1. Hi Neal, your book is about
to be published in yet another country (USA, Germany, Netherlands and now Poland). Did you expect this?
No, I did
not. But I am really very, very happy about it. Thank you all for doing that.
And I hope that the Lord reaches more people through our joint efforts!
2. What was the response after the book was published in the US?
You know,
it’s been so long now. I don’t know if I entirely remember. I was just so happy
to get it done and to feel like I was in the will of the Lord. I’ve heard a lot
of great responses about it since then. And even just a few weeks ago, I was
talking with a young man in America who was highly impacted by the book. So I
continue to be amazed at God’s goodness.
3. Have any of the people you mention in the book contacted you after all these
years? For example, the guy with the goat, or the car thief? Maybe people from
Navod’s, or musicians you used to play with a long time ago?
No, I have
not talked to the guy with the goat [laughter]. Who knows if he’s even alive?
That was a long time ago! The car thief? No, no. I still talk with the guys
that I was playing with at that time. I talked to the drummer for over an hour
a couple of weeks ago, actually.
4. Did you get to know the lady who said she was praying for you in church any
better?
Oh, yes. She
was the grandmother of some very good friends of mine. She has passed away now,
but I got to know her quite well, actually. Yes, her name was Sister Dolores,
and she was a beautiful soul.
5. You occasionally hold Zoom meetings and talk with your fans about God. What
motivated you to do this? Tell us a bit about it.
Well, there
are a lot of people who are discovering God through MorseFest and my albums and
other efforts of ours, and I say we because it is a pretty big team, and Joey
and Amy Pippin have become quite involved in the community and talking to
people about the Lord, and it seemed that there was just a need for it. People
started saying, “Wow, we feel so opened up and touched, and we feel like God’s
doing something in our hearts. But we need help. We have questions. We need
fellowship”. And so, not knowing what else to do, we started to have these Zoom
meetings so we could be together all over the world. And it’s been really
amazing. And I think it’s wonderful to be building a community together and
supporting each other, and that’s what it’s all about.
6. You wrote about the blood of Christ: “The whole blood thing always freaked
me out”. What do you think about it today?
Yeah, I
didn’t get it at all when I first came around. Now I fully understand it as the
symbolism of Jesus’ cleansing power in our lives. And I sing songs about it now
with all my heart.
7. What does the new birth mean to you?
It is very
mysterious, isn’t it? I wonder how it can happen, just as Nicodemus did. But it
is truly a wonder, isn’t it, how this can happen, how we can be born again of
the Spirit? Yes, it’s something we should talk about more and more and it’s so
vitally important, and then, as children, for us to continue to walk in Him.
8. I noticed that the average age at Neal Morse Band concerts is 60+. Well,
maybe a little less :). Do young people generally not listen to prog-rock, or
is the music too difficult, too ambitious?
Yeah, there’s
a lot of older people, but there’s younger people coming now, too. There are
those who discover music that has more depth, more complexity, and they’re
really getting into it. There are many young people that I talk to and mentor,
and they come to the Radiant School to learn in my studio. And that’s really
inspiring. But actually, it’s true. A lot of the audience is older because it’s
like the music that they grew up with, and that’s just a natural thing.
9. You wrote that after your conversion, you lost a third of your fans, and you’ve
probably read various comments under your songs on YouTube, like: “Great music,
but the lyrics don’t fit. Why is there always this Jesus in the lyrics?”. How
do you feel about this?
Yeah, okay,
I get it. You know, I understand that not everybody wants to hear the message
of Christ. They feel like it makes them wrong. And perhaps it’s just not
something that they want to hear. They’re not ready to hear it. It’s kind of
like, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” kind of thing. When people are
ready, they will hear it. Maybe they can’t hear it now; maybe they’ll hear it
later, and it will really hit their hearts in a different way. A lot of it, it’s
about where you are in your journey, and I respect that. I respect people’s
honesty and I like to talk to people like that, to talk to them about why they
feel that way. And I’m just mainly rejoicing that there are enough people that
want to hear this message and that love the music to keep it going.
10. On the album One you collaborated with one of my favorite artists, Phil
Keaggy, and recently you played together again in the project Cosmic
Cathedral. On the Testimony album, you worked with Kerry Livgren
from Kansas. Would you like to revisit that collaboration? Do you dream of
playing with someone famous, for example Alice Cooper, Peter Gee (Pendragon),
maybe jazz musicians?
I would
love to collaborate with Kerry. Yeah, that would be great. But I don’t really
dream of collaborating with people. I kind of just let the Lord flow in his way
and things just happen. Like how when I met Chester Thompson at a Steve Hackett
concert, as I was driving away, I felt like the Lord laid on my heart, “You
should do something with him”. And so I got his email and we wound up getting
together. And then, long story short, we wound up making an album over the
coming year called Cosmic Cathedral. And in those ways, I wind up
collaborating with people. But it has to happen kind of organically, and I am
very grateful to be able to do these things.
11. Are you considering a sequel to Testimony?
That’s true,
I have thought about a sequel. I haven’t felt like the time was right, but
maybe the time will be right at some point to do a sequel. There’s much more to
tell. Although it may not be as dramatic as the things that are in the Testimony
book. You know, the things that God did early on in my walk are still very
dear to my heart and still the things that I talk about a lot when I visit
churches, because it’s the conversion that seems to be the most exciting thing
for me and for others.
12. You recently wrote a musical about Brother Andrew*. Why him? What motivated
you, and what was the reception of the musical in the US?
Well, I was
in my son’s Bible study, and they were reading the book God Smuggler.
This was in 2021. And I woke up one morning and I was getting very inspired
about the book and also the conversations we were having with the young men in
this Bible study. And I felt like God said, “Write it”. And I was confused
about what to do. What was it? But I began to write, just opening the
book and writing songs. And long story short, it became this musical that was
really well received in Houston. We did it throughout April, and it was just
absolutely stunning. There were so many people that came up to me in the lobby
afterwards, people I didn’t know, saying they thought it was the best musical
they’d ever seen, truly outstanding. And it was a long process. I started
writing it in 2021, and it actually made it to the stage in 2026. So it took a
long time and a lot of work by a lot of people, but it was really worth it. I hope
you all get a chance to see it someday. We are working on a cast album that
should be coming out later this year.
13. What are your expectations for the European Darkness & Light
tour? What are the songs on the new album about?
I expect
the Darkness & Light tour to be very blessed. I feel like it’s going
to be a wonderful time, and I’m excited to share with people, and I’m really
just happy that I can do something like this, you know, we all need to be aware
that we’re not always going to be able to do the things we can do today. So
when there’s a time that we can get out and do our thing, whatever that is, we
need to rejoice that we’re able to do it and God’s made a way for us to do
that. So I’m excited to be playing music and being with people. And the songs
on the album are about a wide variety of things. There’s a song called Guilty
Secret that’s about someone who’s held a secret for years and years and
years and years, and they really are so afraid that the secret will come out,
and they pray that God will help keep it a secret. And then the Holy Spirit
comes, and in the end it just says, “Let it go, let it go”. And that’s the end.
There’s another song called Powder Keg that’s about people that store up
their hostility over years. Maybe they’ve been hurt and abused and they’re like
a powder keg. They’re ready to explode and be violent any second. And that’s
really interesting. And I don’t really know where a lot of this stuff came
from. I just woke up in the morning, had these ideas and fleshed them out, and
they became these songs. But they’re quite different, some of them rather dark
and dramatic. And that’s why it’s called Darkness & Light, because
there are the dark songs. And then, of course, there’s a lot of songs about
light and the lightness of life also. But I’ll be playing probably some of the
dark songs and one of the light songs on this run, so it’ll be an interesting
time to see how this is received.
14. How do you like to spend your free time?
I love to
spend my time with my wife and kids, and my grandkids now. I love to go to the
beach with my family. I love to go skiing. I love to play pickleball. I love to
just sit around and play the guitar and relax. I still love to sit at the piano
and play music. And I love to talk about the Lord. I love to go to church and
play in the worship band that my son is now leading. And yeah, all those
things, pretty normal things, actually. I love to go to national parks. I love
nature. And I love spending time with my friends.
15. What movie, book, or music has surprised and captivated you recently?
I can’t
think of a movie right offhand that really captivated me. I’m sure there has
been some. The book I’m reading right now is by Ken Follett. I’m reading the
Century series and I’m on the second book, which is called Winter of the
World, and it’s very captivating, very engaging. Ken Follett is a great
storyteller. I really loved his The Pillars of the Earth. Highly
recommended. And music… I’ve been working on Neal Morse and the Resonance, the
second album, which is going to be called River of Light, and that has
really been captivating me. As well as the Brother Andrew cast album. I’ve
been working on that and that is really captivating me as well. As far as music
outside of what I’m doing, I have not been forging into that very much, to be
honest. And I hear a lot of things that I really like, but I can’t say I’ve
been really listening to a lot of those things, because when I’m done working
on music all day, I don’t generally listen to music with that kind of intent.
Anyway, one of my favorite songs is called Float On by the Floaters.
Just want to say that. All right, have a good one.
*Brother Andrew (born Anne van der Bijl, 1928–2022) was a Dutch preacher and missionary, nicknamed "God's Smuggler." He gained international notoriety for smuggling thousands of Bibles and Christian literature across the Iron Curtain into communist countries. In 1955, he founded the international aid organization Open Doors.
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