“When it came time to do Real Illusions, with all of this beautiful encouragement from Ruta and the sense of freedom I felt that I could make a living doing this, I kind of decided to test my audience to see how many demands I could put on them.

“I wanted to do something very different: a concept record. I had this idea, this story… Everybody has this, a moment of clarity. Time stops, and you can even remember your environment, what it looked like, smelled like, the colors, everything. We all have those. They’re elusive, but they do happen.

“So I set forth and outlined the whole story for Real Illusions, and I started to create that record. It was the first movement in this large-scale concept, and it unfolded beautifully.

“The fans that really get you, they stay with you. Real Illusions is one of their favorite records. Passion And Warfare is a favorite for a lot of people because it might have been the first one that they knew, but the people who really get what you’re doing, every next record is their favorite.

“You can only have that when you do what really matters to you and what comes most naturally to you.”