Maximum Widdle-osity

Are Dream Theater guilty of inflicting widdling muso Metal on an unsuspecting world? Or are they really the antidote to Grunge and the way forward for Rock in the ‘90s? As the ‘Theater prepare for a UK onslaught, Steve Beebee searches for the truth, and attempts to mention the word ‘Pomp’ as often as possible...

Mike Portnoy, Dream Theater’s persuasive drummer, has my tape recorder. “We don’t want the words Pomp or Prog anywhere in this article,” he proclaims, before returning it. “If you feel the urge to use the ‘P’ words, just insert ‘artsy-fartsy’ instead. We’d prefer that!”

It’s all very well Portnoy claiming that his band are beyond categorisation, most musicians try it, but he does have a point. Dream Theater’s rambling, widdling epics incorporate a whole lot more than just Yes and Pink Floyd influences, the humbling Progressive tag with which the New Yorkers are endlessly tarred. Streamlined and polished beyond belief, Dream Theater’s ambitious emotional feasts aren’t, perhaps, the most accessible of Metal.

“There’s still a long way to go, sure” says Portnoy, “but what’s happened already is way beyond what we ever expected. With our epic style, we felt we would have that cult status thing hanging over our heads for years and years. In America, Japan and most of Europe, however, we’ve taken off amazingly fast. The UK is the nut we’ve yet to crack.”

Like guitarist John Petrucci and inscrutable bassist John Myung, Portnoy is a graduate of the Berklee College Of Music, and thus no stranger to excellence. Predictably, Dream Theater has not been the easiest of visions to bring to fruition. Their potent melting pot of influences has taken many frustrating years to come to the boil.

The initial euphoria that surrounded Dream Theater’s first album was not translated into sales. The late-’80s saw Thrash and Glam happening in a big way. Dream Theater lacked the same sort of immediacy, and simply didn’t look current.

“We did get concerned by what was happening,” nods towering keyboard player Kevin Moore. “Classic ‘80s bands like Metallica were happening, while most of our influences on that first album seemed to come from the ‘70s. We weren’t expecting any miracles at that point. We knew the band had to develop.”

Mike Portnoy is surprisingly candid on the subject.

“We’ve always been out of step; we’ve never been flavour of the month,” he states. “People do appreciate us for what we do, but we’re certainly never gonna be trendy. I love both Thrash and Grunge, but as the styles come and go, a lot of the bands involved tend to go down with them. Playing the music that Dream Theater plays gives us an opportunity to stick around longer.”

By the time the band’s second and most recent studio album, last year’s ‘Images And Words’ was released, Canadian born singer James LaBrie had joined the fold, and Dream Theater had become far more focussed and slightly less grandiloquent. As the music reached a new eloquence of expression, so too did the lyrics. Was there a danger of leaving fans baffled?

“I feel that our lyrics should be left open to interpretation,” offers John Petrucci. “It’s never easy to translate specific feelings into words.”

“Sometimes my mind will go blank and I’ll forget where I am,” confesses LaBrie, when pushed on the difficulty factor involved in singing such complicated material. “I’m most vulnerable when we’ve been off the road for a while. There was a time when I kept forgetting this one line in ‘Surrounded’. It was gettin scary, like a curse!”

“I don’t think we could write 12 three-minute Punk songs and make ‘em sound realistic,” says Kevin Moore. “Just because it’s less complicated technically doesn’t mean it’d be any easier to write.”

“A Punk guy has his world, and we have ours,” adds Petrucci.

Aren’t you just showing off though? Couldn’t you be using your unquestionable talent to better ends, such as writing more songs, instead of more time changes, more keyboard fills, more widdling? Surely, things have moved on in these days of Nirvana and the return of the three-minute Punk song as an acceptable medium.

“But we never wanted to be a typical Rock band!” retorts the ebullient LaBrie. “I don’t feel that we’re showing off at all. What we do, both musically and lyrically, comes from what we feel within.

Kevin Moore disagrees.

“In every entertainment medium there is some form of display,” he says after a long pause, “and displaying what you’re capable of doing does, I guess, incorporate an element of showing off.

“It’s exciting for people to listen to musicians who are really talented. Admittedly, if you’re not the sort of person who enjoys that type of performance, you’re not gonna get much out of what’s going on in Dream Theater!”

“The dynamics of music are important to me,” says Petrucci. “Some guitar solos can take you off the planet!”

But isn’t John Petrucci simply talking muso-speak? The average Rock fan doesn’t give a shit about how fast a guitarist’s fingers move, or where each digit ends up on the fretboard at any given time.

“It’s not just the speed of the solo that affects you, it’s the whole feel of it.” he argues. “Besides, I think that a lot of our fans are musicians themselves, and get a lot out of what we play from a musician’s point of view. Playing really fast does effect some people.”

Many American Rock bands view the UK as particularly important, largely because most of their influential heroes were British. Without Black Sabbath and NWOBHM, American superstars Metallica would be no more than a glint in Lars Ulrich’s eye. Without The Rolling Stones, perhaps even Aerosmith, and therefore Guns N’ Roses, would never have existed.

Dream Theater are no exception to this pattern, so it’s hardly any surprise that the UK is now their number one touring priority. The band are hoping that their forthcoming British tour, which begins at Cardiff St David’s Hall on November 20, will elevate them beyond cult status. After the recent, poorly-attended Lillian Axe tour, Dream Theater may not find the running as smooth as they would like.

So keen are the New Yorkers on making an impression on these shores, they even recorded their recent live album at London’s Marquee Club. Reviewed favourably by Kerrang!’s Dave Reynolds, our man christened the six-tracker, ‘Death By Pomp!’

Portnoy: “We’re not a Pomp band at all. We’re primarily a Metal band, but we’re a Metal band that can transcend several genres. Okay, so we happen to know how to play our instruments, and we just so happen to write songs that are quite long with numerous instrumental sections, but does that make us pompous?”

Surely Mike has just given us a summary of what makes a Pomp Metal band a Pomp Metal band... Perhaps Dream Theater fail to realise that it is for these Pomp Metal elements that they are so appreciated.

“Deep Purple had all those things too, as do Iron Maiden and Metallica, but they never got branded as such,” counters Portnoy. “The reason I’m so anxious to shake off that Pomp tag is because it immediately closes us off from a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily dislike what we’re doing.

“I don’t go home every night and listen to Genesis and King Crimson all the time. I also listen to Public Enemy and Rage Against The Machine. We’re aware of what’s going on around us in music, and we try to incorporate modern influences into our sound.”

Although a third Dream Theater studio album is still distant on the horizon, a good deal of excitement is being generated for the project already. This time, there’ll be no concerted attempt to write long songs. The band will stir their melting pot of sounds and wait to see what develops.

“We won’t limit ourselves at all,” promises Petrucci. “There’ll be New Age and funky stuff in there. One extreme should be mellow, while the other will be an all out, heavy, Helmet-meets-Pantera kinda groove. We’ll represent what we’re feeling, and see what happens.”

There’s one thing you can be certain of. It won’t be Country And Western.

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Dream All Day!

The man who signed Dream Theater to Atco, Derek Oliver, gives his opinion of the Widdly Metal maestros to Steve Beebee!

“They’re completely unique, and truly consummate in terms of musicianship,” gushes one-time K! scribe-turned A&R man Derek Oliver from his New York office. “Another big selling point is that they’re going completely against the grain. While everyone else is content to wear combat boots and short trousers, this is a band that will do their own thing. “People laughed and jeered when I said I wanted to sign Dream Theater. Due to the long songs, they feared the band wouldn’t get airplay. As it is, ‘Pull Me Under’ is one of the most played songs on American Rock radio. It’s a classic.

“I believed from day one that not only was the band marketable, but that they were gonna be a hit. I’ve had to fight for them, but I’ve been proved correct.”

Derek and his wife moved to New York from England four-and-half years ago. It was a risk that has paid off for him, and is one which Dream Theater have reason to be eternally grateful for. ‘Images And Words’ has almost broken the Gold barrier in the States. In Japan and Germany, the band has, in the words of Oliver, “been embraced beyond belief”. He predicts that Widdly Metal will rise again...

“It’s the perfect antidote to the angst and sludge that has been perpetrated by all the Seattle wannabees,” he enthuses. “Rock will go right back to traditional Metal, and the next wave will follow on logically from what Dream Theater have touched on. They are to be a very important force in Rock music. Their next album will be ‘widdly’ galore!”