Dream Theater bass virtuoso John Myung is featured in a new interview with Music Aficionado. Following is an excerpt below with Myung discussing his other band, The Jelly Jam, and their new album, Profit:

Q: As a bassist, do you approach the Jelly Jam differently than Dream Theater?

Myung: "The material is very different, of course. It’s more about us writing shorter songs that are catchy. We don’t venture into prog the way Dream Theater does. To me, music is music – it doesn’t matter whether it’s jazz or classical or anything. It’s a bunch of notes that resonate. Sometimes the story is visual; other times it’s lyrical.

I can’t really compare the two situations. Dream Theater is very established – we’re 30 years into our career. It’s a different intensity and focus when we go about writing. The amount of time and money that is spent, the resources that are available – it’s night and day compared to the Jelly Jam. The Jelly Jam gets together for about 10 days and we try to come up with 45 minutes of music, and it’s done with nominal amounts of gear that I set up in my home studio. It’s about starting with little seeds of ideas and seeing them unfold.

Over the course of how many years I’ve been doing this, the most satisfying thing to me is collaborating with other people. The end result is more rewarding. I don’t know if I could ever be happy working on my own."

Q: Do you ever have song ideas for Dream Theater that end up with the Jelly Jam?

Myung: "That has happened. If I have an idea that the other guys aren’t into and if it’s something I feel passionate about, I feel as though it’s important on a personal level to turn it into a song. One of the blessings about Jelly Jam is that I can take out some of those ideas and bounce them off of Ty and Rod. It’s a really cool thing to have that secondary outlet.

And what’s really cool is when the ideas start to unfold and they become songs, and when that happens it’s almost like there’s this stream of consciousness that takes place. People lock in and [it’s] just the perfect thing – nothing they do is wrong. It’s really cool. I love those moments when you look at one another and you’re like, “Do you hear that?” I never get tired of that. It’s so rewarding."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

The Jelly Jam will release their new album, Profit, on May 27th via Music Theories Recordings / Mascot Label Group. A new lyric video for the album track "Water" can be found below.

Dream Theater’s John Myung, Winger’s Rod Morgenstein, and King’s X’s Ty Tabor will tour globally for the first time to support the recordings. Profit is a cinematic experience, full of suspense, as the individual songs sequentially follow the heroic yet daunting journey of The Prophet, who inspired by a deep sense of responsibility embarks on a mission to try and save the world, aiming to open the eyes of those who will not see .

When asked about collaborative efforts of The Jelly Jam guitarist Ty Tabor describes John as, “The forefather of the band,” and enthuses that “Playing with Rod has been a lifelong dream. I was a huge fan of his right out of high school and The Dixie Dregs transformed my idea of what a band could do. Rod was a huge part of the insanity on all of those early Dixie Dregs albums. It’s just a joy to get to play with him.”

The band’s first album The Jelly Jam was released in 2002, followed by 2004’s The Jelly Jam 2. The members’ work with Dream Theater, Winger and King’s X kept the band away from the studio until the critically acclaimed Shall We Descend in 2011 marked a triumphant return for the trio.

Guitarist Ty Tabor’s musical pedigree is vast. Not only has he produced The Jelly Jam’s four albums, he wrote all three of King’s X top ten songs that include “It’s Love”, “Black Flag”, “Dogman” and toured the world with AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Cheap Trick, Scorpions, Iron Maiden amongst others. Honoured by VH1 as one of Hard Rock’s Top 100 bands, they were also included in the 1991 movie soundtrack to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and their 1994 appearance at the Woodstock Festival was hailed by USA Today, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and Howard Stern as the festival’s highlight.

Bassist John Myung is a founding member of Dream Theater who have sold over twelve million albums worldwide. Dream Theater have won many awards including the Spirit of Prog Award from Classic Rock Magazine, and were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2010. The band have two Grammy nominations, while Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory was voted the #1 Progressive Rock Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, whose readers also voted Dream Theater as one of The Best Prog Rock Bands of All Time.

Drummer Rod Morgenstein began his illustrious career with The Dixie Dregs, who received six Grammy nominations, before becoming a darling of the ‘80s rock scene with Winger who achieved multiple chart topping singles including “Seventeen”, “Headed For A Heartbreak” and “Miles Away”. Rod has played with Platypus, The Steve Morse Band, Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess and is an Associate Professor at the prestigious Berklee College Of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He has also been awarded Modern Drummer Magazine’s Best Progressive Rock Drummer five years in a row, as well as the Best All-Around Drummer Award, and was inducted into the magazine's Honor Roll.

The Jelly Jam will support their latest album Profit with a full tour (dates to be announced). As guitarist Ty Tabor explains, “This album is without a doubt the most special moment the band has ever had together and we must make touring real this year to support this album.”

Ty Tabor describes the album’s concept as “a fight between progress and jobs at all cost and not thinking about any future payment that are going to have to be made.” Adding further that, “Each Jelly Jam album is very different and we are most definitely discovering new ground. The first album was pretty straight ahead in its nature and vibe. The second album was more about the songwriting and had a very different feel. By the time we got to Shall We Descend, we were all at different musical places. It had more of a darker edge to it, but we finally realized that we had tapped in to something that was unique to us. There really is no Jelly Jam ‘sound’. In order to make Profit the strongest album, we recorded a lot of excess music and chose songs that work together towards the general story idea. Musically and sonically we started experimenting a lot further than we had before. It stands on its own as an album beginning to end with a purpose. It’s not just a bunch of songs thrown together. It’s an entire journey through a story.”

The album will be available in LP + Mp3, CD, Digital and MFiT formats.

Tracklisting:

”Care"
"Stain On The Sun"
"Water"
"Stop"
"Perfect Lines (Flyin')"
"Mr. Man"
"Memphis"
"Ghost Town"
"Heaven"
"Permanent Hold"
"Fallen"
"Strong Belief"

“Water” lyric video:

"Stain On The Sun”:

“Care”: