SW: So, is this upcoming solo record similar musically to Silent Force?
DC: Silent Force is much more aggressive...more in your face. The solo stuff is much more melodic and progressive, more laid back. There's so many different categories now - progressive, progressive power-metal....that I wouldn't know what you'd call it.

SW: There are so many great bands out of Europe who play progressive metal and power-metal that have achieved great success. But there are more and more bands here in the US playing a similar musical style, such as Symphony X, Jag Panzer, Iced Earth, Metallium, etc. who have also received great success in Europe. And this kind of music is slowly becoming more popular here in the States as well, do you feel that things are changing for the better here in the US?
DC: I hope so. It' seems the enthusiasm level is a hell of a lot higher than it's been, say, three years ago. With this new Silent Force album we're getting incredible reviews, and a lot of them are coming from the US. And that's pleasantly surprising. I was down at the prog-power conference a couple weeks ago down at Atlanta and I spoke with a lot of different young musicians. I had 16 year-old guitar players telling me they don't want to play this Nirvana/Green Day/Limp Bizkit shit. They say they wanna learn how to play like Petrucci [Dream Theater] and started rattling off all these names of great musicians. And it's promising to hear stuff like that . I've been doing a lot interviews on college radio stations and a lot of the younger kids really want to hear this kind of music coming back. You can only hear so many songs that have 3 or 4 chords in them and you get tired of it.

Click Here For DC Cooper Interview Page 3