Wilma

The Best of Times is about Mike Portnoy and the relationship with his father, Howard Portnoy. The song, along with Mike Portnoy’s vocals, was demoed during his father’s last days. The song was played before How […]

The creator was Dave McKean, a well known artist most known for his work on The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. It was based off of an earlier work he’d made for a collection of Sandman stories called “Brief […]

Originally, Metropolis part 1 was named as a joke, but after being badgered by fans, DT decided to write a song to complete part 2. It was written during the Falling Into Infinity sessions in the summer of 1996, […]

The band wrote over two albums worth of material of which a substantial amount didn’t end up being released on the album. The record label, at the time, was going through various changes and wasn’t giving the ban […]

“Raise The Knife” was the first song written by the band in the Falling Into Infinity sessions, but the song never made it onto an official release until 2006’s live release “Score”, although it was released on t […]

The band originally offered Jordan Rudess the keyboardist position in the band, which he politely declined. The band then hired Derek Sherinian, who later became a full band member after a few months of touring with the band.

The popularity of “Pull Me Under” was basically an overnight success and vaulted the band into a very lengthy world tour that was very successful. “Pull Me Under” was very successful on hard rock/metal radio and […]

“A Change of Seasons” was originally planned to be released on “Images and Words”. The track was cut on the strict understanding that the label would allow them to record and release it at a later date. The song […]

The band had talks with another label called Atco Records (now EastWest), a division of Elektra Records, before being able to get out of the Mechanic Records deal. There was an understanding that if the band was […]

While the band searched for a vocalist after firing Dominici, the band wrote most of the music that would end up on ‘Images and Words’ instrumentally from 1989 to 1992, when the album was released.