Originally published in press release · 1992
Dream Theater
News4 min read
James LaBrie – Vocals
John Myung – Bass
John Petrucci – Guitar
Kevin Moore – Keyboards
Mike Portnoy – Drums
It has become rather redundant to hail the vibrant originality of every other band to release an album – nobody believes a word of it any more, the claim’s been heard so many times and true so few. It’s therefore rather difficult to muster the enthusiasm to make such a claim when it is justified – but what else can you possibly say about a band which can combine elements of such diverse bands as Metallica and Yes, in the same song no less, and make it all work?
Dream Theater’s originality is not a calculated, cynical pose, rather it is the product of the open-mindedness of the east coast-based five piece, a willingness to consider anything as a viable element in their wide-ranging forays through the realms of rock and roll. The band’s reverence for America’s adventurous Dregs, Kansas, Zappa and for England’s progressive rockers of the seventies becomes clear with the undertones of Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant and Pink Floyd – to name but a few! – all evident within the far-reaching boundaries of Dream Theater’s music; but this is not a band trading on memories instead they are as firmly contemporary and as innovative as any pioneering act you’d care to name. Dream Theater belong alongside the few who are accepted and acknowledged for pushing the boundaries – Queensrÿche, Metallica, Rush and King’s X.
The evidence is clearly audible on the band’s brave, stridently unique Atco debut Images and Words, produced by David Prater (Firehouse). ‘Learning To Live’, the self-described “quintessential Dream Theater epic” covers everything from metal to jazz in its twelve minutes and serves as the ideal primer for the uninitiated, open the door to styles ranging from the metallic (‘Pull Me Under,’ ‘Under A Glass Moon’) to the melodic (‘Another Day,’ ‘Surrounded’) and the epic (‘Metropolis,’ ‘Take The Time’).
The road leading to this point in Dream Theater’s career has been long and arduous, marked by frustrations and disappointments, but the band is all the stronger for it. The lyrics for ‘Take The Time’ take a somewhat autobiographical look back, and it’s perhaps no coincidence that the lyrical themes on most of the album revolve around loss and sorrow and the development of strength and character that can result from addressing such issues rather than running from them.
The band was first put together by Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and John Myung while all were studying at Berklee College of Music, subsequently drafting in old school friend Kevin Moore. The first demo was hailed by the press but both the name (Majesty) and the singer had to go back to the drawing board. After an exhaustive year-long effort another singer was finally recruited. A new record deal seemed like the ideal situation for a band which certainly didn’t fit conveniently into any neat little boxes, but the band’s euphoria was short-lived; the label’s excitement was not translated into action, and what’s more the singer had to go, again.
It took well over a year for the band to extricate themselves from their deal, and during that time over two hundred singers were evaluated. A period of intense frustration followed as the band even contemplated an all-instrumental future, but recognised the limitations inherent in such an approach, and continued their search. “We were very picky,” concedes Portnoy, “because the four of us set such high standards for each other, we didn’t want to sell ourselves short on the fifth member. Since the inception of the band we’d been looking for a vocalist who was on our level both mentally and musically.” Canadian James LaBrie front man for Winter Rose and formerly the man who replaced Carl Dixon in Coney Hatch, nearly didn’t land the gig – Dream Theater was already working with the man they thought was their new singer when LaBrie’s tape arrived. The rest, as they as they say, is history.
With a song count of only eight, Images And Words encompasses nearly one hour’s worth of music. Indeed, it’s so eventful and eternally fascinating that it will be one of the shortest sixty minutes you’ll ever spend listening to music. The tag of ‘progressive metal’ will be supplied by many and drummer Portnoy is not about to disown it, but points out that there’s a lot more to Dream Theater than such a label might imply.
“We’re not a throwback,” he insists. We’ve incorporated all the elements of modern metal into what we do. Although we did grow up listening to Rush, Genesis, Yes and The Dregs, we’re not going to deny that our sound is reminiscent of those bands, but we also listened to bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Metallica and today’s music is potentially just as influential on what we do.”
The band is not apologetic about all the traditional rules that have been broken in putting together Images And Words. Sticking to the rules of song structure and length is one good way of being just like everybody else and Portnoy is insistent that Dream Theater’s tunes – all of them written in a rehearsal situation, with the players working spontaneously off each other’s ideas and themes, are only as long as they have to be.
“We start a song and wherever it goes, we go. We never set out to write an involved ten minute song, but sometimes it takes that long to fully get an idea across and if you listen to our tunes I don’t think you’ll find any dead weight on them. Why should we limit our ideas to being expressed in four minutes?”
Be warned, they already have a twenty minute piece ready for the next album...