Mike Portnoy: The Balancing Act

This past December the guys from Dream Theater did a short but sweet tour through Europe, playing a handful of dates to give European fans (and a displaced Canadian fan) a taste of the full blown production due to hit Europe in March/April ’98. It’s become something of a habit, but I was able to interrupt The Great Portholio’s schedule long enough to play catch-up and talk about Dream Theater in 97/98.

So, what’s the full story behind the rumors of you and John P doing a side-project?

MP: Magna Carta approached me to do another Black Light Syndrome thing, like Terry Bozzio did. At the same time that they approached Terry, they approached me and Terry both, to do “super groups” for lack of a better term – Terry’s took off and mine took a while. They said “give us a list of people you’d like to do a side-project with” and ultimately Tony (Levin/bass) and Jordan (Rudess/keys) were available, but we couldn’t find a guitar player. To make a long story short, I asked John if he was interested. Magna Carta were already talking to John about doing something as well, so it worked out well.

When is it coming out?

Around March. We just mixed it last week (this being early December – Ed.) and it’s phenomenal. We’ve been playing it after doors and before the opening band so people will get a chance to hear it ahead of time.

I was sitting downstairs watching the soundcheck, and after you guys left the stage, Vinnie (DT’s soundman extraordinaire) played a sound-bite over the house system of something that sounded like James singing but it was nothing I’d ever heard before!

It must have been one of the extra tracks. Before the opening band, we’ve been playing Liquid Tension Experient, and then after the opening band, before we go on, we’ve been playing all of the tracks that didn’t make the album. So basically, the show begins when the doors open; it’s chock full of music.

With ‘FII’, my only problem is “Take Away My Pain”. I love the demo version on the Japanese release, so I was wondering if the version that appears on ‘FII’ was decided on from a business point of view?

I agree with you; I like the original version better, but a couple of the guys thought it might be a little too cliché to have that power ballad approach. We tried reworking it and I like what we came up with; the music in itself is cool because it’s almost like a Peter Gabriel sort of thing and we’ve always wanted to go in that direction. I like what we did with the music, however my personal opinion is that that should have been the music to something else. I thought that the old music was a lot more fitting to the lyrics of the song, the dynamics and the emotion behind it. The live version that we do is actually a combination of both.

There have been some complaints about “Burning My Soul” being changed as well...

“Burning My Soul” I kind of agree with now because when we wrote it, that middle section always seemed a little out of left field. We always questioned that ourselves, thinking “should we do this or is it way too out of place?” This way it worked out good because it’s still connected to “Burning My Soul” but it’s just more of an afterthought.

Do you find a lot of people going “Come on, you should have left it the way it was”? From a business standpoint, it makes more sense...

I agree or disagree depending on the song. With “Take Away My Pain”, I agree; for “Burning My Soul”, no, because I think the song is a lot more focused now. It doesn’t get side-tracked and yet we still have that music (“Hell’s Kitchen” on the album). Originally, “Pull Me Under” had this whole big section of “Erotomania” right in the middle of it, and thank God we took it out. Really, it didn’t make sense there.

That’s one of the dangers of playing the stuff live or letting people hear the demos before you record the album. Everyone expected us to do the songs that way in the end, but demos are just demos. We have the right to change things right up until we do the album.

Do you go on the Internet a lot? The reason I ask is because when the album first came out, there was all this criticism; people coming out of left field complaining about these ‘commercial’ sounding songs. Do you see where people are coming from? Does that affect you at all? I thought a lot of it was pretty harsh.

Yes I do go on a lot. I saw the criticisms before the album came out because people heard “You Not Me” first, and I thought that was unfair because you can never judge any of our albums by one song. If you heard “Wait For Sleep” off ‘Images And Words” or “The Silent Man” off ‘Awake’, you know it’s not representing the full spectrum of the album by any stretch of the imagination. As far as reviews of the entire album goes, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I think it’s a well-balanced album. There are definitely songs that are more straight ahead, but we intentionally did that. Some of these songs are more streamlined by choice, but there’s still “New Millennium”, “Trial Of Tears”, “Lines In The Sand” and “Hell’s Kitchen” to balance it out, so I think that like any of our albums, there’s a balance on ‘Falling Into Infinity’.

One of the problems is that we put a lot of eggs into the Metropolis basket. We put a lot of progressiveness into that one song, so without having a song like that on the album, we did lose a little bit of balance, but I still think the album has it. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but if they call it a sell-out, I would have to disagree. I would say as a fan, when I hear the new Metallica album or the new Queensrÿche album, those to me sound like sell-outs because the entire album, the entire style of the entire band from start to finish changed. Whereas with us, it’s a song here or a song there. That’s a part of being a progressive band.

The big thing I’ve been hearing people saying is “Where the hell is the Metropolis part II they promised?” figuring it would be on ‘FII’. John P mentioned earlier that it might be put out as an EP. What’s the status now?

It’s an identical scenario to what we had with ‘Images And Words’: there was just too much material, although I shouldn’t say identical because it could have fit onto ‘Images’, but because It was our first album with the label, they didn’t want it on there. This time it came down to not having enough room. If we were to put Metropolis part II on the album, it would have eaten up four or five other songs which we need for the balance. It came down to Metropolis part II and five other songs that didn’t make it. Some of them are or have been B-sides for the singles, etc., and some of them will have to wait. Hopefully, we can do the Metropolis thing next year (98).

So will it be an EP?

In a perfect world, we’ll do a ‘Metropolis part II’ EP in ’98. The only problem with that – one of the problems we had with ‘A Change Of Seasons’ – is that we know it’s an EP and the fans know it’s an EP, but the label and the general public (retailers, record stores) don’t know that. They see that as the latest Dream Theater album. When they saw that ‘ACOS’ didn’t sell as many as ‘Awake’, which of course it’s not going to because it’s not a full length record, that’s a turn-off to them. So, that was a little bit of a strategic problem on our part. We’re not expecting it to be perceived as a full album and the fans won’t, but outside the fan base, there’s a perception which is very important to the business of a band. We’ll have to consider that this time around.

What has the reception of ‘FII’ been like compared to ‘Awake’? Can you compare between the two?

I can’t tell really, because people tell me how much they love it, but of course they’re kissing my ass. The only way to really tell is to go on the Internet where nobody’s trying to give you lip service. It’s like anything we do: there always seems to be mixed reviews. A lot of people love it and are passionate about it and think it’s the best thing we’ve done, and a lot of others are disappointed and think it’s too commercial or whatever. You can’t please everybody all the time. I don’t know, you tell me. How’s the reaction been from what you’ve heard?

I think the reactions are more varied this time out. For instance, a lot of people said “‘Awake’ wasn’t as strong as ‘Images’, but it’s still a DT album”. Now you have people saying “oh, this isn’t DT at all.” Or they go right to the other extreme and say “wow, they’ve gone to the next level, but doing the Rush-styled stuff like ‘Lines In The Sand’”.

I think it’s... the word I keep using in interviews is “mature”. I think it’s the most mature album we’ve ever done and I think it’s a logical progression for us. I think this is the album we had to make at this point in our career, because I think it has the potential to take the next step for our career, which is what we really do need. We don’t want to keep playing to the same audience for the rest of our lives; we’d like to play to that audience as well as other people. We don’t want to lose any of the existing audience, but we do want to add to it.

Big thanks to Mike for letting me interrupt his dinner (something of a habit with me, it seems). Also, thanks to Bill Barclay for being so hospitable, Thomas Waber, and John Myung for the Coke.