Neal Morse

Neal Morse (born August 2, 1960) is an American singer, musician and composer based in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1992, he formed the progressive rock band Spock's Beard with his brother Alan and released an album which was moderately successful.

Their first album, The Light (1995), was moderately successful.

Despite having released the first two Spock's Beard albums to good critical acclaim, Morse found himself struggling economically.

His brother Richard advised him to go to Germany to play hit songs as a one-man band in pubs, accompanying himself with piano or guitar, to generate income.

Morse then began periodic travel between California and Germany, where from time to time he remained for several weeks to work as a pub musician.

During his periods in California, Morse continued to alternate work on new compositions for Spock's Beard, and live performance with them.

At that time Morse was also part of the Eric Burdon band, touring with them, too.

The popularity of Spock's Beard's continued to grow and they would soon become one of a number of successful progressive rock bands during the late nineties (along with Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and The Flower Kings).

While with Spock's Beard, Morse released two solo albums of more conventional straightforward rock music.

In 1999, he joined Dream Theater's co-founder and then drummer Mike Portnoy, together with Flower Kings' Roine Stolt and Marillion's Pete Trewavas they formed the super-group Transatlantic.

In 1999, he joined former Dream Theater co-founder Mike Portnoy, Flower Kings' Roine Stolt and Marillion's Pete Trewavas to form the supergroup Transatlantic.

In 2002, Neal Morse became a born again Christian, left Spock's Beard and began a Christian rock solo career, releasing many progressive rock concept albums about his new religious faith.

In the meantime, he continued to play with Transatlantic and formed three new bands with Portnoy, Yellow Matter Custard, Flying Colors and The Neal Morse Band.

Morse grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles as one of four children.

His father was a choral director.

Morse started to play the piano at the age of five and started to learn to play the guitar at the age of nine.

During his twenties he wrote two musicals (Hit Man and Homeland), did some session jobs, tried to get a deal as a singer-songwriter in Los Angeles, and recorded a few country and western demos with his brother Richard.

After about ten years, having played in small Californian clubs with various groups including Burlesque, Morse founded Spock's Beard together with his brother Alan, to give voice to his great passion for Progressive Rock.

Morse became a born again Christian in 2002.

He left both Spock's Beard and Transatlantic immediately following the release of the Spock's Beard album Snow, in response to a calling to make his personal faith more prominent in his recorded output.

He felt this would not be possible or appropriate in a band context.

In 2003, Morse, Mike Portnoy, Paul Gilbert and Matt Bissonette formed Yellow Matter Custard as a Beatles tribute supergroup.

The period leading to this decision is described on the solo album Testimony (2003), an epic, introspective composition which features Kerry Livgren of Kansas and Mike Portnoy.

One part of his conversion to Christianity, omitted from Testimony but described in full on Testimony Live and later in the song Jayda on Testimony 2, was that his daughter Jayda had been diagnosed as having a hole in her heart that required open-heart surgery.

However, before Jayda received surgery, the hole disappeared following a church service in which Morse's wife and others prayed for God's healing.

In 2004, Morse wrote and recorded a new concept album featuring Portnoy and Randy George (on bass guitar).

Guitar virtuoso Phil Keaggy made a guest appearance on guitar and vocals.

The album, titled One, is about man's relationship with God from his Christian perspective and was released on November 2, 2004.

In 2005, Morse released two non-prog Christian albums.

In January, Morse recorded Lead Me Lord with the Christian Gospel Temple Choir, his children, and his friends.

Morse wrote about half of the tracks.

This was released in February and is available for a donation.

In July, Morse released God Won't Give Up, which was written around the Snow period.

The band has released five studio albums (SMPT:e, Bridge Across Forever, The Whirlwind, Kaleidoscope and The Absolute Universe) plus live albums from the tours behind each studio disc: Live in America, Live in Europe, Whirld Tour 2010: Live in London, More Never Is Enough and KaLIVEoscope.

In concert, the group has included Daniel Gildenlöw of Pain of Salvation, and occasionally Ted Leonard, Morse's eventual replacement in Spock's Beard.

They took the name from a lyric in The Beatles song "I Am the Walrus": 'Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye...' On March 26, 2012, Morse released the first album of the newly formed band Flying Colors (Mike Portnoy on drums and vocals, Dave LaRue on bass, Neal Morse on keyboards and vocals, Casey McPherson on lead vocals, and guitar, and Steve Morse on lead guitar).

In 2014, he gave life to another group, The Neal Morse Band (with Mike Portnoy, Randy George, Eric Gillette and Bill Hubauer), that released its first studio album The Grand Experiment in 2015.

The group's second outing, The Similitude of a Dream, was released on November 11, 2016, and the sequel to that album, The Great Adventure, was released on January 25, 2019.

Their fourth release, Innocence & Danger was released on August 27, 2021.