James LaBrie – Rumour Has It...

Interview by our Germany based Canadian correspondent and M.E.A.T. magazine journalist, Carl Begai, with James LaBrie on August 7, 1996.

I guess for starters, can you clear up what I heard about the producer for the next album? I understand he passed away.

Yeah. Kevin Gilbert was the original producer. We had sent him five demoed songs and he freaked; he was keeping in touch with Mike, and he had called say that he’d received the songs and that he was really looking forward to working with us. About five days later, we found out that he had died. It’s really sad, because I don’t know if you’ve ever heard his stuff, but it’s really incredible. I’m very particular about who I consider to be a musical genius, because I hear the term misused so often, but listening to the stuff Kevin Gilbert did with the band Toy Matinee, and his solo album called ‘Thud,’ he was definitely it.

It’s really kinda depressing because I think of the stuff that he did and I can just imagine what he could have done with us. He totally understood us because his own stuff was very progressive but had that accessibility to it. It would have been a compliment to have someone like that with us.

So what are you guys doing for a producer now?

I’m not gonna say any names because right now we feel that we’re saying things are getting jinxed, but we sent out an eight or nine song demo to three or four producers that we’ve been looking at. At this point, we’re just looking; we’re not rushing things. We rushed into doing the last album; I’m not putting ‘Awake’ down because I’m very proud of all the writing and work that went into it, but when we finished up the tour in Korea in January, and the next thing you know we were back in the studio in May, and we had done all the writing for ‘Awake’ in the time between. It was a very rushed experience.

This time we’ve taken our time, coped with a few tragedies along the way, and we’ll go into the studio when we’ve found the right producer for the job. This is a very important album for us; it could put us into the stratosphere or it could hurt us. We have to play our cards very smart and that’s what we’re doing.

You don’t have to answer this, but was there any consideration to using David Prater again? I know there were some conflicts with him in the past.

I hadn’t talked to the guy since we did “A Change Of Seasons”; we almost got into a scrap, but what it was was a misunderstand between the two of us and we got heavy on each other in the studio. We realized when we’d both cooled down that we were trying to achieve the same thing. So anyway, just last Friday I got a call and it was David Prater, and he says “Hey James, I just heard that one of the members of Dream Theater died.” I’m like, “well, uh, I was just shooting the shit with John Myung for the last twenty minutes on the phone, and he didn’t happen to mention anything.” (Laughs) There are so many rumours around, it’s ridiculous.

There’s that rumour that Rock Hard printed about you and Derek being booted from the band. I found that and faxed it to Rob Shore (the band’s manager). It freaked me out.

I think the guys in the band were more pissed off than I was about that. It was started by a band in LA. To be honest, when I first heard about this, I was amused; I was like “let them talk, let them have their fun.” Then the other guys found out and they were screaming “this is fucking bullshit!” I talked to my buddy at Rock Hard, and they apologized profusely, but I had to question why they never checked the integrity of their source. It’s gotten way out of hand; I read all kinds of crap on the band: someone died, someone’s been sacked, wars between Dream Theater and Queensrÿche...

Excused Me??!!

It’s like “give it a rest!” I know Geoff Tate, and he loves Dream Theater and vice versa. I hear all kinds of crap dragging Geoff down or dragging me down, and it’s crazy. Geoff and I are totally different singers, we both have something to offer, and if you don’t like what either one of us has to offer, then fuck off.

This is the part of the business that you’ve gotta take for what it is. Aside from all the rumour crap, we have a very focused direction as to where we want to take the music. Have you heard any of the new stuff?

Yeah, when Mike and John did their clinics in Germany a couple of months ago, I heard “Raise The Knife” and “Carnival Of Clams,” and Mike told me about tracks like “Anna Lee.”

I think “Carnival Of Clams” is called “Lines In The Sand” now. No wait. I think maybe it’s called “Burning My Soul” and “Showdown” is called “Lines In The Sand.” I think when people hear those songs they’re really going to see a maturity in the writing. Obviously it’s more accessible to a wide market, a very spread out range of listeners, but at the same time it’s undoubtedly Dream Theater. We’re not trying to capitalise on any genre of music that seems to be popular right now. If anything, we always break what the trend is.

So what kind of lyrical contribution have you made this time around?

I wrote the lyrics for “Anna Lee” and for “The Way It Used To Be.” And I might write lyrics to a third song. I’m the type of lyricist, and the other guys know this, that writes, then re-writes, then re-writes and so on. It might be good or bad to do things that way, because there’s a fine line that you can go too far with something, and then you’ve messed it up. I like to take my time with my writing, so if I happen to get this next idea down to where I’m feeling comfortable with it, I’ll bring it in and possibly apply it to one of the songs that’s being written right now. Melodically, I’m all over the album.

By the way, your version of “Red Barchetta” on the Rush tribute is great.

When they asked me to do it, I freaked. Baz (of Skid Row) and I are really good friends, and he got in touch with me and told me they wanted to get me on a couple of tracks. I agreed immediately. It was really cool to do, and when I was told that Steve Morse was gonna do lead on “Red Barchetta,” I went through the ceiling.

I thought it was cool that Rich (Chycki, former Winter Rose bandmate) played on it, too.

Yeah. I got him in on that. He was recording my vocals in Toronto and I suggested he lay down some rhythm guitar on the track with the intention of going to the producer to see if he wanted to keep it, and he did.

Was there any thought to putting “Tears” on the Rush tribute?

No. It’s funny because when this tribute thing first came to our attention, Dream Theater as a band was going to contribute something. Then it came about for whatever reason that our label was getting a little freaky on us. It was the usual corporate bullsit, so we decided to forget it. It just ended up that the three of us were on it.

Maybe you can clear another rumour I’ve heard, that Rich is putting out the old Winter Rose stuff out on CD.

No, it’s not quite like that. When I was in Japan, almost two years ago, I was approached by EastWest Records in Japan, and the vice president of the label mentioned that he’d heard of my old band and asked if I’d be interested in having the material released in Japan. They threw some interesting numbers at me, but the one reason that I really wanted to do it was because of all the Winter Rose tapes I’ve seen flying around, bootlegs and stuff. I want to present it in a really professional way in the way we originally did it. All we did, Rich and I, was pick out ten songs and remixed the lot of it. I didn’t sing over any of it because the way I sound now is not how I sounded then. We bumped a lot of the material up from its original eight and sixteen track formats to twenty-four tracks and made it sound bigger.

While all this was going on, we found out that our label couldn’t release it over there for some reason, but JVC came up and said they were interested in putting it out. So now, it’s being released through JVC; they’ve got the masters. It’s been mixed, and Darko (M.E.A.T. magazine photo/art guru) is completing artwork any time now. The tentative release date is somewhere around late October, and in the meantime we’re gonna look for licensing in North America and in Europe.

So, if the Winter Rose stuff really takes off and becomes huge, is there any chance of the old spiky-haired James LaBrie look coming back?

(Laughs) Fuck that!

What’s the tentative plans for Dream Theater in regards to release and touring?

Right now, for release we’ve got it planned for around February 7th, somewhere in there. The first single would probably be released in North America around the second week of January. I guess the tour would start in the States and hopefully bring us to Canada, which would keep us here until the spring. Then do a full tour throughout Europe, and then we’ll do Japan. We want to go off and tour Australia and South America this time around. We’ve been offered gigs in South America before, but it’s really a question of having the right people coming to the table when planning the tour. But all that depends on how things work out over the coming months.

Just one more question, I think. Are you guys planning on doing any Christmas shows this year, like you did at Birch Hill, etc. last year?

At this point I really don’t know. By the looks of things, we could easily be in the studio until the second week of December, but if we’re feeling pumped and want to give the fans a tease with the new material, we might.

Maybe it’s time to start up another petition, get you guys to play New York around Christmas!

Go for it. If we knew there was a big enough call for it and things were gonna be sold out, I could see us doing two or three shows. Scream loud enough man, you might get lucky. I’ll tell you one thing though, once the people hear this material when it’s done, produced with the right guy, I think people are gonna freak on this shit. I’m not trying to sound cocky, but I think people are really going to like what they hear.

I’m certainly looking forward to it.

So am I! (Laughs)

P.S. A big thanks to James for a great conversation, and congrats on your entry into fatherhood. C-ya on tour!