Dream Theater: Fourth In A Livetime

Admittedly consumed by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Mike Portnoy never really takes much of a break from music. That means that whenever he’s not writing or recording new material, he’s likely working out the details of one particular project while being interviewed about another. Such was the case when Metal Edge caught up with him in the studio to discuss Dream Theater’s new Live At Budokan CD and DVD releases. While the other members of Dream Theater – guitarist John Petrucci, vocalist James LaBrie, bassist John Myung and keyboardist Jordan Rudess – were presumably enjoying a couple of days off from the process of recording their eighth studio album, the restless drummer remained at the Hit Factory in New York City to mix a live recording of the band performing The Number Of The Beast.

“We have this whole series of official bootlegs,” he says about unique recordings like their version of that classic Iron Maiden album that are available exclusively online at www.ytsejamrecords.com. “It’s just a whole line of cool stuff, and we put out about three or four releases a year.” Part of the next phase of those recordings, he says, will be a fifteenth anniversary performance of the debut When Dream And Day Unite album with former members Charlie Dominici and Derek Sherinian joining the band onstage.

Formed twenty years ago by fellow Berklee College Of Music students Portnoy, Petrucci and Myung, Dream Theater has evolved from the initial success of Images And Words that established the band, continuously expanding their creative parameters through adventurous musicianship. An almost cult-like following of fans can be nearly as obsessive as Portnoy himself, readily debating particular details of different albums and performances as a worldwide sub-culture devoted to the band. It’s those fans for whom the latest Live At Budokan project was conceived, says the kinetic drummer.

Metal Edge: To date, Rush has released five live albums, and KISS has released four. You’re catching up, but you still have a way to go to overtake the Rolling Stones.

Mike Portnoy: [Laughing] Well, Budokan marks four official, but then there’s these official bootlegs that I keep churning out. But I don’t count those as part of the official count. [Laughing]

ME: Seriously, though, being a noted music fan, are live album projects developed to satisfy yourself?

MP: Oh no, not at all! They’re absolutely for the fans. Some people wonder if they’re done to satisfy contractual needs, but that’s not the case at all because our live albums don’t count against our contract with the label. As far as I’m concerned, they’re totally for the fans. I think we’re the type of band that can get away with having a live release every studio album or two, because I personally spend a lot of care and time making sure that each one of them is very different from the last. I mean, it’s not like if Ozzy was to put out a live album every year. You wouldn’t want to hear ten different live versions of “Crazy Train” or “Paranoid.” But every time we put one out, the set list is completely different. So, if you were to take the Budokan package, and the Live Scenes From New York package from 2000, essentially you’re getting six CDs worth of completely different material. To me, that’s the most important aspect of it. It wouldn’t be worth it if they were the same songs turned out each time.

ME: Does the feeling of accomplishment differ between releasing live albums and studio albums?

MP: When we make studio albums, those are just creative steps in our career. Each time we make a studio album, we’re striving to do something different and make a creative statement, to take the next logical step in our career creatively. That’s kind of how we gauge the creative process, with studio albums. But we gauge the progress and growth of the band on a commercial level or in terms of our connection with our fans, by the live albums. Each time we do a live album, we’re seeing growth in terms of the audience and our connection with them. Like I said, each one of our live albums has been completely different, and they’ve all kind of captured different stages of the band with different line-ups and stuff like that. They’ve all been in great cities that we have connections with, so right there you have London, New York, Paris and Tokyo. Each album is steps in our career, and each of these live albums have kind of summed up a stage that we were in.

ME: In that sense, then, it’s not fair to expect any one should be regarded as a definitive live Dream Theater album.

MP: No, because they’re really all doing different things. I do think that the Budokan DVD is probably the definitive Dream Theater DVD because in terms of production, I think the video value and audio presentation is the best we’ve had. But I can’t say it’s the definitive presentation because that would imply that the previous ones didn’t have their own merit. I think they’re all important, not only in terms of musically different stages of the career, but if you look at us. You know, our look in this video from 2004, we look completely different than we did in 2000. If you go back to the reissues that just came out on DVD – Live In Japan and Five Years In A Livetime – you can really see the evolution of the band.

ME: It’s almost a little bit surreal, I would imagine.

MP: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can only imagine how bands like Rush or Yes, or the Rolling Stones, feel when they look back, and here they still are, thirty-five, forty years into their career.

ME: When did the commitment and preparation to do Live At Budokan first start?

MP: Pretty early on. We skipped a live release in 2002, so it seemed like it was time to do another one. And the Train Of Thought tour had this really nice production, it just felt like something that should have been captured for a DVD. So, early in the tour, me and our manager kind of made the decision that we should definitely film and record a show. When we looked at the itinerary and Budokan came up, it was like, such a natural. I mean, every band has to have a Live At Budokan at one point in their career. [Laughing] Not only was it a great place to record because the venue is beautiful and the acoustics are great, but also working with a Japanese crew, they’re so incredibly professional. They’re technologically advanced, so it’s always a pleasure working with them on a technical level. And then, the third thing that made it such on obvious move was that if was pretty much at the end of the run, so we knew we would be nice and polished of that point. Those three factors just made it a total obvious place to film.

ME: Considering that Dream Theater really shakes up the set quite a bit, what criteria is involved in choosing a set list when the performance is going to be captured?

MP: That was tough for me. I spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff, and usually on tour I’ll write a set list that is completely aimed at the people in the audience, whether to give them a different show from the last time we were in their city, or to give them a different show from a night or two before if we were in a close vicinity. But when it came time for the Budokan set list, to be honest, I did not write that for the ten thousand people in the audience. It was a set list written for the hundreds of thousands of people that were going to buy the DVD and have the CD. Really, my main concern was making if as different as possible from the previous live release. The people in the audience, you know, maybe they didn’t get to hear things they wanted to hear, like “A Change Of Seasons “ or “Metropolis,” but those were immediately crossed off because they were on the previous live release.

ME: Similarly, how do you differently prepare yourself mentally, knowing the performance is being recorded for release?

MP: If you watch the documentary on Disc 2, you can see that we’re all kind of psyched out for the Budokan, just ‘cause it was a big night and such a legendary place. We knew we were recording, so you kind of have to do your best to not think about it. The way I think about it is like, “Well, we record every night...” I have the DAT tapes rolling every night, and I have live video feeds from every show, so I kind of psyche myself into just thinking it’s another show. Sometimes it’s tough, though. You psyche yourself out when you see all those cameras around, and a lot of times we regret that we’ve only chosen one show to record. But I think we gotten lucky that we’ve captured some special nights through the years.

ME: The Dream Theater fan base is very devout, and they can also be really quite vocal with their opinions about what they like and don’t like. Keeping in mind that it has to appeal to people who are going to buy it, were there any particular comments from the fans that stood out in your mind when approaching this project?

MP: I kind of walk the tightrope between trying to listen and please the fans, and trying to do what’s best for the band. I probably pay more attention to what the fans say than most bands out there. I’m very, very... I’ve got my finger on the pulse with that – I read the message boards, and I do really care for them because I know what it’s like to be a fan. I know what it’s like to see some of my favorite bands do things that disappoint me, so there’s a certain part of me that really takes a lot of that into consideration. But, the other side of it is, it’s just impossible to please everybody, there’s no way in hell. So, I just do in my heart what I think is the best, and what I would want as a Dream Theater fan. Hopefully, the majority of the fans appreciate and like what we do.

ME: Is there a particular moment on either the CD or DVD that conveys what Dream Theater is all about, something that you would want people unfamiliar with the band to discover?

MP: It’s hard, because there are different sides to Dream Theater. If I wanted anybody to see what the whole technical prowess side of the band was about – you know, the musicianship – then the “Instrumedley” is probably the ultimate in extreme musicianship of everything we’ve ever done. If you wanted to watch us at our craziest, then that would be the one to watch. Then you have the very emotional side, which a lot of people accuse us of not having enough of. But if you put on “Disappear” off the DVD, or “Hollow Years,” you can’t help but be completely swept away by the dynamics and emotions of those two tracks. And then there’s just the traditional headbanging riff side of the band in songs like “As I Am” or “In The Name Of God.” I think those kind of represent good headbanging metal tunes.

ME: With a majority of people now enjoying multimedia capability, is it still necessary to release both a DVD and an album?

MP: The DVD is the meat and potatoes of the Budokan project. When we set out to do a new live Dream Theater recording, the purpose was to capture it on DVD. The CD is kind of just like a bonus item, in case you want to have it in your car or I-Pod. As far as I’m concerned, the main focus of anybody that wants the new Dream Theater product, I would definitely persuade them to go for the DVD first.

ME: Dream Theater is working on the next studio album, which you’ve said during the course of this conversation is meant to take the band to the next logical step. Can you talk about what direction you’re trying to take the band in?

MP: We have a direction. Whether or not we achieve it, you know, that’s our mission. We’ll see in the next four months. It’s probably premature now to see exactly where we’re going. The only thing I can say is that we will purposely and consciously not make another Train Of Thought. That’s the only thing we do know, is that we don’t ever want to repeat ourselves. Each of our last studio albums have kind of served a purpose. Train Of Thought was an all-out aggressive, heavy album from top to bottom. The one before that, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, was all about experimentation and excess. Before that, Scenes From A Memory was a concept album. So, that’s the only thing that we know for sure right now, is that it won’t be another Train Of Thought. It will probably have dark and heavy moments, but we’re going to try to go someplace entirely new.

ME: During the course of a conversation when you were working on Train Of Thought, it was very similar – You said, at the time, that it wasn’t something you could really discuss, but your inspiration came from having done The Number Of The Beast and Master Of Puppets albums live.

MP: Right.

ME: At that point, you had said that you wanted to come up with a really classic type of record like those. So, the question is to find out if you have...

MP: If we have a specific inspiration? We do, actually, but... I don’t know, it’s probably too premature to see if it actually comes to fruition, so we’ll see...

Louder Than Live

“I’m like that,” says Mike Portnoy, when compared to the John Cusack’s Rob Gordon character in the movie High Fidelity, readily admitting that he enjoys compiling lists about concerts, set lists and songs he wishes various bands would still perform live. “I make lists about all my favorite bands,” the drummer reveals, explaining that he tries to incorporate that fanatical aspect into Dream Theater. And when Metal Edge asked him to compile a list of his Top 10 favorite live albums, he was eagerly all over it...

1. THE WHO Live At Leeds
Hands down, my favorite live album of all time. Captures the energy, the excitement, the rawness and the volume of one of the greatest bands of all time.

2. KISS Alive!
The first live album to truly change my life. During the summer of ‘76, everybody on my block was listening to what they thought was the coolest live album out, Frampton Comes Alive. I knew much better!

3. UFO Strangers In The Night
I’m not the biggest UFO fan, yet this is one of my all-time favorite live albums. A case where a live album defines a band’s entire career. Every song is a classic.

4. RUSH Exit...Stage Left
My desert island Rush album. Maybe because all of the tracks on it represent my favorite four albums of the band: A Farewell To Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures.

5. YES Yessongs
Same theory as Exit...Stage left – This is basically Yes’ three best albums (The Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge) in one live package.

6. LED ZEPPELIN The Song Remains The Same
A live album often criticized for its excesses, which happens to be the very thing I love about it. I love when bands experiment, jam and play completely different versions live from the studio versions – See our version of “Beyond This Life// on the Budokan CD/DVD. These live versions of “Dazed And Confused” and “Whole Lotta Love” define everything I loved about this band.

7. DEEP PURPLE Made In Japan
Similar to Zeppelin and The Song Remains The Same, Purple were another great “jam” band, combining metal, jazz and classical. This is on all-time classic!

8. IRON MAIDEN Live After Death
To me, this was Maiden in their heyday. The Powersslave tour – and this album – covered all of my favorite stuff from their first five classic albums. Plus, I consider this to be the classic Maiden line-up.

9. MOTOR HEAD No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith
Another example where a live album defines a band, this was the most extreme album I had ever heard in junior high school, when it came out!

10. FRANK ZAPPA You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 1-6
How do you cover an all-time hero in a single live album choice? You can’t! (Although Roxy and Elsewhere come close!) This 12-disc set could probably keep me entertained and inspired on a desert island for the rest of my life!