In 2014 Epica bassist Rob Van Der Loo told Prog how he’d discovered the genre via Deep Purple – and in particular Jon Lord – and how it led to a deep appreciation of Yes, Rush and Dream Theater.
“The prog rock genre was something I grew up with, but I’d always considered it rock music as I’d never heard the term ‘prog.’ There was one club where I used to hang out, and I used to play with people who were 10 years older than me, and they introduced me to prog rock.
My favourite band of all time is Deep Purple, and my musical hero from that band is definitely Jon Lord. Even though I’m a bass player, I’m still in awe of what he did with music.
What I love about the music of Deep Purple – especially in the late 60s and early 70s – was that they moulded classical music and blues music into what I would call the ultimate heavy rock.
There are a lot of elements you can find in the music I make in what Deep Purple did. For example, they were one of the first rock bands to play with an orchestra. It was Jon Lord’s idea because he wrote Concerto For Group And Orchestra [1969], which was performed in the Albert Hall. Epica did a similar thing – we did a three-hour show with a 70-piece orchestra, which was amazing!
Lord’s sound is the Hammond organ, particularly the distorted Hammond organ. On one hand he’s a keyboardist, but on the other he’s a kind of second guitar player because of the guitar-like sound of his distortion. On my other project, Mayan, we use a lot of Hammond organ with symphonic death metal.
When I first listened to Dream Theater, that’s when I took the next step up. It was John Petrucci who made me pick up a six-string bass and play more technical stuff.
To this day I’ve got more of an interest in bands like Yes and Rush, and a lot of respect for what the older bands did. I remember the first time I had to play Rush’s YYZ with a cover band – I almost broke my fingers! I have a huge amount of respect for Geddy Lee as a bassist and a frontman.”
