In Continuum_______
After a messy departure from Sound Of Contact, musician and producer Dave Kerzner has kept busy, from solo albums to tributes to his heroes. Now, he’s formed In Continuum, with a stunning line-up of special prog guests…
Dave Kerzner’s latest star-studded project sets sail.
Back in 2013, Dave ‘Squids’ Kerzner appeared to be on the cusp of something exceptional. Alongside Simon Collins in Sound Of Contact, the band released a swaggering debut in Dimensionaut, only to gradually disintegrate before they were able to complete a second album.
Undeterred, Kerzner has since released a pair of sophisticated solo albums, as well as remaining heavily involved in the software and sound design company, Sonic Reality, which has collected samples of some of the finest prog musicians and made these available to musicians wishing to re-use them. Recently, he’s also been behind the Yes tribute album Yesterday And Today as well as recording a new album under the In Continuum banner. Tribute albums can be artistically dubious affairs, so to what does Kerzner cite as his main motivation for his latest foray into the genre?
“This is something that we’ve been planning and working on for years,” he explains from his Florida studio. “I thought it would be fun to create a tribute project, where we do creative covers, using the elements of the real players and their instruments, mixed with various different generations of musicians. There are younger musicians, like myself, who were influenced by the band, along with some of the guys who were peers at the time, like Steve Hackett from Genesis who I often work with. We’ve done a Rush tribute and with Yes celebrating their 50th anniversary, the timing was perfect. I was able to bring in the usual prog suspects, like my friends in Yes, Geoff Downes and Billy Sherwood. It’s something like a rock’n’roll fantasy camp for us. We are playing with the guys from the band.”
All of which was unquestionably a wonderful experience for Kerzner and the other members of the core band, but with tribute albums seen by many listeners as a fad that met a painful demise in the
1990s, is there still a market and interest in the project?
“THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW SITUATIONS WHERE PEOPLE SEE KNOWN NAMES ON ALBUMS AND THEY HAVE BEEN BURNED A FEW TIMES. IT MIGHT LOOK GOOD ON PAPER BUT WASN’T AS GOOD AS
YOU EXPECTED.”
“Actually, interestingly enough, Yes themselves put it out on their social media, which I wasn’t expecting: almost treating it like an honorary Yes album!” argues Kerzner. “We do have a number of members of the Yes alumni on there, so it’s a real honour. There’s an endless debate within the Yes fans as to who people prefer, but I like them all. Jon Anderson and Jon Davison, they’re friends of mine and I’ve worked with them both. I could have done a box set as there are so many songs that we didn’t even get to. But we picked an unexpected compilation of songs that a lot of people have responded to favourably.”
Kerzner’s latest recording is under the moniker of In Continuum, which he is intending to use as a creative vehicle for a continuation of the Sound Of Contact approach, using some of the original musicians. The latter band’s split was a public and somewhat messy affair, with the reasons behind the fragmentation variously cited as personal or musical differences. Viewing the events in hindsight, Kerzner puts a considered perspective on the band’s troubles.
“Unfortunately, the band had difficulty staying together since the beginning,” he reveals with a sigh. “I had invested so much of my creative writing and production into the album, then somehow, and I don’t know how the heck this happened, I was out of the band. That wasn’t through choice. We had some differences which went beyond creative differences and disagreements. There was also some behind the scenes stuff, that basically had them touring without me. That was really tough for me, but in retrospect, it gave me the push I needed to do my first solo record. I felt that so many of my songs on Dimensionaut were so well-received that I thought it was time for me to become the frontman and be in control. Nobody can kick me out of the
Dave Kerzner band. After that happened, Simon came to me and apologised, we all buried the hatchet and got together as a fourpiece with the original line-up. In 2015 we started on a second follow-up record and recorded at The Doghouse, which is owned by Barriemore Barlow from Jethro Tull.
For various reasons, some we don’t want to get into publicly and some logistically, given we live in four corners of the world, it just lingered on for years and we were unable to finish it that way without one definitive leader. Whether you want to call it too many cooks in the kitchen, it just didn’t get done. I don’t know how much I like the whole band democracy committee thing, because it leaves things in limbo and I don’t like albums to take so long. I personally prefer a band to be like In Continuum, where it’s sort of like Porcupine Tree with Steven Wilson leading or The Alan Parsons Project. This is a band where there’s a clear leader and I’m the leader.”
The sole benefit of the Sound Of Contact split was that there was an agreement that each bandmember could take back the songs that they had written and use them on their own albums. Essentially, at least half of the music on this In Continuum debut dates back to those sessions, giving an opportunity for those tracks to finally surface. The core musicians involved in the new project are former Sound Of Contact associates Matt Dorsey (bass/guitar), as well as that band’s touring guitarists Randy McStine and John Wesley, with Marco Minnemann on drums. Singer Gabriel Agudo (who has performed with The Steve Rothery Band) fronts the band. They’re joined by special guests, including Jon Davison, Steve Rothery and drummer Nick DiVirgilio (ex- Spock’s Beard). It appears that Kerzner has a long list of industry contacts who are willing to perform on his projects. Indeed, given the number of guest musicians used on this and his previous albums, perhaps a more accurate nickname would be Dave ‘Rolodex’ Kerzner, rather than ‘Squids’. So, are these guest musicians easy to persuade?
“I know them, so it is pretty easy,” he says. “But I don’t do it for the novelty and I look at it more like a casting director. If you can get the ideal person, why not use them?
When I grew up, I would put ads in the papers, and I’d be looking for guitarists influenced by Steve Hackett, Steve Howe and David Gilmour. To be able to work with, and be friends with one of those three, is mindboggling. I’ve worked with Steve Hackett probably seven times already, sometimes on his stuff but mostly on my albums. It’s musically and artistically driven and it has taken me years to build these relationships. I feel so lucky to have that. That’s not to say I don’t have people saying no, but fortunately it’s rare.”
In view of that candid admission, has anybody turned Kerzner down for this latest venture?
“Simon Collins!” he laughs. “Although that made sense. I had made an offer to Simon for him to be on the record because we recorded all these tracks and I don’t like to waste anything that’s good. So I did fight to use it on this album but his reasoning was that he didn’t want to confuse it with Sound Of Contact. I was even considering calling this project Sound Of Contact but I’m not a fan of when artists take over a band name and that was never the goal. I can tell you that the only other person who has ever turned me down was Gavin Harrison. But I am working with Marco Minnemann, who is another amazing drummer. He’s one of those guys who is just better than you and you have to try and keep up. With Marco, it’s just totally the right vibe and friendship to be able to achieve these other areas I want to go. There are other musicians who are friends with me, who I haven’t even asked.”
For all the artistic merits that Kerzner espouses, there can be no doubt that “In Continuum featuring Steve Hackett, Steve Rothery and Jon Davison from Yes” will attract far more attention than had the band remained simply In Continuum, featuring Kerzner and his slightly lesser-known musical pals. With the initial announcement for the project suggesting this was a “prog supergroup”, such a proclamation could lead the less attentive to believe that these guests formed a core and permanent position in the band. There will undoubtedly then be cynics who will argue that the use of guest musicians was a contrived way to sell albums and spotlight his own career. Can Kerzner understand that stance?
“Yes and no,” he says. “I certainly don’t think having guests hurts. There have been a few situations where people see known names on albums and they have been burned a few times. It might look good on paper but wasn’t as good as you expected. So that happens with supergroups or tribute albums. It’s a double-edged sword. People are a little bit sceptical and jaded, so I believe that you have really to earn it with quality, no matter what. It might lure people in and get their attention, and it certainly helps when Steve Hackett tweets about it. But the quality really needs to be there, and I don’t want to trick people into buying it.”
Musically, the album is, as you would expect, a continuation of the musical themes and styles explored in both Sound Of Contact and Kerzner’s solo albums, with hints of Genesis and Pink Floyd flowing through the tracks. As Kerzner suggests, to justify such an expansive cast and production, the music needs to be of the highest quality and, certainly, there’s enough on Acceleration
Theory to captivate even the most sceptical. Lyrically, the album is the first part of a science-fiction trilogy, with further releases expected in the next 18 months.
“I love films like Close Encounters… and
2001: A Space Odyssey,” he reveals, when asks about the album’s concept. “All the intelligent movies, and Acceleration Theory definitely has that as its root. [The album is] based on the theory behind why we got a huge technology boost in the 20th century. Where did that come from? After thousands of years of man existing, suddenly we had rockets and cell phones. Does anyone question where this came from? This album suggests that the aliens were trying to speed up the process of our evolution by leaking some of this stuff.
“But unfortunately, because we are the dangerous, flawed species that we are, the aliens were like, ‘But they are using it to kill themselves with nuclear weapons. Instead of using it to visit us they are using it to blow each other up and kill this beautiful planet, that we value more than they do.’ That whole thing makes you think about if that’s true, how ungrateful, stupid and destructive we are not to use the technology to evolve. I tell a bit of that story in the booklet to the album, so that there is a glue to the whole album, and the lyrics are quite descriptive, too.”
With that storyline making references to intergalactic leaders, protective shields made of liquid light and “hibernation cocoons”, is Kerzner concerned that the concept might be off-putting to potential listeners?
“I don’t worry about it as that would compromise the art,” he suggests. “I have plenty of other projects that aren’t labelled that. Fortunately, most of the songs standalone, so if you’re not into the whole sci-fi concept album thing, you may just find you like some or all of the songs just as music. In fact, I have to say there are a few classic prog albums from the 70s or 80s where I don’t understand the lyrics, but I absolutely love the music.”
Acceleration Theory is out now via RecPlay. See www.incontinuumband.com for more information.
“I HAD MADE AN OFFER TO SIMON COLLINS FOR HIM TO BE ON THE RECORD, BECAUSE WE RECORDED ALL THESE TRACKS AND I DON’T LIKE TO WASTE ANYTHING THAT’S GOOD.”