Mike Portnoy, James LaBrie interview

Note: the two video clips are from the same interview, as they share some of the same footage (specifically the end), but most is different. Being that both are incomplete, we’ve pieced it together as best we imagined it happened.

Mike Portnoy: We’ve been together now almost eight years. At first, our goal wasn’t to really be making records or anything. We were just a band, we were a bunch of musicians that just got together and enjoyed playing with each other, jamming on tunes and stuff. So that was like the most important thing, and it still is, but now there’s so much business involved with it. Through the years, we’ve made a lot of mistakes through the business world that has really slowed down the band’s progress. So it’s tough because you constantly have that in the back of your head – you’re thinking about what the label is gonna think or what other people are gonna think. But it’s most important for us to do what we want to do.

-----

James LaBrie: ...our focus on the music, and that’s always been the forefront with Dream Theater, is that it’s music first. Sure the business is important because you want to have the material reach as many people as possible, but it’s always been with Dream Theater that, “Let’s stay in focus with what we’re all about and where it originally came from.”

MP: It’s sort of like the attitude we’re not gonna change for anybody else – let them change for us.

-----

Interviewer: Is the live thing something that perhaps you primarily think of the band as more a live band rather than sort of this... I mean I know you might have to make records and stuff, but you feel more comfortable on stage than say within a studio environment?

JL: Definitely. I think that’s what this whole band is all about: whatever we record, live is just as important – if not more important – to give the people what they hear on vinyl and more. We just like it too, because we get to know each other a lot better, and creatively we’re growing a lot stronger the more we play out live, so it has its advantages and we’re totally into it.

MP: I don’t think people even really would be able to understand what this band is about unless they saw us live either, because in the studio everything is so defined and you spend so long nit-picking everything apart, but when you come see us live, the energy and the power and everything is there, and that may not come across in the album as much. But if you come see us live it’s a whole other scenario than what you might expect from a band like ours. So it’s definitely something that we enjoy and I think it’s a strong aspect of the band.

Interviewer: Are you quite comfortable performing then in front of so massive [groups of] people? Do you do still get nervous?

JL: Definitely. Yeah. It’s just like Mike was saying. It’s not what people would expect from a band of this type of music. You’d think that it would be very low-key and everybody’s into their instruments and the audience is there but we’re concentrating on what we’re doing, and it’s not like that. There’s a lot of contact with the audience, a lot of interplay on stage, a lot of energy. So the live thing is not what you’d expect. I don’t know what more to say.

Interviewer: Have you noticed a big difference when you first went out at the beginning of the US tour to now, what’s happening on stage?

MP: Well obviously. We’re becoming more and more comfortable with each other and with music, and obviously aside from ourselves on stage, the audiences keep growing and growing. In the States, the album is doing incredibly well, and it just keeps getting better and better. We’ve done about a hundred shows so far on this tour and every show is just worlds apart from the last. It just keeps growing and growing – both the audience and ourselves. We feel real comfortable now. It’s good that we’re coming over to Europe now, because we’ve had so much time in the States to really get the whole live show together. It’s definitely something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time from you out here. We’ve been receiving mail from Europe for years – a lot of people that have been following us like a cult band. There’s a lot of fans here that have been waiting and we’ve been waiting too, so it’s gonna be cool.

-----

Interviewer: Were there any one time when you perhaps thought, “Right, that’s it. I’m gonna chuck in the towel.” I mean obviously you didn’t, so what was it that stopped you when you sort of...

MP: There was a whole period before James was in the band when we were looking for him. It was the most incredibly frustrating thing that anybody could go through. We just hit rock bottom as a band. We didn’t have a singer, we didn’t have a label at the time, we didn’t have a rehearsal studio, so we couldn’t play and write. We fired our manager, our lawyer. There was just a period in the band where we had nothing going for us, and the only thing that kept us going – I mean we could have easily just thrown it out the window and said, “Forget it. This isn’t worth it” – but the only thing that kept us going is we were writing this music and we were getting so excited about the music. It was the music for Images and Words, and we were just writing and getting so excited. We would get to practice and we’d talk business and stuff and be like, “Man, I don’t want to deal with this anymore.” But then we would start writing these songs and then by the end of practice, we would leave practice so psyched, like, “We’re going to pull through this! We’re never giving up, we’re gonna take the time, we’re gonna do this right, and no matter how long it takes, we’re gonna sit through this and we’re gonna make it.” And we persevered and we got this Canadian guy and we’re here in Europe and things couldn’t be better! [laughs, giving James a big hug]

JL: Before I met these guys, I didn’t really ask myself that question because it was always the back of my mind, “What else am I gonna do? This is what I want to do.” I don’t even want to think about doing anything else because I think that’s a negative energy right there. So I always thought, “I’m gonna do this until I make it,” and hopefully that won’t be too long. But I couldn’t really think of myself doing anything else, and then luckily I met up with these guys, thank God! Now it’s my turn! [turns to give Mike a big hug]

-----

MP: We always pictured this band just going years and years and years, and slowly developing this audience. And that’s all right if it continues that path. With us it’s more of the quality of the audience as opposed to the quantity. The people that come see us are always diehard fans, people that know every lyric, know all the parts and they pick apart the music and that’s important to us. It doesn’t matter if it’s 50,000 people or 500, we would rather have the 500 serious-minded fans. That’s more important for us.