various Mike Portnoy comments

Q: On the song “Goodnight Kiss” in the beginning you hear voices. A small child and a woman. Who [are] the woman and the child?

MP: The children playing are Melody and Max Portnoy, and the goodnight kiss is Marlene and Melody Portnoy!

Q: [On the Progressive Drumming Concepts Video] When Mike’s playing along to Erotomania at the end, it sounds different. I think JP plays a different lick in the first solo, but the keyboard sounds (patches) are different, and whoever is playing is harmonizing JP a bit differently in some parts. I wonder if it was re-recorded with DS for the video, or maybe a demo mix, or maybe my ears are just shot?

comment: It might be a demo. I remember that Portnoy said on LDT that he played along to the demo version of Home, and you can hear some differences between that and the original in that situation. Just a guess.

MP: That is a version of Erotomania that I recorded specifically for clinic purposes while we were in the studio doing ACOS. (Derek on keys)

And the version of Home on LDT is not a demo, it is the same as the CD version, just a different mix (by David Bottril)

comment: ACOS has its moments, moments of pure emotion in a sea of overplaying. The Glass Prison, however, is just a 13-minute Pantera song. Emotional for MP? The lyrics were written at the last minute.

MP: Excuse me...but what gave you the impression that my lyrics for The Glass Prison were written at the last minute???

Those lyrics were as heart-felt and personal (and took the same amount of effort to write) as ACOS..

comment: You have to feel bad for some of the crap that Mike has to put up with in here. They put out FII and everyone throws a hissy because it is not proggy enough. They release 6DoIT and now we have people complaining it’ s too proggy and not songwriting oriented enough. Make up your damn mind people!!!

MP: Ha!! I was actually thinking the same thing!

I guess you can never please all of the people all of the time...

So...we will just continue to write whatever comes out...without any pre-conceived direction...whether it is 4 minutes or 42 minutes...whether it sounds like The Glass Prison or Disappear...as long as we feel it is expressing something both musical and moving...and hopefully others will enjoy it as well....

That really is all DT was ever about anyways...

comment: Did I miss when [Dream Theater and Queensryche] kissed and made up? I thought one was bashing the other .. and vice versa. I think the Almighty Dollar helped patch things up.

MP: Money has NOTHING to do with it....

It is ALL about wanting to give the fans the best bill possible...and I know this is a line-up many of us (including me) have wanted to see for years.

As far as any things said in the past about QR, I’ve learned in recovery that in order to continue growing up, I cannot afford to hold onto resentments....

MP: Just to clarify, in case anybody starts complaining that I’m a “hypocrite” and wondering why I’m OK with other bootlegs but not Metropolis ‘96:

This is not from a concert or a demo or anything else that was ever played or presented to the public (and therefore in the understandable danger of being bootlegged)...

this is something that was clearly leaked (or stolen as far as I’m concerned) from my personal and private archives by somebody whom I haven’ t been able to put my finger on, but whom I clearly cannot trust.

I was tolerant about M’96 appearing to begin with on the net at all (as it was too late to do anything about it), but I surely do **NOT** condone the further spread of it...

MP: Contrary to whatever you may have heard, James does not play any instruments...

Him claiming to have played drums when he was a kid is probably equivalent to when I took piano lessons between the age of 8-10....(but I don’ t consider myself a pianist!)

In his 12 years of being in the band, he has never once sat behind my drums and played (other than hitting a cymbal on the downbeats of Take The Time live!)...

so I would take his abilities as a “drummer” with a heavy grain of salt! ;-)

PS - gimme a break with the “ego” comment....I loved doing Nightmare Cinema when JP played my kit, or anytime else anybody has jumped up and played my kit or shared the kit with me...

And also why would I have been urging James onto using percussion live, when that’ s always been “my” department on the CD’s???

comment: I don’t know the backstory about DT’s late arrival in Boise, but the venue totally fucked us over by not telling us that the show would be starting 1-1/2 hours late until they packed us all in and refused to allow us re-entry if we left.

They also didn’t have a handicapped area set aside for people like my friend with a broken foot or the guy next to us in a wheelchair who couldn’t see shit over the crowd. Between the lack of interest that developed from the extended wait due to the exhaustion from having to stand for so long and my friend’ s pain not having place to sit, we were on our way out the door before DT even started into their 3rd song.

So, I can’t give a review of the show, but I can certainly say that I’ll never be going to any future concerts at the Big Easy. The whole deception about shuffling us in without warning just to make us wait was so they could sell a bunch of extra drinks to people who had nowhere to go. They said as much when they announced the delay after they trapped us inside. “So hang tight and enjoy those drinks!”

Thanks, assholes.

MP: Sorry to hear of your shitty experience Korg... Yes I agree the club handled the situation real bad and I’m really sorry for that. Being you don’t know the “backstory”, I’ll give it to you:

For starters, Fate’s tour bus broke down 2 days earlier forcing them to cancel Spokane and then it came to our attention that the club in Boise was too small for a 3rd band anyways, so they just went ahead to Portland once their bus was fixed. (which SHOULD have been announced by the club and it’s really lame they didn’t say anything....but I did indeed have it posted all over the net to hopefully make people aware of it ahead of time...and I did indeed play a live DAT of their entire set from Los Angeles while the fans were waiting in both Spokane and Boise, so at least you got to “hear” their show!)

Now, onto our nightmare:

In addition to the Fates bus breaking down, so did our crew bus! So we had to give them ours in order for them to make load in, etc. and we (the band) were forced to fly from Spokane to Boise. Well, as Murphy’s Law would have it - our flight out of Spokane was delayed about 2 hours which made us miss our connection in Seattle.

While waiting in the airport in Seattle we were faced with the reality of not making the gig on time and then had several choices:

a) cancel altogether

b) switching positions with QR and closing the show instead of them

c) delaying the show until we arrived in Boise

We really didn’t want to do choice A because we’ve never played Boise and didn’t want to disappoint the fans (who were already getting no Fates, no video show and no encore jam as a result of the club being so small)

Choice B: The idea of switching positions did indeed get me excited for a moment because the stage was so small, we were already unable to set the kits up side by side (like the rest of the tour), which meant we already had to cancel the jam...but if we closed the show, Scott could’ve shared my kit and we could’ve had the encore jam after all...

Well, it turns out this option wouldn’t work out because my kit was already set up and line-checked, etc. and it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for them to break down my whole kit, set up Scott’s (for them to go on first) and then re-set my kit again...so choice B went down the tubes...

That left us with the only option being Choice C - delaying the show until we arrived. Not an ideal situation, but at least the fans would still get a DT show.... The additional bummer being, because the fans were already losing Fates and the jam (not to mention the video show), I promised a 90 minute set instead of the usual 75....but because of the extreme delay, we ended up not even being able to do that!!!

The whole thing was a big nightmare...and if you think it sucked for you guys (the fans), believe me, our end was no picnic either! We (and our crew) busted ass to make this show happen at all as it would’ve been ALOT easier to just blow the whole thing out....

In the end, the show ROCKED! It was raw, energetic, exciting and heart-felt on both ends...(albeit, very hot and sweaty!) and I’m glad we pulled it off after all the hassles making it happen.

Korg, You missed a great ending to a shitty day....

MP: OK kids, time to have a little fun!

While in the studio one day, we were laughing at some of the names we give to some of the sections in our songs while we are writing...

We then had a funny idea: What would somebody who hasn’t heard the song make of these charts? What if we let you, the crazy and demented DT fan, interpret one of our charts to try and guess what the song we’ve written actually sounds like before anybody has gotten to hear it?

So, here’s a chance for all you musicians and bands to strut your stuff and see if you can write a DT song using one of our magic formulas!

Here is our handwritten chart for one of the tracks on the upcoming DT album. In fact, this track is an instrumental (ooohhh I gave away a detail of the new CD!!!)

Using a song without vocals will eliminate the IMPOSSIBLE task of you having to guess a song title, lyrics and melodies. So...all you need to worry about is drums, guitar, keyboards and bass! (Oh, it should be easy now!!)

Some helpful hints of how to “interpret” one of our charts:

1. The blue writing on the left is the “name” of the section (usually a comparison to a band that the part reminds us of....) but in some cases, it also states the KEY of the riff or section which will be a big help for you all in trying to figure out what the section sounds like....

2. The red writing occasionally on the right is the time signature (in the case of this song, a lot of 5/4, 6/4 and 4/4)

Here are Jordan’s midi conductor charts which triggered the click track for this song....this will give you all of the metronome markings and tempos as well as the exact time signatures....

OK...here’s the Rules:

1. All entries must be on CD or CD-R (no cassettes or DATs) and will not be returned to the sender.

2. All entries are due by October 15th 2003

3. All CD’s must be sent to:

Dream Theater Songwriting Contest
c/o Ytsejam Records
PO Box 820587
Houston, Texas
77077 USA

The GRAND PRIZE winner will win:

1) a copy of the upcoming DT CD (upon its release) signed by all 5 members of DT.

2) a set of the 3 latest Ytsejam Records releases. (for more information, visit www.ytsejamrecords.com)

3) 4 Tickets and Backstage Passes for the winner and their guests (or band) at a 2004 DT show of their choice on the upcoming World Tour. (dates coming soon...)

4) The winning entry will be played during the “house music” before each DT show in 2004.

Good luck and we are looking forward to hearing what YOUR version of one of OUR songs sounds like!

comment: 2) MP was none too happy (that’s PISSED in English) about the information leaking, and once DT realized they couldn’t keep a lid on it (less than 24 hours.. thanks in no part to the internet and 1000s seeing it) and was left with no choice but to make an OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT the next day.

3) I will not confirm nor deny the album cover being shown at CDUniverse.com as I haven’t even seen the new album art.

MP: Well I guess once again, I am (VERY MUCH AGAINST MY CHOICE) being forced into prematurely announcing something much sooner than I had wanted to because of weak-ass security and bad judgement at our label letting stuff leak onto the internet before we were able to “officially” announce it ourselves (and way sooner than we would have liked or had planned....)

Let’s hope they do better with the music or else you guys should be able to download the album any day now....

I apologize to the “official” sites that unfortunately did not get the honors of unveiling this information as and when I had hoped...

I really did NOT want 2 months of speculation, analyzation, criticism and debate over the album title, song titles and the cover art...but I guess as long as we are signed to a major label, we no longer have control over our very own CD...which is pretty pathetic and a damn shame.

Once we deliver the record to them, it is out of our hands and protection...

So with that, in response to item #3 listed above, yes indeed that is (a very low resolution version of) the cover of Train of Thought.

And it is with much sadness and disgust I will confirm that it is very much under similar conditions to item #2 above, that I was forced into this confirmation....

I’m sorry you’ll have to continue to wait for almost 2 more months....we really did not want to tease you all this soon....

Please be patient, don’t judge a book by its cover and try to keep an open mind and open ears for the real unveiling on November 11th....

regarding the leaking of the radio edit of AIA:

First of all, we expected this radio edit to leak any day now as Elektra had begun servicing select stations this week...

The full scale radio “impact” will begin next week, so do us a favor and REQUEST this and wake the rest of the world up!!

We will likely make the “full length radio version” available for download next week on DT.NET.

We are however hoping to keep the rest of the CD underwraps until 11/11 and hopefully that will be the case as NOBODY has gotten advance CD’s...

Onto the music:

As has been said a million times already, this is AN EDIT!

You cannot judge the entire song (and surely not the entire CD) from this little 4 and a half minute “taste”....(in fact, almost half the song is missing in this version)

LOOK AT IT LIKE A TRAILER TO A MOVIE!!!!

Enjoy this taste, but please don’t pass judgement on us or the entire CD until 11/11....

PS - Why is everybody ASSuming I wrote these lyrics?

Just wanted to post an update on the Songwriting Contest:

WOW!!!!

We received exactly 50 entries! They came in from all over the world: US, UK, Brazil, France, Germany, Norway, Columbia, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Japan and even Syria!

The response is totally overwhelming and the fan’s enthusiasm to rise to this challenge is totally inspiring. It is going to be close to impossible to fairly and justly pick a single winner!

The biggest hurdle right now is finding the time to gather in order to listen to all of the entries.

(50 entries at roughly 11 minutes each = 10 HOURS of music!!!)

Everybody put so much time and effort into their entries that we want to make sure every single one gets a complete listen and fair judgement....

So with that in mind, and the fact that all of us are on very different schedules at the moment (John Myung is currently in Japan, I will be in Europe throughout most of next month, etc.), we just want everybody to be aware that the winner will not likely be announced right away.

We can however guarantee that the winner will indeed be announced before the DT World Tour kicks off in January in order to honor the grand prize.

Congratulations to all of the contestants and we are looking forward to hearing all of the creative results!

MP & DT

comment: [Mike Portnoy’s] falsetto backing vocals on Through her Eyes from the SFAM DVD [are questionable].

MP: For the record, that falsetto vocal on THE is JP, not me...(I’m the lower harmony)

comment: What about Fatal Tragedy on the DVD mike? WHAT ABOUT THAT?!?!?!? That part makes me laugh every time.

MP: Well, I’m low and JP is high...

Depends on which one of us is giving you the chuckle...

MY BAD....I’m higher! See the next page!

comment: I think Portnoy is sure if he’s low or not

MP: You know, actually I could be wrong....

I answered that off the top of my head and could be mistaken as I’m not currently “in tour/singing mode” and haven’t had to think about the harmony in some time...

I’ll listen to the CD and confirm which is me and then we can find out who’s the FLAT culprit!!!

and yes...JP’s vox on the Silent Man on LSFNY were indeed overdubbed in the studio...(he sang the wrong words live)

The only reason JP’s clunker in THE was left in (the one that sparked this thread) is because he and I were on the same mic for that and I wasn’t around when he “fixed” his stuff in the studio....

comment: Mike, are you sure you’re low? I thought you always sang the higher part.

Notes for “There can be no turning back”

E E E D# C# B B... = high part

C# C# C# B A G# F#... = low part

The higher part is panned in the same spot (slightly left) as your part during “As the night went on”, while the lower is more in the right channel.

You sing the notes of the higher part on the EMA&B; commentary.

“Back” ends with the F# and higher B and I always thought it looked like the B was you, because it lasts longer than the F# in the first chorus, and ends before it the 2nd chorus, and it all seems to match up with when you close your mouth.

Just wondering because I thought you were the higher voice on the album, and watched the DVD pretty closely when it came out and it seemed to match up for the reasons above.

The lower F# is the note that was pretty flat btw.

MP: I stand corrected!

Good call Bakerman (and all the others that caught MY BAD!!)

I am indeed the higher harmony in Fatal Tragedy...

(I haven’t analyzed it since we wrote it, so I forgot where JP’s harmony sat...)