Dream Theater

When I was asked to do an interview with Dream Theater, I did not have to think twice about it. Dream Theater put progressive sympho metal on the map with “Images And Words”, and have been around ever since. Meanwhile the band became of great influence for many musicians in just as many styles. James LaBrie provided the band with a recognisable voice, and off they went. That, and many other things are what I talk about with the friendly singer.

By: Ralph

First of all on “Train Of Thought” a little. It turned out a heavy album. How does that work when writing, I mean do you think of these things or does everything come natural and whatever comes, comes out?

As a band we start to discuss on what we want and where we want to go when it comes to musical direction. The game plan so to speak. Through these conversations you get much more focused on what you want, what your goal is. Then we start to come up with examples. For “Train Of Thought” we took things like “Master Of Puppets” (Metallica) or “Number Of The Beast” (Iron Maiden). Some classic albums and what these albums did, and what kind of an impact they had on people. This brings you to the actual writing process, where we sit down with these influences and then you come up with an album like “Train Of Thought”.

Dream Theater always takes every album one step further, fans expect you to progress. Is it hard to find the balance between progressing and taking it too far?

Well, I think our fans are one of the few that are pretty open-minded, they kind of expect the unexpected from us, hahahaha. As much as we have to take it in consideration, you do not want to overwhelm them, or lose them along the way. At the same time we do not want to find that we have to fit in certain parameters, then we would no longer be ourselves and integrity is lost. You are aware when you go complete overboard, each and every album there is going to be those risks. If we feel it is what we want and represents us, we say go for it.

“When Dream And Day Unite” is considered a classic by all Dream Theater fans, a must have also, still DT really took off when you joined the band. Do you think this success would also have been possible if the vocal change wouldn't have taken place?

I am not sure. If it had been Charlie (Dominici) on “Images And Words” you wouldn't be able to think about it any other way. Personally speaking I do not think they would have had this impact, and now people can say 'he tooting his own horn', but seriously I think these songs are very demanding vocally, and you need a certain range as a vocalist to make the songs convincing.

Your voice sounds more commercial, is more appealing to a large crowd right?

Yes of course, I agree with you. It is easier to absorb for people then a voice like Charlie had, definitely.

Most of you guys have plenty of solo projects, is this a way of blowing of steam in other areas, expanding creativity or are you that restless?

Hahahahaha. I would not say we are restless, hahaha. We have a very busy schedule even within the camp of Dream Theater. The side projects allow us to express ourselves musically with songs and styles. You possibly cannot get every single one of each guy's ideas on one Dream Theater album. It is an outlet for us. It allows us to show people other sides of us musically. I think it is invaluable because it really helps the band. Individually each of us grow from these experiences, when we come back together as Dream Theater we are able to take this in the band, and I believe it makes us a stronger unit.

A band is like a marriage, so arguments are there as well. If you have those, what are they about, what sort of thing?

Oh, yes of course you go through your growing pains. I would be lying each one of us have not had their confrontations, some of them have been easily resolved and some of them were a little ugly. It is the nature of the beast. We have five different personalities and approaches, the key to it is to bring it together, to make a picture out of it something we all are proud of at the end of the day. I would say that Dream Theater right now is in the healthiest stage in the career, on a personal level and on a musical level.

Dream Theater pioneered the scene according to many, how do you feel about that?

Whenever I hear this it is bizarre to me. The pioneers to me are Pink Floyd, Yes and Rush, Genesis. I understand that for our generation we kind of taken up the torch and we've run with it. I guess there is a lot of truth in it though. When we came out with “Images and Words” back in 1992, well let's face it, hahahah, the last thing that people were waiting for was a progressive hard rock band! Everybody was into Grunge. Having an extremely successful album in that musical environment at that time was quite a success story. I guess it also created a doorway for other bands back then.

A new album last year, a double DVD and October marks the release of another DVD, isn't that a little hard on the fans?

I don't know. The feedback that we get is that the fans are excited and cannot wait for things to come out. To me on a fan to fan basis I am not getting that feedback. I am sure there are people that wonder how they ever will afford the stuff that is coming out. Releases are there for the fans to purchase whenever they feel like it. But I understand, for me it was the same with Rush. Whenever something came out, I guarantee you I was at the store! Hahahaha.

Are you already working on new material and what can we expect?

I can tell you that we have had very in depth conversations as to exactly where we want to take the next album. We have a very clear picture of what we want to do.

Tell us about that...

Hahahaha. No I cannot. I can tell you we are really excited about it and I think our fans are going to be blown away, I think it is going to be a real telling of the band, a real big statement.

What are we talking about here, in terms of time?

We are talking about late October, early November getting together starting to process. As far as a release I cannot see that happening until maybe spring 2005 or something like that.

You are serious people, so it's not only rock and roll. How do you feel about the political situation in the U.S. and the world right now?

Well, I really do not like to cross the two worlds, but I will tell you this; I am very concerned, we all are. Everyone is concerned about the world and terrorism and so on. We all have children and want to see they can grow up in a healthy world. Right now our world is very unstable, anything can happen. Our whole way and style of life could be flipped upside down if things are not resolved somewhat quickly. It all comes down to people realizing that all anybody wants in this world is to be treated fairly and to be giving a change to have a happy and healthy life, and respect is at the top of it all.

You have done about anything a band could wish for. Is there something you still wish for musically?

On the creative side we feel that there still is a lot in us to make as a musical statement, we love what we are doing and want to keep on doing that. As far as success we still feel we can obtain higher levels of success. That is going to happen if we continue putting out good music, that is first and foremost important thing.