Carmel gallery owner’s son scores success with band Dream Theater

Drummer Mike Portnoy has achieved much – a good recording contract for his band, Dream Theater; concert dates throughout the United States, Europe and Japan; and profiles and awards from major magazines.

Dream Theater’s 1992 release, ‘Images and Words,’ sold 500,000 copies in the U.S. alone, largely due to the hit single “Pull Me Under.”

The band’s most recent album is ‘Awake,’ released in 1994 to rave reviews from magazines like Modern Drummer [January 1995]. The members just finished recording an EP (short-playing record), ‘A Change of Seasons.’

The 28-year-old son of Carmel’s Howard Portnoy, owner of Portnoy Gallerie, has nowhere to go but up.

Pine Cone: How did the band’s name come about?

Mike Portnoy: It was suggested by my father Howard [to name it after the Monterey theater of the same name]...[and] our name was Majesty for many years, but when we signed our first recording contract we had to change our name.

Pine Cone: Did you grow up here?

Portnoy: I always lived in New York [raised by his mother] but spent every summer in Carmel.

Pine Cone: When did you begin playing drums?

Portnoy: I got my first drum set when I was 11, but for years and years before that I was playing on practice kits and Mickey Mouse drum sets, stuff like that. I was always very musically inclined so it was kind of inevitable that I became a musician.

Pine Cone: Do you play any other instruments?

Portnoy: I play piano for writing purposes for the band. I learned formal training at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. That’s where I met John Petrucci [guitar] and John Myung [bass].

Pine Cone: Did you graduate?

Portnoy: After a year up there (at Berklee) we decided it was impossible to devote 100 percent to the band and 100 percent to the schoolwork. It’s very demanding there. So we decided we needed to leave school. Luckily it paid off. It was a big risk at the time, leaving school and trying to make it in rock and roll.

Pine Cone: Can you kind of describe your rise, maybe from the time you started playing in clubs or whatever, to when you started recording, touring and getting really ‘known’?

Portnoy: It was definitely a long and winding road. We spent our first couple years writing and demo-ing material. We signed our first record deal in 1988, with MCA. The album was called When Dream and Day Unite. It’s now out of print.

We had a quick and frustrating experience with MCA. We had a pretty bad contract. We were pretty naive, just wanted the opportunity to do a record.

We spent the next few years trying to get out of that deal. In 1991, we signed with Atco, and that’s pretty much when things took off [with 1992’s Images and Words]. Our new singer James LaBrie had just joined the band at that point.

Pine Cone: So what’s the band working on now?

Portnoy: We went back in the studio in ‘94 to record a third album, Awake [on the Eastwest label] and we’re still in the midst of that album. Just got back from six months of touring. We went to Japan, Europe and throughout the United States.

Pine Cone: How would you describe the band’s sound?

Portnoy: I think our style is a big melting pot of various genres. We’re all pretty open-minded and listen to a lot of different stuff... A lot of people label us ‘progressive metal.’ I hate to label our music because it varies from song to song. I think if people listen to it with an open mind, it’ll mean something different to every person.

Pine Cone: Do you usually tour with other bands, or solo?

Portnoy: When we started out, we were playing 500-seat clubs; now we play 5,000-seat theaters and arenas. We’re actually seeing our growth in front of us, not some other band’s audience. Touring with others is something we’ve been meaning to do lately. We’re playing a festival in Europe in June, and other artists are going to be there – Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Elton John, The Black Crowes, Sheryl Crow. Over in Europe every summer they have music festivals all over, like 10 at a time. [Editor’s Note: Howard Portnoy adds that the band will tour through Germany, Italy and Holland with the above-mentioned festival from June 18 through July 9, and that Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker have joined the lineup.]

Pine Cone: I noticed your most recent album [‘Awake’] was on the Billboard 200 chart. The copy I have shows you at number 32.

Portnoy: Yeah, we entered at 32! That was surprising. We don’t picture ourselves as a very trendy band. Most of those bands are very commercial; maybe I shouldn’t say that, but you know, they sell a lot of records. For us, we never expected to be selling as many records at this point in time as we are. We thought maybe in 10 years we would be. To be in the Top 40 now is just amazing.

Pine Cone: When are you coming to Carmel again to visit?

Portnoy: I came out there at the end of the last tour, at the end of winter; I come out a couple of times a year. My father has always been very supportive of the band. He’s a very hip guy. We have a great time together. He comes to all of our West Coast shows. And not only did he name the drummer, he named the band!