As keyboardist for singer/ songwriter Clarence Greenwood, a.k.a. Citizen Cope, Steve Vidaic has one aim: making the songs on Greenwood's albums come to life onstage.

"Clarence writes such beautiful, timeless songs, and his lyrics are amazing," Vidaic says. "The record has piles of keyboard tracks, so there are two keyboard players in the band. But we pretty much just interpret the parts Clarence wrote."

Not that Steve's complaining. "I don't mind recreating the songs on the record, because they're so well produced, and the parts are great. Every keyboard part is a hook and vital to the song. Sure, we end up sounding a little different from the record— we put our own energy into it—but the songwriting is so great, I don't even feel the need to improvise, when I'm onstage with Clarence."

Fortunately, Vidaic also has outlets for his formidable improvisation skills. One example was his recent tenure with the electronic dance band Zilla, which specializes in spontaneous, real-time playing. "Zilla was 100% improvised electronic dance music," Steve recalls. "It was interesting being on the road five or six nights a week and having to improvise all night, every night. We just took our time onstage and let things develop. You'd hear a line or a sound from somewhere else onstage and build it up from there."

Every artist is an improviser at heart, he adds. "I'm very into songwriting and creating a song—but even the most structured song starts as an improvisation at some point. It's just been refined into a more precise, presentable form."

Vidaic has just finished an exhaustive 16-month tour with Citizen Cope. "We did the US three or four times over, plus Japan and Europe," he says. "The response was great—and it grew during the time we were out on tour. People knew all the lyrics every night and were singing along. It was good energy, and the band was playing really well."

Vidaic uses Yamaha's MSR400-powered speakers as part of his setup. "I use them for monitoring onstage," he says. "It's nice to have solid, good-sounding speakers behind me and not have to rely on house monitors. I do use the house monitors to hear the vocals and other instruments, but I like having something more reliable for my own keyboard sounds. The Yamahas sound great—they're really low-distortion, so I get nice, clear, pristine sound even when they're really loud."

The Yamaha Motif is also a big part of Vidaic's current sound. "I've always approached my keyboard sounds from a unique angle," he explains. "I use a lot of old analog keyboards, and I'm really into creating tones and soundscapes, as opposed to just pulling up a keyboard patch. But the Motif is the first digital keyboard that makes me feel okay about leaving the analog stuff at home. It feels like a real instrument to me, not just a piece of plastic."

Steve appreciates the Motif's user-friendly controls: "It's got knobs right on the top panel, so I can tweak all the onboard effects while I'm playing—I don't have to dig through menus. It's set up very organically. You can easily tweak any patch into a whole new sound."

Vidaic composes his own music as well. "Lately, I've been writing a lot of rock stuff, textural, moody music with lots of programming," he says. "Now I'm putting together a new band with my own music, and I'm singing as well. It's not just straight rock 'n' roll, but more textures and sonic stuff happening."

In addition, he's working on a musical documentary with his filmmaker brother. "It's about klapa music, which is the traditional music of the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia," he explains. "It started as vocal music, though they later added guitars and mandolins and so forth. My family's Croatian and, since I was a baby the whole extended family would get together every weekend—aunts, uncles, cousins. All the older uncles and fathers would end up around the piano with guitars, singing old Croatian songs. I was always the little kid listening while my cousins were running around playing. I'm still really into that music."

Vidaic is also currently producing several other bands. "I'm constantly writing, producing, arranging and editing," he says. "Playing onstage and producing a record are such different worlds, but I love them both so much. I hope to never have to stop doing either one of them."