After the band fired Charlie Dominici, who did the band offer the position to?
Dream Theater first approached John Arch (of Fates Warning fame – a band he’d recently quit). In fact, Arch himself thinks he might have influenced Dream Theater into firing Dominici by making remarks backstage about Dominici’s somewhat lacking live performances. He worked with DT for a couple of weekends, and made a couple of demo recordings. Ultimately, he found the prospect of long tours and extended leaves from home (a home with a baby on the no less) too daunting, and decided against joining DT.
Dream Theater received several hundred audition tapes from people all around. Out of these, the closest to get the gig were in particular three people: John Hendricks, Steve Stone and Chris Cintron. In all cases they were presented to management and label as “the next vocalist”. But the label decided against John Hendricks, and Steve Stone ultimately was let go because of a horrendous live experience. Chris Cintron almost were chosen, but there were some doubts regarding his looks and persona as a front man.
In 1991, right before the band was about to commit to Chris to be their new vocalist, they received an audition tape from Canada. The band was excited to see the audition had the voice they were looking for and flew Kevin James LaBrie down to New York to jam with the band. It also helped that he had “the pretty boy” look – long hair and charm. He was offered the vocalist position and started going by James LaBrie to avoid confusion with then keyboardist Kevin Moore.
