Brislin, Tom (Spiraling, Yes) (April 2005)

Tom Brislin And His Spiraling Success

Tom Brislin is maybe a name you don't know, yet, but should. In addition to his own band Spiraling, with whom he'll be playing at this year's CalProg Festival in June 2005, he's played keyboards for such legendary progressive rock bands as Yes and for Camel at NEARfest 2003, when Guy LeBlanc was unable to attend. Joshua Turner recently spoke with Brislin about all this and more in March.

Joshua Turner: Hello.

Tom Brislin: Hi Josh.

JT: Hi.

TB: Hi, it's Tom Brislin.

JT: Oh, hey.

[If you talked to him, you would think his voice sounds a lot like Neal Morse's, Josh notes]

TB: How are you?

JT: Doing pretty good.

TB: Did I catch you at an off, bad time?

JT: No. Um, actually I was looking forward to talking with you. I wanted to start by talking about that Symphonic Live DVD. I was recently watching it and I was surprised to see you on stage with Yes. It was the first time I was exposed to you. It's kind of funny, because when it came time to play "Roundabout," I was kind of wondering, who's this guy and how he is going to play this song. It turns out that you nailed every single note. You even played a little bit like Rick Wakeman and, uh, I was quite impressed. You did a wonderful job throughout the entire concert. How did you get involved with Yes, you know, for this concert and corresponding DVD?

TB: My involvement with Yes came about actually somewhat related to the fact that I was touring with Meatloaf. I've been Meatloaf's piano player for a couple of years pretty much fresh out of college and through Meatloaf's... they've got the same management, um, they had heard that I pretty much grew up listening to Yes music and I'm a big fan. When that date came, you know, came about for the Symphonic tour, Jon Anderson gave me a call, gave me a chance to audition for the tour, the Symphonic tour.

JT: I'm wondering, are you going to be involved in any other tours, concerts, or festivals in the near future?

TB: With Yes?

JT: With just anybody, what kind of tours or concerts do you have planned?

TB: I'm focused on Spiraling right now. We are gearing up for more tour dates. We've been playing pretty much throughout the last couple of years, even when we were recording our last CD, you know, we'd been playing shows interspersed throughout the time of the... you know, sessions and things like that; we'd really never stop playing live. We're actually going to be playing at CalProg, which is a progressive music festival in Whittier, California; that's in June and it's really interesting because we don't call ourselves a progressive rock band per se, with Spiraling, but because of my affiliation with Yes and also with Camel, who have played with me a year and a half ago, a lot of people in the prog rock community, you know, they take interest in what I'm doing with Spiraling, so I think it's going to be pretty fun for us to go out there and do what we do in front of a, a progressive crowd. [he laughs]

JT: Speaking of Spiraling, I really like the album Transmitter and a number of the songs are very catchy. I like the bridges and the keyboard solos. I mean, you're even a heck of a singer on the album.

TB: Thank you.

JT: I like songs like "The Girl On The Top Of The Piano" and that last one, "Get Your Own Holy Grail." I'm just wondering if you can explain your songwriting process. How do you come up with these catchy tunes?

TB: Oh well, thank you. I... my songwriting process is pretty much, the thing that I'm always striving to do is [to] be able to have the discipline to say, you know, say that I'm yeah going to have it and it sounds like a simple thing, but, you know, a lot of people are known for writing songs. We all have this thing where we have the greatest idea we've ever had and it's about two minutes before you fall asleep [we laugh] and you say, "oh, it's catchy, I'll remember this" and you never do. You just forget it. So to have the discipline to, to go and record, you know, just quick get the idea on tape, write down, you know, jot down some lyrics, if you have the lyric idea. It's really important, and that, you know, it's a lot of this... this process, you know, having ideas happens all the time, being able to save them and then go back to them, revisit them later and flesh them out, develop them, you know. Put them in an arrangement, that's where the craft and the discipline comes in and that's what I'm always trying to, you know, remember to take the time to do that. But I never sit down to write a song. It's never good if that happens. I never say, "okay, I'm going to write a song tonight." It's like, you know, what I'll do is I'll sit down and write a piano-- or no, rather I'll sit down and play piano for, you know, however long and... just sometimes good ideas will come and sometimes it won't. It's just a matter of being consistent and giving myself time to do that.

JT: Do you have plans for another album at this time?

TB: Yes. Spiraling is in the process of devising what the new album is going to be and I've written a lot of songs and a lot of them are incomplete, so it's a matter of finding the, you know, whatever is missing from a couple of these tunes and, and locking it in and completing the songs and just, you know, kind of having a.. some sort of concept. A lot of songs tend to cover different ground, so we don't to get, we don't want to make it confusing, you know, we want to have something that's still unified throughout.

JT: How did you come up with the name Spiraling for your band?

TB: Okay, Spiraling is actually part of... the phrase You Were Spiraling, which our band used to be called and "you were spiraling" is a quote from the movie called The Commitments, about a bunch of kids from Ireland who form an American-style sixties soul band. It's a long story, but in the movie the context is basically, that's an accusation, you are spiraling. You were going outside of the rules of the style of music and that's kind of what we're all about. We don't really impose any stylistic rules on the band, so you can picture that spiraling and moving about around these various influences and... aspects in the music.

JT: And speaking of influences, who would you say are your musical influences?

TB: Oh wow, there's so many. We're just, all [of us] in the band, [are] real, just real avid fans of music, you know. It's, you know, The Beatles is pretty much where it starts for the rock world with us and moving up through all this Beatles-influenced music, like Yes and ... a lot of other, you know... And then there's this seventies rock which Yes is a part of, and Zeppelin and Queen and King Crimson. Then the music that we all came to know as the eighties new wave stuff, Duran Duran, The Police, Men at Work, ... Tears for Fears, Elvis Costello. You know, from that you get a lot of the great songwriter guys, people like Joe Jackson... it just moves throughout so much territory and, and we're all pretty heavy jazz buffs as well, basically the Blue Note era... late fifties, early sixties. I think that's more of an influence on our instrumental aspect, you know, as players. I think Herbie Hancock is one of my favorite musicians and then the nineties Indie Rock I think was pretty... you know, influential as well. As you see, we're kind of going through the decades here, you know, from each decade that really stands out. Um... and, uh, I think that's it.

JT: So how did you decide that you wanted to become a keyboardist and when did your involvement in music actually begin?

TB: Well, there was a piano in our house growing up [he laughs] and I always used to play it and I always had fun with the piano, started realizing that I could figure out... TV theme songs and get some attention [he laughs] from my older siblings. And from there I kind of... my sister started teaching me piano lessons and ... I was always into it. I remember when I was a kid even before I could really play, I would draw album covers... um, my own album covers with song titles and everything. I didn't have songs, [I laugh] but I just loved records. They were always around the house and, and I would be curious, particularly at a young age, looking at who played what and, you know, what the songs were and who wrote the songs and it was interesting to me just like baseball cards were something ... checking out, you know, who, who played what position and, you know, what year they played for what team, you know. I thought I was into bands and I think just when my learning how to play the piano [began] combined with that at a young age and ... I was in my first band when I was ten, so it was... was always something that I wanted to do.

JT: How did you actually meet your bandmates in Spiraling?

TB: I went to college with the drummer Paul Wells, and Marty O'Kane, our guitarist, I met through the local music scene here in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And Bob Hart is the one band member that I've worked with the longest and I met him at a jam session when he was primarily a guitarist and was deciding that he wanted to play bass more and, uh, so... he had... an interesting musical background, you know, a lot of hard rock stuff, but he also was avid jazz [fan] and really talented musician all around, so it was a perfect fit, because we at that point as You Were Spiraling were getting into doing a lot of improvising, not necessarily in a jam band context, but we would... we would do shows and we would improvise songs, I mean, with verses and choruses and lyrics. We would actually attempt to create a song in front of people from the ground up with changes and everything and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it was fun. [He laughs]

JT: Now I actually like to ask this question of artists because sometimes music can be fun and sometimes there's actually a comedic value to it, but I'm wondering, can you recall any Spinal Tap moments in your career?

TB: Oh boy, you know, definitely... oh man.

JT: Did you have any on the Yes tour maybe?

TB: Well, [he laughs] there's bound to be. There's definitely been the, uh, venue with the, um, impossibly difficult catacomb of tunnels [we laugh] to the stage where we are getting lost on our way to the stage. I'm sure that's happened one time, you know, actually from that famous scene in Spinal Tap where they're trying to ... they're still lost getting to the stage, they're, "Hello Cleveland," on the way, you know, "Alright Cleveland, Ready to Rock," so we, I actually started calling any, you know, difficult realm of backstage ... roads we start, we say, oh yeah, that's Cleveland in there, you know. It's like how is it always Cleveland, you are going to get lost before you even get to the stage [we laugh]. And ... just the various... we've all been on a bill we shouldn't have been on, you know, a band that's, that's ... inadequately billed to be played with other shows, other types of bands that it wouldn't match or, you know, we'd always say, okay, when's the puppet show going to begin. Remember that Spinal Tap scene where they're, um, playing an amusement park with a puppet show and Spinal Tap? And, you know, stuff like that. You know, we... Spinal Tap is very, very, um, true to life for a lot of bands. Thankfully we haven't had too much... too much like it.

JT: Yeah, I always like to ask that, because I hear some funny examples sometimes? I'd also like to find out a little bit about your current musical tastes and I'd like to start by asking you, what's the last CD that you purchased?

TB: I would say the new album by Cake called Pressure Chief.

JT: Kind of along the same lines, what's the last concert that you've attended as a fan?

TB: The bands here in New Jersey actually. A band called Hello Lovely are friends of ours who I actually, I actually just played some synths on their new recording, but I am a fan, too, so I don't know if that counts.

JT: Oh sure, interesting.

TB: And I saw Keane recently, which is really, really fantastic.

JT: Yeah, I saw them on Saturday Night Live last night.

TB: Oh yeah?

JT: Yeah.

TB: The group has a great singer.

JT: I'd also like to ask you some of your favorites. I'd like to start by asking, what's your favorite album?

TB: Oh man.

JT: If you can't narrow it down, just the first one that pops into your mind.

TB: No, I have a rotation. Favorite... my favorite album that I've heard, that's come out in the last couple of years, that I've been exposed to recently in the past couple of years, would probably be Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie or The Postal Service.. Give Up. But, you know, if we're talking all time... I have, you know, a desert island list, which definitely includes Purple Rain. I like Prince and the Revolution, that's always one of my favorites although I haven't... you know, I, I break that one out every few years.

JT: I just like to ask that, because sometimes you get interesting answers and other times, it is just kind of nice, because you can be exposed to things that maybe you haven't heard of.

TB: Sure, yeah, that's good. I think, you know, that's why you get one of the obvious answers, you know; of course Fragile is going to be on my desert island list, but we all know, we all knew to check that out, although, you know, younger kids who I talk to, typically when they come to see Spiraling, you know, I always kind of tell them about the, the classic stuff.

JT: Kind of along the same lines, another difficult question, but who would you say is your favorite band?

TB: Whoo. Again that always changes from, you know, from time to time. There's, you know, there's ... I have different categories, I guess. The favorite band I saw live could have been ... One of the greatest live shows I ever saw was this crazy band from Nashville called-- actually, no, they're from, they might have been from North Carolina, they're either from North Carolina or Nashville. They're called The Legendary Shack Shakers and they're this psychabilly punked-out rockabilly from hell band with upright bass, ancient electric guitars, and heavy metal drums, and, you know, really crazy. You know, dirty South sort of thing, but... it was highly entertaining and, and just, just a very compelling show. [we laugh]. Oh man, who is my favorite band. The Beatles are one of them, you know; I guess, it's, it's The Beatles for me.

JT: Yeah, I can kind of hear that in your music, too.

TB: Sure.

JT: Um, I'd also like to ask you some favorites that aren't specifically related to music. It kind of shows other ways that influences can come into your music and kind of what your tastes are, but what is your favorite movie?

TB: Oh boy, it's funny; I've been asked this question a lot and I always tell them Johnny Dangerously.

JT: Yeah, that's a good one.

TB: And, you know, everyone is like, "are you kidding me? How can that be one of your top movies," [I laugh], you know. And I was like, I don't know, I don't know why, but I know every line of dialogue in Johnny Dangerously and, you know, of course, me and my generation, you know, the Star Wars line is always, you know, that's in its own class.

JT: Yeah.

TB: But, it's Johnny Dangerously [that] always I find entertaining.

JT: What's your favorite TV show?

TB: Hmm? favorite TV show? Um, I would probably say, you know... like I would probably say Star Trek: The Next Generation, because that's, that's a real, um, you know, that made me a geek respectable. [I laugh]

JT: Right.

TB: You know what I mean, you could be a respectable geek.

JT: I totally understand. [we both laugh]. And then just the last of the favorites, but like what would you say is your favorite book?

TB: My favorite book... oh sorry, now I'm thinking. It's weird, because a lot of the stuff that I read isn't fiction, you know, a lot of it's non-fiction and "how tos" and things like that. But, you know, I mean, growing up, The Hobbit was always, you know, was always a favorite book of mine. And, uh, I mean, it's so, you know, that's what so fresh, especially when The Lord of the Rings movie series came out again, I went back and read that again and I was, you know, this is real fun.

JT: I have an odd question I like to ask. It helps me identify with the artist and it is kind of appropriate because going back and forth with your publicist, we were talking about our dogs and I was wondering if you have any pets?

TB: I don't have any pets, but I love animals. I guess the fact that I live alone and go on the road a lot, I decided not to put any pets through, uh, the ordeal of having to, uh, fend for themselves. [we both laugh]

JT: That's probably a good idea.

TB: Yeah.

JT: Okay and just before we wrap up, is there anything you'd like to say to your fans at this time?

TB: Thanks, thanks for being interested and giving us the opportunity to play music for people cause it's, uh, one of the most fun experiences in the world.

JT: Thanks again for taking the time for this interview. It's a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you and great job with both Yes and Spiraling. I'm looking forward to hearing that album that you're working on and just good luck.

TB: Thanks Josh. And when might we see this on the... it's going to come out on the web site, right?

JT: It's going to come out within the next couple of weeks I'd say.

TB: Oh great.

JT: It should be up pretty soon.

TB: I'm sure Dina [his publicist] will be up on it and we'll put a link from our web site.

JT: Okay. So enjoy the rest of your weekend and Happy Easter.

TB: Oh thanks; you, too, Josh.

Discography:
You Were Spiraling - You Were Spiraling (1994)
You Were Spiraling - The Hello CD (1997)
You Were Spiraling - You Were Spiraling Bootleg Cassette (1999)
You Were Spiraling - Delusions Of Grandeur (1999)
Spiraling - Transmitter (2003)
Spiraling - Challenging Stage (ep) (2004)
Spiraling - Spiraling Live In New York City (2005)
Spiraling - Time Traveling Made Easy (2008)