Interview With Mike Portnoy

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

On the afternoon of February 12th, 2000, Mike Portnoy granted me an interview at The Rave in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With my aunt as my moral support by my side, we sat on couches and pillows in a cozy room off of the main dressing room and talked about recent changes, life, and the future.

NS: OK (smile) First of all thanks for doing this interview.

MP: Sure.

NS: How’s Jordan adjusting to the new band environment?

MP: Well, you’d have to ask him, but for us it’s incredibly natural. I mean, John and I obviously have been playing with him for years, and throughout the entire making of this record, we had a lot of time for everybody to get adjusted to him. And he even toured with us as an opening act for several legs on the Falling Into Infinity tour. We’ve already toured with him as well even though he wasn’t on the same stage with us. But he’s doing great. Like I said, he’s very natural. It feels like he’s been with us all along. Musically it’s great because he’s just perfect. We don’t have to worry about him making mistakes or anything like that. We know that he’s always going to be on. He’s very consistent. And he’s just an incredibly easy guy to get along with. It makes touring, which can normally be very stressed-out, it makes it a lot easier when you have somebody that’s a level-headed person like he is.

NS: Is this going to be the last change?

MP: I surely hope so. To me this is the perfect Dream Theater lineup. This is the lineup that we actually wanted back in ‘94 after Kevin left. I think it’s the strongest Dream Theater lineup, and I can’t anticipate. If there was to be any further changes, I don’t think there would be a purpose to even continue. So I think this will be it. If not, then I think we’ll call it quits. One or the other.

NS: You’re responsible for writing the set lists. Don’t shoot the messenger, but I was asked to ask you, “Why such a short set list?”

MP: Well, like I just told you before you had the tape recorder running, we want to keep this show under two hours just because there’s a lot of music. The Dregs are playing for an hour and then there’s an opening band as well, which plays a half hour, so it’s a very long night. So we consciously don’t want to go over the two hour mark. It’s better to keep people wanting more than to overstay your welcome and burn them out. We know we want to play all of Scenes from a Memory, so that right there is about 90 minutes. When you throw the keyboard solo and the guitar solo into it, it turns into about an hour and a half of the show. So that leaves us only a half hour to play with for the old catalog, which is why we’re doing a medley in order to get a balance of material. It’s hard. For me as the set list writer, it’s very hard. I’ve been tossing and turning every night, you know, are we putting everything in, are we getting everything in? But now that we’ve put Erotomania into this little medley thing, we are covering every one of our albums, including the first Liquid Tension album and When Dream and Day Unite, which we rarely play. So it’s hard. And it’s also tough for me because I like switching the set lists. And on this tour because we’re playing the whole album, it’s essentially the same set every night. I know some fans come to see us multiple nights may be very disappointed by that, but it’s really hard to balance all of our catalog with only a half hour to spare outside of the Scenes From a Memory album.

NS: What is a typical day in the life of Mike Portnoy when you’re not on the road?

MP: When I’m NOT on the road? I sleep as late as I can before the kids and my wife wake me up. I mean, I’ve had horrible sleep habits my whole life, so I’m very used to going to sleep at 4 in the morning and then getting up at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. That’s just the way my schedule has always been. But it’s hard to keep those hours now with the kids. But when I’m home, I usually wake up around noon or so, and I spend as much time I can with the kids. When I’m home that’s my priority – trying to get time in with them. But I’m always taking care of business for the band. I’m always on the phone. There’s always questions that need answers. There’s always interviews that have to get done. There’s always decisions that have to be made on behalf of the band. I find myself constantly wrapped up in those things, constantly dealing with email and phone calls. And when I’m not doing that, I’m doing clinics or doing videos or doing other side projects. It’s just been an incredibly busy couple of years. There hasn’t been too much down time.

NS: How has your family life affected your involvement with Dream Theater?

MP: It’s more of the other way around, “How has my involvement with Dream Theater affected my family life?” I don’t get to spend as much time with my family when I’m home as I would like because of the things I just mentioned, all the time I still have to devote to the band even when I’m home. I guess it’s just my hands-on nature. I guess the leadership or controlling qualities that I have to have – I have to always be in control. It’s good for the band because it keeps somebody on top of everything, but it’s bad for me because it drives me absolutely crazy and it takes away from my family, which is my only regret, that I wish I could put the band down and give time to them.

NS: Has your family life affected your lyrics writing or song writing?

MP: Um, no, because since I’ve had my kids, the lyrics that I wrote haven’t been open to lyrical subject matter, because all the lyrics I wrote for this album are obviously based on the story. So we all had to write lyrics revolving around the story line. It will be interesting to see with the next album when we’re not tied down to writing about a specific story and then we could all write individual lyrics about different topics. It will be interesting to see how it all comes into play. James wrote the lyrics to Speak to Me, which were directly inspired by his first daughter. But I haven’t had a chance to have any inspiration from that yet. Although my lyrics for A Change of Seasons were what I imagined what it would feel like to have those feelings before I actually had them.

NS: I noticed you have a mirror theme going on with your lyrics. I know that SFAM has a story line that you had to follow, but I noticed in the three songs you wrote, you either put a reference to the mirror or in talking about drugs or doing lines of cocaine, you have a mirror there. It was in A Change of Seasons, and you wrote The Mirror. What’s with the mirror?

MP: I never realized that. I have noticed that there is a running, no pun intended, a running theme of water in a lot of our lyrics. We hear that all over the place. I never thought about the mirror thing. I don’t know. I can’t give you an answer for that one. You stumped me.

NS: (laughs) Uh-oh. (MP starts tapping on his water bottle.) How often do you practice, how do you practice, what do you do?

MP: You’re seeing it. This is it.

NS: (laughs)

MP: All my practicing is done tapping at the dinner table or sitting on the bus. I don’t sit down and practice like the other guys do. Jordan and John and John are constantly practicing with their instruments, but for me, I’m always tapping and stuff. I never have time to sit behind the kit and practice anymore because when I’m at home, like I mentioned, I want to spend time with my family. And I do spend so much time playing, whether it’s things with Dream Theater or other things like clinics, that I do get a lot of playing time in. But I don’t get to practice like I used to. But so much of my playing and so much of my approach to drums is a mental thing anyway. My wheels are always spinning, and I’m always thinking in terms of rhythms and different combinations and patterns. So that’s a big part of my approach to playing. The mental practice is just as important as the physical part for me.

NS: I’m going to switch a little bit to www.mikeportnoy.com. What do you think of it so far?

MP: It’s great. I wish I could take credit for it, but Dave [Hatlee, webmaster of www.mikeportnoy.com] gets a lot of credit for it. He’s amazing. I think he’s created an amazing site. I’ve given him suggestions and guidelines, but for the most part he’s in full control. I think the message board there, the Forum, is the best one out there for Dream Theater fans. I still get the YtseJam mailing list, but I actually find myself not reading it like I used to, and I go right to the message board, the Forum. It just seems like that’s where the most insightful things about the band are being said on the Internet by the fans. But Dave’s done a great job. There are so many great features there that I probably haven’t had a chance to discover them all.

NS: Do you read the Forum regularly?

MP: Yeah, as often as I can.

NS: What are your favorite types of threads [discussion topics]?

MP: I like the one that just happened, the one with the songs where you pit up the songs against each other.

NS: The cage match?

MP: Yeah, it just came down to Metropolis and A Change of Seasons. It was interesting to see what people’s favorite songs are. For me it’s good as the set list writer. It helps me know what the fans want to hear. I like anything that has to do with paying attention to the music. People talking about me cutting my hair I think is kind of silly.

NS: That was a joke. I think I was in a weird mood that night. (laughs) I needed to get some sleep.

MP: (laughs) I’m just kidding. (laughs) But when the album first came out, all the dissection, everyone dissecting it and discussing it and analyzing it was great. It was fun for me to look on and see how closely everyone is listening. That makes it all worth it for us. We spend so much time putting so much thought and time into all of the detail. It’s nice when people take the time to actually notice these things. You know that your work is being appreciated.

NS: Are you going to shed any light on the ending to Scenes from a Memory? Did you read the twin-switching theory?

MP: Yeah, I will say that that theory is incorrect. I think that a lot of people have gotten it. Even in the very first couple of days people got it right. So it’s not as involved as everyone is now digging. And you saw the show last night, so you know that a lot of the answers are not given through the videos. I don’t think the true answers will be given until we hopefully do a home video for the whole album at the end of the tour. At that point, we’ll outline what exactly happens, and it will be made very clear-cut and obvious. But until then, I think it’s important for people to come up with their own theories and interpretations. I don’t want to spell things out. When I see movies, I don’t want the filmmaker to tell me exactly what he’s planning there. You want to do the research yourself. I think the live show is helping a little bit, but we’re purposely not giving everything away just yet. There are certain things that are a given, though. The fact that Nicholas is the reincarnation of Victoria – that’s a given, that’s spelled out in part of the story line. So that’s not a mystery.

NS: What’s the latest on Transatlantic?

MP: It comes out on March 28th in Europe, I don’t know if the US date is the same. But I can’t wait for people to hear it. It’s something I’m very proud of. I’ve been playing it in between the opening bands.

NS: Is that what that is?

MP: Yeah. Well, in between the Dregs and us is a mix of different things, but before the Dregs and before the opening band, you can hear it. So if you get to the show early enough, you can get a sneak preview. And there will be two different album covers – both kind of similar but with different colors. And there will be a limited edition European version as a double CD with a 40-page booklet and the bonus CD of studio out takes and demos as well as possibly a multimedia thing where you can see some video footage from the sessions. And we’re also going to play at the NEARfest in Pennsylvania in June. We’ve been asked to play that festival, and that’s going to be fun. Hopefully that will lead to more shows as well.

NS: Are there any other side projects on the horizon?

MP: No. I need time off, please! (laughter) We’re going to be so busy with Dream Theater all year long that that’s obviously all of our priorities. Like I said, I’m going to do this NEARfest show with Transatlantic and possibly at the end of the entire tour cycle, I might do some more work with that; maybe another album or maybe some touring, but that’s all subject to my availability from Dream Theater, and it doesn’t look likely that I’m gonna have much time for anything but Dream Theater until the end of the year.

NS: What do you see in Dream Theater’s future?

MP: Just a lot of touring. We’ll be on the road all year. We have this US run, then we go to Europe in March and April, then we go to Japan in May, and throughout the summer we’ll probably do another US run, and we have some European festivals lined up for the summertime. So that’s it. Just a lot of touring, and as I mentioned briefly, I’d like to do a home video for the album as well at the end of the tour cycle and hopefully have that out by Christmas. But I’m just speculating at the moment. That’s just what I’d like to see happen. We haven’t actually made plans with the record company yet.

NS: Thanks.

MP: Thank you, and I’ll see you later.

Nicole Stachowicz