Flying Colors

In 2008, producer Bill Evans sought to create a band that would combine complex music with simple and intuitive writing. It brings together Mike Portnoy (beater for Neal Morse , ex Dream Theater , Transatlantic ...), Steve Morse (guitarist for Deep Purple , Dixie Dregs , ex Kansas ), Dave LaRue (bass – Dixie Dregs , ex musician for Joe Satriani ), and Neal Morse (claviers – Transatlantic , ex Spocks Beard ...). The position of singer remains vacant until Portnoy suggests the name of Casey McPherson, ex Endochina and current frontman of the rock band Alternative Alpha Rev. Although this band was signed by Holywood Records, Disney's label, Casey McPherson wrote his own compositions and played several instruments on his albums, which pleased Portnoy. The group decided to take Flying Colors as its name. The eponymous album is written jointly, mainly in Neal Morse's home-studio. The latter also tells an anecdote about having five people writing music at the same time (six counting Bill Evans): after writing a chorus himself, this passage was completely redesigned by all the others, just during the time that he went to drink a coffee and return to the home-studio. The record was released in March 2012. The band went on tour and added to its set-list some songs from bands whose members compose Flying Colors ( June by Spocks Beard , Dixie Dregs Odyssey , Can't Find a Way by Endochine , and Dream Theater Repentance , plus a Hallelujah cover by Leonard Cohen ). The training takes advantage of this to record Live In Europe, released in 2013 on double CD and DVD. Flying Colors meets again, despite the conflicting schedules of the protagonists (which forces each of the tours to last only about fifteen days), and quickly writes Second Nature, in one session of a few days at Neal Morse and then another at Mike Portnoy. This second album was released at the end of September 2014, and from the beginning of October, the band left for a short tour. Again, a live double album will be recorded (and filmed) on this occasion: Second Flight: Live At The Z7 .