James LaBrie Interview

Terry Wickham: How did Mullmuzzler all come together? When did you come up with the idea?

James LaBrie: Well, the seed started to be planted when we were touring Falling Into Infinity. Pete Morticelli and Mike Varney from Magna Carta actually called me up while I was on the road. They asked me about doing this solo project. At the time I said, “Let me think about it, I’m not sure that I want to do something like that.” If I did do it, I wanted to put a lot of thought into it, get together with the right kind of writers and besides that, I’d want to get the right kind of players. This is once I came to the conclusion or the decision that I wanted to do it. It was a matter of me sitting down and making sure that I could start to collaborate with other writers who I thought their material was cool. That was probably last October [‘98] that I started doing that. I wrote three songs with Matt Guillory, three songs with the guys in Shadow Gallery and then I wrote two songs with Trent Gardner. That’s how I threw the album together. Then I had Matt play on the album, Trent play on the two songs I wrote with him. Then I had Mike Mangini, Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller on all of it.

TW: Did you pick those guys out specifically or did they just come up somehow?

JL: Mike Mangini I definitely knew I wanted. I called him and he was like, “Yeah man, I’m in.” Mangini was doing the Steve Vai album and he was working with Mike Keneally with the Steve Vai project. I was aware of Mike Keneally, I knew he was a great player, very Frank Zappish and his band Beer For Dolphins. I listened to that and I really enjoyed the bass player that played in Mike Keneally’s band, Brian Beller. Because when I drew this thing together and I’m sure I’ve said this to a lot of the people I’ve already done interviews with: the reception – the whole vibe – has been incredible. Everybody seems to be loving it and I’m pretty excited about it. But when I threw it together, what happened was I think a lot of people thought that I’d come up something more along the lines of Freddy Mercury side thing or Steve Perry approach to music, where it would be more poppy.

TW: They expected it to be softer.

JL: Exactly. But I knew that what I wanted to do was come up with a very hard rock album, obviously progressive elements within it. But first and foremost, I really wanted the album completely groove oriented and very rhythmic. So with that in mind, before we even started writing, that was always what was definitely our perimeters when we were constructing the songs. I produced the album, I don’t know if you’re aware of that.

TW: Yes, I did see that.

JL: Everything from creating and writing the songs, to making sure the sounds were right, everyone’s parts were exactly how I wanted them going down, right down to the final mix. I worked with Terry Brown on this, he was the engineer. It was very cool, it was a great experience. I loved writing with the writers and recording with the players.

TW: Do you think that you would ever do another one?

JL: I would only do another one I think if I got a really good response to this one. So far it’s been great, so that’s encouraging. I guess the most important thing is how successful it is. If it sells well worldwide, I guess it would be foolish for me not to. But there’s always other things that come into play. Obviously, Dream Theater is going to be starting a world tour. So it will probably be a year of touring if not more I would think. So you have to take all these things into consideration. At the end of Dream Theater’s next world tour, I’ll know more if I want to jump into something like that again. It’s a lot of energy, it’s a lot of time, I don’t mind that, but at the same time I have a family, a wife and kids. Everything has to be kept in balance, you have to prioritize and first and foremost is my family.

TW: No doubt.

JL: So after touring for a year, I have to really take that into consideration and think about kicking back, but we’ll see. There’s ways of always doing things and working things out, it’s just when and where.

TW: I would say that one of the qualities that the album has is what you talked about, the groove. I really like the movement with the instruments, words, it just kind of propels you forward. One of my favorite songs on the album is ‘Beelzebubba.’ I just think that’s a real kicking tune you know.

JL: It is. Very Chicago like.

TW: I’ll tell you, it’s like a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the other music you are hearing today.

JL: I appreciate it. It’s great that you’re zoning in on it. You have to understand when you are putting it together, you are going, “it had to be this way so that people will pick up on it” and then I’m hearing it back from you, it’s very gratifying to hear that.

TW: Would you say that any of these songs were ideas for Dream Theater or were they all completely new?

JL: They’re ideas that have been around, but I don’t think I ever seriously considered throwing them into the Dream Theater mix.

TW: Cause they do sound different.

JL: When it comes to Dream Theater, first of all, a lot of the music is created in a jam environment. Where everyone is in one room and it’s just a jam situation. You start piecing together the music that way. The other way is taking songs that are more formulated or more constructed. Mostly before everyone else starts putting their two cents in. It was ideas that I had and then ideas that these other guys had. Then to be able throw each others ideas into the mix and create something that makes sense.

TW: I’ve become a big fan of Matt Guillory’s band Dali’s Dilemma.

JL: Matt is a fantastic keyboard player. He’s incredible. He’s extremely talented and a very nice guy. That was another thing. I wanted to work with guys I felt had a really great attitude and these guys did. It was completely open to where I wanted to take the music and how I wanted everyone to approach it. Obviously, I wasn’t going to snuff their ideas, like in the sense of how they were going to play, since that’s why I wanted them in the beginning. I really respected them as players and their style really spoke for itself. You know Matt is one exceptional keyboard player. I think Mike Keneally is a great guitar player and Brian Beller is a great bass player. Mike Mangini is a fantastic drummer.

TW: You’ve got to have the whole package.

JL: Absolutely.

TW: Speaking of Dream Theater, how is the new Dream Theater album (Metropolis Pt. 2 – Scenes From A Memory) different than the other albums?

JL: I would say this without giving anything away. I think that the people, the fans I should say, are ecstatic. We are all really, really excited about it. I think it’s an album that we have been wanting to make for a while and finally it just so happened to fall into place. It just really solidifies us as a band, what we were supposed to become. I think people are really excited with it.

TW: Looking back at Images and Words, is there something you remember about it the most? Doing it?

JL: There’s a lot of things I remember about that and it was a very special album for many reasons. The music was incredible on it and it was very special to be part of it, you know. I think the other thing that is going to be a fond memory for me is it was my first album with these guys. It was their second album, but my first album. Everybody was just really pumped and excited. We were all to a certain extent naive as to what is to happen and all the little areas to the industry that seem to be a little bit of a downer. These things, we really weren’t quite aware of, we had heard of, but to be thrown into it is different. But that’s not really something that sticks out, we’ve learned how to deal with that over the years we’ve been involved since Images. Everything seems to be coming around for us because now that we’ve been with this label for so many years, they realize that this is an entity that, if everybody plays their cards and everybody does there job very well, not just us but everyone who is representing us, we will be around for a while. The thing was when we were recording that album, there’s just something about it, even while we were recording it. We just felt really, really strong about it. But it’s another thing to think that people will give us the time of day, meaning the media and radio. So that was a really exciting time. We all lived in one house together. We had a blast, it was a lot of fun.

TW: I can see that. I thought the album was basically excellent. Ever since then, you’ve been my favorite band.

JL: That’s great.

TW: How about when you look back on Awake?

JL: Well, Awake was great too. We were going through obviously the whole thing with a big change happening in the band. We could kind of sense he [Kevin Moore] was going and he wasn’t going to be around much longer. Because as much as he was involved with the writing of the album, he wasn’t at the same time. Actually, he let us know at the end of the recording that he wasn’t going to be around any longer. He told us the day before I went in to do my vocals, which was a little bit of a bummer. I had to really kick myself in the butt to get in the studio the next day and sing the whole album with a good attitude.

TW: Because you didn’t know what was going to happen with the band right?

JL: Well, I knew the other four guys in the band, were strong enough to keep it going. Kevin Moore is incredibly talented, probably one of the strongest lyricists, I think anyway. And not only that, I think he’s a great composer. So when that happened, I knew that Dream Theater’s sound and direction was going to change after Awake. I think it already started to change because Kevin wasn’t involved with Awake as much as he had been previous to Awake. So there was already some new direction, a kind of style coming into Dream Theater, even at that point. At the same time, I’ve got to tell you that I had a lot of fun on the whole recording of Awake, that whole release and getting out and touring it. The first show we did was at the Concrete Foundations Forum September 9, 1994. The reason I remember that is, it’s my wife and I, our anniversary. So I was actually playing on our fifth anniversary. Jordan Rudess actually played that one show with us. After that, he kind of felt it wasn’t good timing. It wasn’t good timing for Jordan, he didn’t want to get on a major world tour at that point. He just had a baby and all this stuff was going on. He had to really concentrate on his home life and that’s when we got Derek later on. It was an exciting time. The tour was great, we had a really successful tour.

TW: I think the album was superb, I know that sounds repetitious.

JL: It’s all representative of those times. I think each album is like a little pocket, it’s almost a little biography of what we were going through, in a personal sense. I mean you read into the music, you read into the lyrics.

TW: It’s all there.

JL: Yeah, it kind of shows you where we all were at that point in our lives.

TW: And looking at A Change of Seasons, how do you feel about that?

JL: Well, obviously A Change of Seasons wasn’t a whole album, but we had this piece that we wanted kind of rewrite to a certain extent. It had been hanging around for a few years. Four or five years at that point. We just wanted to record it and give it to the fans. Fans were putting up these big petitions to the label and we always had wanted to do it as well. It was just a matter of when does it make sense. How are we going to go about doing this while we were touring. It was cool and to throw in those live songs from Ronnie Scott’s jazz club from London, England was cool you know. I really enjoyed it.

TW: Of course that takes us to Falling Into Infinity.

JL: Falling Into Infinity was of course the first full length album we wrote with Derek. I think that album, we really enjoyed the writing of that album. It was a very lengthy process, but there was a lot of things happening. We were going through a management change at the time, a lot of personnel changes at the label. There was a lot of personal relations that were coming and going. Somewhat overwhelming and confusing for us. It just made the whole creative process that much more stressful and to re-establish new relationships with people, it was a very trying time in many ways for the band. But we succeeded to still keep ourselves together. Keep the band together and go in and record an album. It was quite a change, you know.

TW: I actually think most Dream Theater fans, well the guys I know, felt it was your best album at that point. I heard some other people who strictly like Images and Words. I don’t know why they don’t go beyond that, because I think you guys have grown.

JL: Yeah, we have to change. It’s kind of senseless to record another Images and Words.

TW: Exactly. I don’t know why they think that.

JL: Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I think it’s their way of saying, “I love this album and I want to let you know just how much I love it.” Probably deep down inside they do probably appreciate the changes over the years. But it’s something harder to express. I will say this about the new album [Metropolis Pt. 2 – Scenes From A Memory], everything is very positive. We have new management now, we are being managed by Deep Purple’s management. We are with them and that’s very positive. Everyone in the band is getting along amazingly. Jordan is in the band and that’s exciting. He’s the best in his field, there’s no doubt about that.

TW: No question.

JL: He’s just unbelievable. You are speaking about a person who was in Julliard when he was nine years old.

TW: He’s a prodigy.

JL: Yeah, he is. Without using the term loosely, he really is. Everybody is just getting along great, everybody is just really pumped.

TW: You know what I’d tell you, I guess I haven’t told anyone else, when I’ve spoken to John Petrucci, I didn’t mention it but I had a chance to interview Jordan back in January. Now, my friend Andrea Ornstein, is actually his cousin and I didn’t realize that until after we started talking. What happened was Magna Carta’s publicist called me up and wanted me to interview Derek for his solo album Planet X. So ended up interviewing Derek and Jordan about two weeks apart, which is kind of strange at that point. In fact, the day I interviewed Jordan was the day he got hired in Dream Theater. I think it was the 18th of January, 1999, if I remember right.

JL: That seems right.

TW: What was weird was when I was interviewing Derek, I said “I don’t know if you want to talk about this and if you don’t I understand, how do you feel about Jordan being in Dream Theater now?” He said something, which I thought was pretty amazing, “Terry, I’ve been alive for thirty-two years, and playing keyboards a long time, I’ve never heard anybody else play like Jordan.”

JL: Wow.

TW: That surprised me that he gave such a high compliment to a guy who technically just took his spot. That really showed a lot of class from Derek.

JL: Absolutely. That’s great that he said that. I’m impressed. That’s really cool. For anyone to be able to say that when something was fresh, the whole thing had just come down on him, for him to keep rational and to be professional about that is great.

TW: You’ve got to respect that.

JL: Absolutely.

TW: Well, I really appreciate your time. I think the stuff you are doing, the Mullmuzzler album is excellent and I’ll let the fans know that.

JL: I really appreciate that. If you can send Magna Carta a copy, I’d appreciate it. Then I could read it myself.

TW: I guess I didn’t mention that you’re contributions to that Queen Tribute album and also the Explorers Club. I thought those were pretty cool too.

JL: Thank you very much.