Dream Theater has fans for life

What’s interesting about Dream Theater is how successful the band is despite receiving zero air or videoplay and little print coverage.

Yet the group routinely fills 3,000 capacity venues.

“Our fans are fanatical,” drummer Mike Portnoy said. “We have a good number of fans and they’re fans for life. They feel about us how I feel about Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. I loved those bands since I was a kid and I still do. We know how lucky we are since a lot of bands don’t have what we have. Our fans aren’t into a certain song. They’re into the whole album. They’re into the whole show, which is so cool for us since we just feed off each other when we play live.”

Success despite the lack of attention from media outlets isn’t the only reason Dream Theater is an anomaly. Dream Theater, a Long Island based band of 30-somethings, is a neo-prog rock group.

The members of the act were obviously weaned on a fair share of Yes, Styx, Asia and bands of that excessive ilk. There aren’t many relatively young bands on the circuit, who are following in the footsteps of the Emerson, Lake and Palmers.

“I never understood why that is,” guitarist John Petrucci said.

“It’s a great style of music but there are only certain recording artists who are devoted to this style. What we do has become like jazz. It’s not like a big pop thing but people come out and support it.”

The group, which also includes vocalist James LaBrie, bassist John Myung and keyboardist Jordan Rudess, is touring behind its latest album, the double disc “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.” The band has taken some chances this time out. Such innovative acts as Radiohead and Tool have had an effect on Dream Theater’s songwriting. The first disc is largely experimental.

The normally underutilized Rudess gets a chance to shine and he makes the most of it, adding some compelling lines to the band’s sonic potpourri. The initial disc, actually contains a political number, “The Great Debate,” a dramatic song, which deals with stem cell research.

Disc two is filled with more traditional fare but it isn’t bad as far as prog-rock goes. “We wanted to go out on a limb here and I’m proud of the chances that we took,” Petrucci said. “You have to take some risks. If you keep on doing the same thing, that gets very boring after awhile.”

“Philly has always been one of our best markets,” Petrucci said. “I don’t know why that is but it’s always someplace we always look forward to going back to.”