Mike Portnoy interview

Age Sakariassen: How is Train of Thought different from the previous albums?

Mike Portnoy: Musically it’s different from our previous albums because it’s the heaviest thing we’ve done from start to finish. We’ve always had heavy sections and heavy songs scattered throughout an album, but this one is pretty much heavy from start to finish, the whole entire thing. That was a conscious decision; we wanted to make an album like that at this point in our career.

How is it different – the making of? We decided to go back to the old-fashioned way of making records, which was to write it beforehand, and then go into the studio with it already written, and then do one instrument at a time. The previous two albums to this was written in the studio, and it was recorded one song at a time, from start to completion before moving on. We wanted to do it the old way just so we weren’t always doing the same thing. After a couple of albums of making them one way, we need to mix it up and not always do it the same way to keep ourselves interested.

AS: What kind of reactions have there been regarding Train of Thought?

MP: It’s been kind of split, because I think the people that wanted to hear a heavy album from Dream Theater are very, very happy. They love it. But the people that want to hear the more traditional prog sounds are maybe in shock; it’s too extreme to them. So the audience has been kind of divided, but I think once people see the new songs live, it makes sense to them. They realize how much of it really is Dream Theater. Now that the tour is underway, people are starting to get it.

AS: Could you tell us about the songs you wrote on Train of Thought?

MP: I think they’re all said in the lyrics. I mean ‘This Dying Soul’ is part of an ongoing series of lyrics that I’m writing based on the 12 steps of recovery, and ‘Honor Thy Father’ is pretty self-explanatory; it’s just a very angry song towards a family member that’s pretty much abandoned another family member. I think I’ve been able to say all I want to say about those two subjects with the lyrics. I find lyrics being very therapeutic for me. I get a lot of things off my chest.

AS: Why no opening act?

MP: Just to be able to play longer. Last night’s show was like three hours and 20 minutes.

AS: The long sets must be exhausting.

MP: Absolutely exhausting. I have bronchitis right now, I’m very sick, and the doctor was just here. Yeah, and we’re getting old; it’s hard for us to play three, three-and-a-half hour shows, but I guess we kind of dug our own graves now, because the songs are so long and I like to be able to give a very diverse setlist and be able to give the fans different songs from what they saw the last time. It’s exhausting but I think it’s worth it for the fans.

AS: So the next album will be on the opposite scale, the mellow side?

MP: The only thing I know for sure is that it probably won’t be like this album, because we never wanna repeat the same album twice. So this album was completely different from Six Degrees, which was completely different from Scenes, and so on and so forth. So as much as I love this style, I can’t say, “This is the new Dream Theater.” This is just this Dream Theater.

AS: Fans complain about influences being too obvious and draw from music like rap and nu metal. Your comments?

MP: As far as how influences being too obvious, we just do what we do, and whatever comes out, comes out. I think if you listen to our very first album, you can hear, There’s a Rush influence. There’s a Kansas influence. There’s a Yes influence. There’s a Queensrÿche influence. You can listen to any one of our albums and say that, and we’ll say that! I mean we’re music lovers; nobody creates music in a vacuum. You’re obviously going to make things that sound like something maybe you’ve heard, for a point of reference. As far as the [rap or nu metal influence], I think the vocal melodies and approaches were written to work with the music. You can’t have like [a] System of a Down riff and have a Steve Perry clean, sweet, high vocal on top of it – just wouldn’t work. We had these riffs and these songs, and the vocals needed to suit them. So we just wrote vocal parts that we felt best accompanied the music.

Frank Zappa once said that there’s only two kinds of music in the world: good music and bad music, and that’s it. There’s no such thing as country, jazz, rap, classical... It is two kinds: good music and bad music, and good music can be all of those styles, and bad music can also have all of those styles.

AS: Do you think fans are too demanding?

MP: Oh yeah! We’re at the point where we have no idea what the f*** is going to please all the fans. When we made this record, we were like, “Yeah, we think they’re all gonna love it.” And then once people started complaining that it was too heavy or whatever, it was like, “We give up. We have no idea how to please.” I think the fact of the matter is it’s impossible to please all of our fans, because our fan base is pretty diverse; some of them like the heavy stuff, some of them like the prog stuff; some of them love James’ voice, some of them hate James’ voice. So it’s impossible to please them all.

AS: Tell us about the ups and downs of DT.

MP: Every day is another top moment. Dream Theater’s career has been on a very uphill motion since Scenes From a Memory for years now. The shows keep getting bigger and better and the albums keep getting more and more satisfying for us to make. So I just say every day is another great day and dream come true. Some of the worst moments were when the band almost broke up in 1998 because we were feeling so much frustration from outside people being involved with the band’s direction. Once we finally got rid of that, it’s been all uphill ever since.

AS: Ytsejam Records: Why the extra effort?

MP: I think almost everything Dream Theater does – or everything I do for Dream Theater – is based on the extra effort for the fans. Because I know what it is like to be a fan of a band, so I try to do for Dream Theater fans all the things that I loved my favorite bands doing for me, or I try not to do all of the things that my favorite bands did do that I didn’t like, like always playing the same songs live. I want to make sure we never do that kind of stuff. So Ytsejam Records is basically just CDs for the hardcore fans that just want more.

AS: Will there be videos on Ytsejam Records?

MP: Yeah. Once we do a few more waves of CDs then maybe we’ll start to venture into DVDs as well, pending the record company’s approval – that’s the big obstacle obviously.

AS: Do you visit other DT-related websites other than your own?

MP: I do, but I don’t think any of them are as good as mine! [laughs] So I don’t waste too much time over there.

AS: So you haven’t seen the Norwegian website.

MP: Is it in English or Norwegian?

AS: It’s mainly Norwegian.

MP: No. I can’t read it, so it’s not as exciting for me, but I definitely appreciate that they exist, for sure.

AS: Plans for the future?

MP: Well, we’ll be on the road all year in 2004. Tonight’s the fifth show and we probably have got another 150 after this one, and that’ll keep us busy till the end of the year. Then we’ll take a holiday break and then start the whole process over again.

AS: How many movies do you have?

MP: My collection is ridiculous – thousands of movies, and I have a movie theater built into my home, and I love it. I love film and TV and media. I’m a media junkie.