From the realms of North American progressive music comes All Too Human. This quartet is well known for its complex songs and they have just released their second full length called "Entropy". We talked with drummer and percussionist Chris Lucci who answered our questions.

The evolution from "Forever and a Day" to "Entropy" is pretty intense. The music on "Entropy" is much heavier, and more complex. Definitely more progressive, too. We all tried to write coherent songs, with a theme and lyrics, but we all tried not to hold anything back this time.

In general, "Entropy" will be much more complex, and heavy, progressive metal. The keyboards are definitely a welcome addition to the music, making it more interesting and with more "textures." The guitar solos are fantastic, and the band is also very happy with the production. Anyone who is a musician, or just into heavy, complex music, can appreciate it. Our studio man, Jason Rooks has done an outstanding job, considering that this was a low-budget project. It sure doesn't sound like one!

Believe it or not, we just called him and sent him a tape of our ideas, and he said he was impressed. We continued to talk to him, and then we sent him some ADAT tapes. He allowed us to produce his parts, which we appreciated immensely.

Muzix was just a college band, really. Maurice and I wrote lots of music together in the early 80's and it was influenced more by Rush, Genesis, ELP, etc. All Too Human is a much more advanced project, professionally speaking. We have learned so much about studio work that we are completely different players now, as a result.

Without question it would have been different. Paul Vander is a talent that only comes along every once in a while. We were lucky to have had him sing on "Forever and a Day". In fact, we may re-mix and re-release that album someday if we could just get signed to a label. It deserved to have more exposure.

We have had contact with a few labels, but none of them has really seemed willing to chance releasing our work, unfortunately. We need support from fans on the internet, so that we can sell our music without having to use a label. By the way, we certainly appreciate your contacting us to give us the forum in which to get more exposure.

Well, jazz is something that we all listen to, but we have not really allowed ourselves to incorporate it very much into our music. The reason is that we felt we had to keep the sound homogeneous, so that labels could characterize our music fairly narrowly. They don't seem to like people jumping around from style to style. However, we believe that bands should have the freedom to write songs in different genres, since that tends to give an album tremendous variety. We all really dislike albums that have songs that all sound the same.

We have been invited to a few of them, but we have been focusing on studio work. We are very particular about the production of our CD's and we want to spend the time necessary to make it the best it can be. We will definitely be playing some live prog-festival gigs soon. Please tell your readers to contact festival promoters and ask for All Too Human!

Well, Maurice writes music continuously, so we always have fresh ideas to work with. He is extremely creative and can write whole songs very quickly. Clint and I will occasionally write together, then show the music to Mo. Lately we have been writing music for our third CD by recording tracks ourselves. I have been writing a lot of stuff on a keyboard, then playing the drum tracks into a four-track recorder. Our best stuff comes only after all of us has played it together, weeded out the weak parts, and enhanced the strong parts. That formula really seems to work well.

That's a tough question. We would love to write nothing but complicated songs, but they don't always have that certain "groove" or "hook" that makes people want to listen to them over and over. Some of the best songs we've written were very complicated, but I really will be interested to see what the fans like the best. We think that our instrumental "Arrythmia" is one of the best songs on "Entropy", probably because it is so complex, but it also has great keyboards in it that give it appealing melody.

The only thing I can add is that I hope all of the fans reading this interview will buy a copy of "Forever and a Day" and "Entropy", and tell a few friends about both CD's. All Too Human will keep writing and recording music as long as we can sell enough CD's to make it economically feasible. Labels don't seem to care much about promoting little-known bands, and if progressive music is going to be available worldwide, then people have to follow bands like All Too Human on the internet. The FM radio stations in the U.S. are really horrible, and they will not promote any music that isn't totally commercial. That's too bad, because there are a lot of talented musicians out there that are going nowhere, and there are a lot of fans that are being deprived of great music, because no one is showing it to them. Please continue to support progressive music on the internet, because no label or corporation can stop people from accessing music there, no matter what country you or the band are from.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak directly to progressive music fans!

Interviewed by Federico Marongiu

Forever and a day - CD (1998)

Entropy - CD (2001)