James LaBrie interview

Teresa Roncon: James, how did that happen that you went down to New York to meet up with Dream Theater? Did you feel that you needed to make the transition to the US music scene to make it?

James LaBrie: It wasn’t that I purposely went down there to see these guys. I was with the band Winter Rose in Canada and we were touring with Lee Aaron, and then through her I met up with some people at Aquarius Records. They referred me to MCA, or Mechanic, which Dream Theater was on at the time. Then we passed tapes back and forth. They flew me down, we had the interview, and then we took it from there. The rest is history. Everything just clicked really well.

TR: There’s a lot of people from Canada that seem to feel that when they hit the bigger market that things do click.

JL: The music industry, Canada and the States, it’s like night and day. It really is. I mean, the market down there is so huge. There’s a lot more money that they put into their acts. I mean, there are some acts up here that get the support, but more so you see a lot of acts coming and going really quick. Whereas down there, they take the time, they nurture the bands, and they go about it in a more, I don’t know, I don’t want to say professional manner. But it works out really well down there.