James LaBrie Interview

Before you start reading, you should know that James did this interview despite having a king-sized hangover from the previous night’s partying with some buddies in Toronto. I insisted that the interview was not all that important, but he agreed to go ahead and do it anyway, and we spent almost two hours in a Unionville pub shooting the shit (no alcohol was present at the time). So James, thanks for putting up with my questions; I owe ya one (I promise it’ll be a shot of Evian, not Jameson’s).

First off, how were the Christmas shows? Did the new material go over well?

Oh yeah. it was great. All the shows were sold out and the new material went over great. We only did five new songs, and the rest was stuff from ‘Awake’ and ‘Images And Words’, and ‘A Change Of Seasons’ was stuck in between songs in sections, almost like a conceptual thing. That worked out really well. At first. I didn’t think it would work at all, but we went with it and it came out really cool.

Sounds great. Any chance of doing that during your regular tour?

We don’t know what we’re gonna do yet. We have a whole new version of ‘Caught In A Web’, though it’s called ‘Caught In Alice’s Nine-Inch Tool Garden’! It’s really wild because I’m singing the melody real low, then I just go crazy with it. We played it, and people thought it was a new song. It was only when I sang the chorus that it finally clicked for people. We played it on the first night. and people were asking us to do it again, so we played it every night. We might even record it as a B-side eventually.

That one song we were listening to (‘Lines in the Sand’) has a heavy Rush feel to it, to me at least, especially the middle of the song where it slows down. Was that intentional?

It’s funny that you should mention that, because with that slow section in particular, John and I were talking about it while we were doing it and he said: “How would Rush approach this section?” I closed my eyes, thought of Geddy singing, and that’s what I did.

Did you get John’s lead when you were listening to it?

Every time I hear it, it sends chills up my spine. The guy floors me; I’ve been in the band for six years, and he can still freak me out. He and I communicate a lot, because I’m heavily into guitar virtuosos like Mike Stern and Steve Morse. and he might ask my opinion on things he’s working on. I’ve seriously criticized him for being too technical or too fast maybe once in the last six years. The guy’s unbelievable.

I was reading an interview with John, I think it was in the last issue of I&W, and he mentioned something about you taking the edge off your voice that you had on ‘Awake.’ I heard what he meant on ‘Lines In The Sand.’ Is that the case overall?

Yeah. On the last album, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing with raunch; that’s how I wanted to express myself. On this album I wanted to get back to singing clean, and if I get raunchy it’s more of a rasp that I want to incorporate. In some of the new songs there is that raunch quality, but it’s just to add character to those songs, that’s all. It’s not over done.

Will we be hearing more backing vocals on the new album as well?

There’s a lot of background stuff. Actually, I got Mike and John involved in some of it, and they sang a little at the shows.

Mike was singing? (If you’ve listened to the fanzine Xmas CD you know why I was surprised)

Yeah. Kinda scary, isn’t it? We’ll see how the backing vocals go when it comes to studio work. I’m really anal about that in the studio, because I want to make it sound the best it can possibly be. I’ll bring in another voice if it adds texture to the song.

I remember your voice was giving you problems when you toured Germany in February ‘95. It’s nice to hear that you’ve recovered. It sounds great.

Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ll tell you, those shows during that European tour were just a nightmare for me. I was sick and I wanted to be home. Even my vocal doctor was saying that I was fucking nuts to be out touring. Y’know, if we had been a much bigger band at the time where it didn’t matter how much we toured or when we toured. I would have taken three months off to get my voice back in shape.

Now that the voice is back and feeling great, I can’t wait to get out; almost like I want to redeem myself, let the Europeans know that what they saw was someone that was dealing with ruptured vocal chords. Now, what they’ll be hearing is how it’s supposed to be.

Do you guys have a producer yet?

No. (Remember, this interview was before anything had been decided – Ed.) The guy I want is Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley; he did Silverchair, not that I like that band, the last Journey album ‘Trial By Fire’, the latest Aerosmith album, and he’s great. His stuff is incredible. The other guys are kinda psyched on him too. He expressed interest in doing the next album about six months ago, so if that still stands, I would love to see him do it.

There’s talk about DT possibly releasing the next album as a double CD.....

No way. I think it would be suicide for us to do that right now. First of all, we want to attract new fans, and we’d like to broaden our horizons. The price on a double CD is ridiculous, so already you’re turning off fans who might like one or two songs but aren’t willing to part with forty or fifty bucks for a band they’re not sure about. I’m not into doing that, neither is John P. and I don’t think John M. or Derek are either. I think the only guy that is really for it is Mike... (laughs) Mike would release a four CD album if he could.

Y’know, there’s nothing really wrong with that – I really admire Mike for his passion. All he wants is to give the fans everything that we have, but at the same time, you also have to remember that there’s a business side to this, and you have to want to continue to grow. The only way you’re going to do that is by bringing more people in and sell more albums.

I picked up the new Queen tribute, and I was a little disappointed by the way ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ sounded. I thought it sounded kind of thin, I guess you could say. Were you disappointed by it at all?

I was really disappointed with the production of it. I listened to all the other tracks, and sonically they are much more professional sounding. You listen to ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ and ‘One Vision’ and they sound like they were done on a four-track. It really pissed me off. The drum sounds are atrocious. They flew the ADAT up to me, and I remember listening to it thinking that it sounded like shit, which was disappointing because you had Carmine Appice on drums, Tony Franklin on bass and Marty Friedman on guitar. I talked to the guy who was doing the mixing, saying that what I heard in its raw form really needed to be worked on. He was saying: “Don’t worry James, I’m really gonna concentrate on your voice.” I said: “Don’t worry about the voice, concentrate on the drums, bring them up.” Needless to say, it didn’t happen as I’d hoped, but to be truthful I still appreciate the fact that I was asked to do it and I’m glad I did.

I heard you did a cover of ‘Freewheel Burning’ for the Judas Priest tribute albums. Whatever happened to that? I saw the original cover of Vol. II in a merchandise catalogue, and there was a listing that read ‘Dream Theater/Mr. Big’ as doing the song.

The line-up for that was me, Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and Deen Castronovo, and I thought that would have been great. They were willing to fly me down and get me into a major studio to do the recording, and then what happened is that attitudes started to fly around. I didn’t understand why everybody was getting freaked out over it; it was supposed to be fun. It’s not like we were doing our own stuff. Then it was supposed to be Malmsteen on guitar but that got weird too.

The guy who was doing the engineering was losing his mind. He’d just about had it, and he asked me if I wanted to throw some guys together to do the track. I know Mike wants to do it, so as it stands now, it might be that me, Mike, and maybe John Myung might go in to record it with a known guitarist, and we’ll kill it. I’d love to record that track.

The Winter Rose CD, any of the guys in the band have a problem with it...?

No, they’re totally behind it. They’re psyched: all they want are copies of it. Mike is nuts; he wants everything NOW! Copies of Winter Rose, a copy of the Queen tribute because he recorded my vocals. He’s like a big kid...

Have you heard the I&W Christmas CD yet? “Best wishes to James on his caribou farm...”

Oh yeah. Derek was freaking out, because the first time I heard that was on the way to the show in Providence. Derek was saying: “don’t play it now guys. James’ll fucking kill me.” I’m like: “Why is that, Derek?” He goes on: “I love you man,” and I’m saying: “I love you too, man, but I still might kill you.” I heard it, and I laughed. I thought it was great.

I thought it was hilarious. “Canadians celebrate Christmas on the 26th ‘cuz they’re slow.” Thanks Derek.

It was funny because when we got to the show and got out of the van, I chased Derek down the street screaming: “come back here, motherfucker!” and the fans saw us. They were probably thinking: ‘holy shit, are they having a fight...?’

Given the state of the musical climate in the States right now, are you worried about how the next album is going to do there?

I’m concerned. but I’m not worried. because we sell well across the rest of the world. I would like to see us get another sold album in the states. and I think it’s possible with this new material. The new stuff is so diverse that if we can’t have one of these songs go to radio and do something. I give up – radio can go and suck my ass. There are a couple of songs that come in at about six minutes or so that have serious potential. There’s one song called ‘Just let Me Breathe’, and it kicks ass. It’s to the point. it’s got a strong chorus, powerful melodies... I know it can do some serious damage. I know it’ll do well in Europe and Japan. but I have a strong feeling it’ll do well over here as well.

Everybody I talk to in the industry, whether it’s someone from Sony or Epic or BMG, is saying that rock ‘n’ roll is coming back, and I think that’s gonna give us a chance to do well. because we are a rock band. There’s just more of a progressive feel to the music. The main ingredient to Dream Theater is that we’re hard rock, and that’s it.

So, are you able to divulge the title of the new album?

I can tell you. but if you print it I’ll have to kill you...