS. I first started out with four strings on a bass and that was very enjoyable and then I got when they first came out the original Chapman stick and I have a 12 string version and they are tuned with all the thick notes in the center of the neck and the bass is in fifths and the guitar side of it is in fourths. So that is one of the most bizarre tunings all on one instrument that you can imagine, only then take the NS stick which is like a bass - straight fourths – and so it was kind of like going home except I got four more strings tagged on the end. I just look at it as there is always a better note right next to the one I am on. It makes it simple.

USAProgMusic:  You guys work with two guys from Holland [Peer Verschuren, guitarist & Ernst Van Ee, drummer]. How is that relationship working out? Do you work with them on just the albums or just touring with them?

Erik:  It’s funny how it works with musicians. We met Peer and Ernst on a tour we were on in Europe a few years ago – six years ago actually. And the label is now gone and defunct and all that but our collaboration continues. It started off when Lana & I were doing tours as solo artists. We did tours as Lana Lane & Erik Norlander and we had a lot of opportunities to do gigs in Europe but it was really expensive the idea of flying six guys from California to Amsterdam or something. You’d spend $10,000 before you even started to play your first gig. And we would do that for big shows or festivals but we want to just play anywhere so if someone had a club or a pub and we’d go play for a hundred people we wanted to be able to do those gigs as well. So we thought what if we just had a European band and Lana & I would just get on a plane and go and we’d keep some gear stored in Europe, keyboards and all of that. And when we got invited to shows, just the two of us would fly over and use the European band and crew. But we did that in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and it got to the point that these two guys in particular just became really good friends and really good collaborators and we really fit well with each other as musicians.  

I think Peer on guitar, he compliments my keyboard playing really well because he is a very aggressive player and I am a very aggressive player but not in the same way and so we are kind of able to support each other and compliment each other with playing in a really kind of unique way. And as far as Ernst as the drummer, he has a very European sound to his drumming. It’s very quantifiable where he is very much right on the beat. He doesn’t kind of swing back and forth like a lot of drummers in California are known for doing so for doing more of the progressive orchestral symphonic stuff that’s really nice and the fact that he grew up in Rotterdam there in Holland brings a different flavor than someone like me who grew up in Los Angeles area in California. So when we play together it’s just a nice collaboration with different styles and different sounds…. And when it was time to do this tour which we started in Europe and then we’re bringing it now to the United States, it was really a natural to use those two guys because Rocket Scientists is just the three of us. We lost our drummer. Our drummer died in 2002, so we haven’t had a permanent drummer since then. We used a friend of ours named Greg Bissonette to do the Revolution Road album. He’s a session drummer and a very successful artist and all that and he’s busy and has a lot going on so it be difficult to take him out on the road with us and with the complexity of the music and all the overdubs we do it’s nice to have an extra guitar player to not only pick up the extra guitar parts but extra stick parts and extra keyboard parts so it was really an easy choice to use those two guys because Lana & I had worked with them so long so we really knew what they were all about both as musicians and as people and we knew we could count on them and they bring a nice dynamism to the sound.

USAProgMusic:  I definitely added to the show. I could tell you guys worked with them for awhile with just the energy between you guys. 

Erik: With those two guys we’ve been to the Japan with them. We’ve played in Russia with them. So we’ve been all over the world with them.

USAProgMusic: Speaking of that, you guys just finished touring in Europe and now you are back in the U.S.  What kind of difference do you see in the market for the live shows, obviously there is a difference in CD sales but what about the concert audience in Europe versus the U.S.?

Mark:  It is kind of hard to compare the tour we were just on with the show that we just had because in Europe we were doing just one off shows and the kinds of things that Erik was talking about with the bar that is really into prog rock and a hundred people come, to shows where the Classic Rock Society in Rotherham were big shows and were very enthusiastic but it is hard to compare this [Rites of Spring festival] to a normal U.S. show because it is a big festival, with a captive audience that is there to see progressive music.  I haven’t actually toured in a long time like going around the States. (turns to Erik) You did that a couple years ago, so what would you say?

Erik: If I described the different kinds of audiences I would say that the fans in Holland and Belgium are very reserved. They are not cold I would say but they are reserved and not as enthusiastic as say Germany or England. In Germany, it’s a big party all the time and the fans are very vocal and really really get into it. And in England it’s a similar kind of enthusiasm. It’s their own flavor of it. I definitely notice a difference there. And in Japan of course the fans there are very reserved. They are enthusiastic but kind of in a restrained way. So you’ll notice when you finish a song then there will be a long pause because they want to make sure you are really done and then when they know it is safe to clap then they start and when they get going you know its really crazy but it’s not like here [U.S.A.] where there is just a moment of pause then there is yelling and screaming. In a way I think I would almost compare it to east coast and west coast audiences because the west coast audience is a little more jaded and are like ‘Yeah, what are you guys going to do? We’ve seen it all.’ And when you come to the Northeast especially they are a lot more into it.

Lana: They are so happy to have you.

Erik:  And the Northeast is really the center of progressive music in the United States.

USAProgMusic: I actually noticed that a lot lately. There are a lot of bands from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Mark: Yeah, but even back in the 70’s.

USAProgMusic:  So how often do you join their shows, Lana?

Lana: (laughs)  Often. Almost every time. I’m married to one of them [Erik Norlander] so I guess it’s just sort of a natural. I fight it sometimes, though because I feel that they are so talented that they deserve to be up there by themselves.

Mark:  You play a lot more Lana Lane shows than Rocket Scientists shows.

Lana: Yeah, I do play a lot.  And it’s fun for me because I get to do Rocket Scientists songs but I am almost at every Rocket Scientist show.

Erik: You didn’t play CalProg, but most.

Lana: Yeah, but almost every other one. Happy to do it!

USAProgMusic: I have one more question for you guys. That is about the last song [“Aqua Vitae”]that you played for the show today, if you could talk a little bit about that. Is that something that you just wrote or its going on a new album or something you took off of another album?

Erik: It’s a song from our 3^rd album called Oblivion Days from 1999. It’s a great song and Mark wrote most of it. Maybe he wrote all of it. I might have written the lyrics.

Mark: I wrote most of the lyrics.

Erik:  Okay, it’s Mark’s song. He wrote it.  It’s a great song to listen to. It’s a horrible song to play.  It’s really difficult. Nothing repeats. You just have to memorize the whole thing and it’s in a difficult key and it’s hard to play.

Mark: It’s in a key?

(everyone laughs)

Don: It’s a difficult one.

Erik:  From the audience standpoint, it’s great to listen to. From the band’s standpoint, it’s just horrible to play. That album it was released in 1999, and I think we’ve played it once?

Mark: We played it at two shows.

Erik: Okay, we played it at two shows and we had to stumble through it every time and there are a lot of parts in it. It really requires a heavy guitar part and then also an acoustic guitar part. Prior to this show we only played with one guitar player just Mark, so I was covering like the heavy guitar part on the organ and synthesizer and it was okay but I don’t know it always like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. And then when we had the extra guitar player Peer, it was kind of a natural because now we have the instrumentation to really pull off this song and we’ve lived with the song now for what 8 years and we thought well if we are ever going to do this song at a prog festival in the Northeast that would be the place to do it. So we pulled it out and when we did our last show in Europe -  in Germany a little over a week ago - Mark had his laptop and so he burned CDs of the song for Ernst and Peer and ‘Okay guys learn this’ so we can play this in Philadelphia in a week. Then Mark got together with Don in L.A. and they rehearsed for a night and then we all got together yesterday in Philadelphia and just pulled it together and learned it and played it tonight, or this morning I mean.

USAProgMusic: It was very impressive.

Don: I think after eight years I got most of it right this time.

(everyone laughs)

USAProgMusic: Now you guys all mostly in L.A.?

Erik: Mark & Don live in the Los Angeles area.  Lana & I we used to live there but we recently moved to northern California, about seven hours north in the Sacramento area.

USAProgMusic: Awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time!