Probing Through The Train of Mike’s Thoughts

Already having planned to attend the last four shows on the first leg of the North American leg of the Train of Thought World Tour, I was fortunate enough to be able to arrange another interview with Mike. This time the setting was a dressing room at the Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, CT. While waiting in the rear lobby, I met a young lady by the name of Kate who I found out was one of Mike’s cousins (and later got the chance to chat with before the show). Having just finished an extra-long soundcheck, Mike (with his goatee newly dyed blue) came out to meet me and head over to the dressing room. Here’s how the conversation went:

Scott Hansen: First of all, how has the tour been going for ya?

Mike Portnoy: The tour has been amazing – I was just laying in my bunk last night on the drive here, analyzing the tour and thinking “ya know, I think we’re playing the best we’ve ever played. I think we’re presenting ourselves the best we ever have, with the video and light show. I think the venues have been great – the turn outs have been great.” So last night I was doing a summary of how it’s been going, and I came to the conclusion that this is our best tour ever!

SH: What would you say the response has been – especially with the new material?

MP: You mean in terms of reaction or in terms of turnouts?

SH: Well both actually.

MP: The turnouts have been great! Especially in Europe – Europe is just growing and growing and growing! We’re at the point where we’re playing arenas over there, so it’s really great. Here in America, it’s steady – we’ve kind of hit our stride and we’ve stayed there for the past few years now, so I can’t say we’ve seen much growth – no thanks to our record company [laughs] – but the fans are always there. We can count on them, so the numbers have been respectable. In terms of the response to the new material, you’d probably be a better gauge than I – it seems that they’re loving this tour. It seems like they’re loving the new material live. Songs like Endless Sacrifice and In the Name of God just really come alive live, so I think it’s been really good.

SH: How would you guys say you’re holding up? Because when I saw you in California, you were a bit on the exhausted side.

MP: We are fried!

SH: Is it because of the material?

MP: I don’t know if it’s because we’re getting older, or because of the material, or because of the length of the set, but I swear to God, every night we end up on the tour bus like we’ve just been through a war! I think people look at what we do every night and they look at the 3 hour show – sometimes it’s 2.5 and sometimes it’s 3.5, but let’s say roughly 3 hours – and they think that it’s all we’re doing. But you gotta remember that because of the rotating setlists and the special songs, we have to rehearse every day. Like just now, we did an hour and a half rehearsal to learn something for one of the upcoming shows. So by the time we hit the stage, we’ve already played for an hour and a half or two at soundcheck, and then after the show we have to put in at least an hour or so with this platinum meet ‘n’ greet, so it’s definitely demanding on us. We’re putting major hours on the clock for the fans! We could easily play the same set every night, not have to rehearse at soundcheck, not do these meet ‘n’ greets, and be nice and rested, but we’re out here to give the fans their money’s worth!

SH: Speaking of the platinum meet ‘n’ greets and especially Fanfire [editor’s note: this is the company responsible for selling and sending out the premium ticket packages for the North American leg of the tour] – with all the hassles involved (all the confusion, lack of communication and the fans not getting their tickets until shortly before the show) are you guys gonna continue using Fanfire for the premium ticket packages in the future?

MP: This was completely brought up and put into action by our management, so whether or not we continue in the future with this is up to them as well. As far as we’re concerned, to be honest, it’s a pain in the ass for us. At the end of a 3 hour show, we’d rather go onto our bus and relax. But we do appreciate the fans who have shelled out the money to come and meet us, and we go in there every night with smiling faces because we are appreciative of their support! That being said, given the choice of doing that every night or not doing that every night, we would prefer not to. But our management kinda put this into motion – whether or not it’s continued, they’ll have a big hand in that decision.

SH: Are there any specific plans for the summer, or are those still being fleshed out?

MP: Everything’s still being fleshed out. Right now, if you look on the website, the last show is in Korea and there’s nothing after that and that’s what we’re looking at right now – plans are still getting worked out. We would love to do a summer run in America with a package – in fact I already have my ideal package already in my mind but we’ve already found out that that’s not going to happen.

SH: Was that with Rush?

MP: Well actually, going out with Rush or Metallica is always choice number 1 for us! We would love to be a support band for either of those bands! As much as the fans wouldn’t like it as much, we would love it. But in both of those cases, I don’t think it’s gonna happen – definitely in Rush’s case it’s not gonna happen...

SH: Since they’re doing the Evening With thing.

MP: Yeah. But Metallica’s always a possibility. I talk with Lars semi-frequently and he’s been very open to that, so we’ll see, but I’m not counting on it. To be honest with you, there’s a slight possibility that we may end in Asia and that would be it. By the time this interview goes to print, you’ll know what our destiny held for us – but we’re contemplating that possibility, because we really feel that we’ve offered the ultimate Dream Theater experience on this tour. We feel like we’ve given all we can to the people in London and Paris and New York and Chicago and LA. I mean everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve done a thorough 3 hour set, we’ve done the great live video presentation. And in a way, we feel like “how do we follow that up?” What are we gonna do – go through Detroit a second time? We kinda feel...

SH: That you’d be going through the motions that time?

MP: Exactly. It’d be one thing if the record company was behind us in supporting a new single and there was a whole marketing campaign – then it would make sense to continue. But, we’re getting older – we’re getting to our 40’s at this point – we’re feeling like there’s no reason to bang it out, out there for a year on end. We feel like we’ve really presented the Dream Theater show to it’s fullest capacity to most of the major cities of the world at this point. If no opportunities present themselves for May, June and beyond, then we’re considering going in and getting to work on another album.

We have one more album on our contract with Elektra, and there’s a certain excitement in our camp to get that album over and done with, and then open up a new chapter in our options for our future...we’ll see. But if the right opportunity arises for future touring on this tour – if it’s new markets – places in Europe we haven’t hit yet, or a package tour, then we’ll surely take it. But if it’s gonna be more Evening With’s in cities we’ve already played, we feel like we’ve already done a thorough job with our presentation on the first legs.

SH: With regards to the live setting, how do you guys come up with all the extra stuff that you include, such as the new jam in Beyond This Life, the new ending to Hollow Years and the Tool jam in Lie [from the 2002 tour]?

MP: That stuff usually comes up in tour rehearsals at the beginning. All of those cases that you just mentioned were things that were discussed in rehearsal and changed in rehearsal. In the case of Beyond This Life, that is improvised from night to night. I mean we have a general blueprint that we kind of have been falling into, but from night to night that jam is completely spontaneous. So those things are worked out in tour rehearsal and any changes to songs that are going to be in the rotation. And then on this tour, there’s been several cases where there’s been spontaneous improv jams. Like we did one in St. Louis, we did one in Detroit that wasn’t even on the list. In Detroit, at the end of Another Day, I just felt like jamming. I mouthed to the guys “let’s jam” and then I just kinda fell into something and we took it wherever. And even tonight there’s an improv on the set. That’s what we love – it’s total LTE-land and I absolutely love that. Any nights that we are not doing Beyond This Life, I’m trying to work in some sort of improv, so that at least there’s always that element in every show.

SH: Cool. How do you determine which one-off covers to perform and where to perform them?

MP: Well, as always, the guys have given me freedom to pick and choose whatever I want to do, and I kinda just submit them in the setlists. I just have a list of one-off covers I’d love to do and there’s been cases where they’ve been applied to places where they’d be appropriate. For instance, we did Death On Two Legs [Queen] in London, we did Mother, Father [Journey] in San Francisco, we did Paradox [Kansas] in Kansas. And then there’s been other cases where it’s just been random, like The Necromancer [Rush] in New York, Diary of a Madman [Ozzy] in LA, and we’re gonna be doing one in one of the upcoming shows-

SH: Gee – I wonder which one that could be! [laughs]

MP: No, it’s not what you’re thinking actually!

SH: Really! So are you gonna do anything special in New York then?

MP: New York is going to be...there’s not going to be any covers that night.

SH: OK - but there’s going to be something different, right?

MP: Yeah, there’ll be something different, but no covers. But some of the covers are randomly placed at times – like the one that you’ll see this week is randomly placed. [editor’s note: it turned out to be the first half of Pink Floyd’s Echoes in Philadelphia] I think “Is that market into prog? Is that market into metal?” Like when we did Heaven and Hell [Black Sabbath] in Germany, it seemed like Germany was into that old classic metal, so we put that into that set. Basically, I just kind of pick and choose these things, and try to place them in there.

SH: Is it safe to assume that all of these covers will eventually get released on Ytsejam Records?

MP: We hope so. We hope to have as part of the cover series to have an uncovered compilation – volume 1, volume 2… Hopefully we’ll have good enough versions. I also record the soundcheck versions, so in case the live version wasn’t perfect, we always have a soundcheck version to fall back on.

SH: Ah – I was wondering about that. Speaking of Ytsejam Records, how has the general response been? Has the response been as good as your expectations, higher or lower?

MP: It’s been exactly what we expected. I think the numbers have been good, but luckily they’re not too good, which is something that Elektra had been concerned about. We wanted to keep it somewhat low-key and underground – just basically for the fans. The important thing with that was to not put it at retail. Elektra originally mentioned putting it at retail, and then they would get involved with the distribution like they do with the live Phish series. But it was important for us for these to be exclusively available through Ytsejam Records – through the website. We don’t want people to walk into the store and find the Majesty demos sitting next to Train of Thought. We don’t want anybody to mistake those for “real” Dream Theater albums. So they’re serving their purpose – they’re exclusively for the existing fans.

SH: I realize you guys are selling some official bootleg live recordings through Ytsejam Records already, but bands such as Pearl Jam, Metallica and Primus now selling all of the shows from their current respective tours through online downloads, on CD through stores or both. Would you guys ever consider doing something like that also?

MP: I am definitely interested in doing the whole download thing and have mentioned to our management at least a dozen different times now. As was the case with the official bootlegs, the biggest obstacle is the legalities and logistics involved with our label. So we’ll see how it pans out.

SH: On the Botrill mixes on the making of Scenes – especially on Finally Free – it’s not exactly as the album version, even though the “official” release does have the Bottrill mix. So I was wondering how they ended up being different if they are the same mix.

MP: All those are the original pre-mastered versions. Once we went into mastering, in a lot of cases, we A/B’ed Kevin’s mixes and David’s mixes, and even in some cases combined a little bit of one and a little bit of the other, but not so much that we actually changed the credit on the album because it would have been too confusing. But there are some cases where a little tweaking was done in mastering, so what you’re hearing on the Ytsejam version is the mix right out of Electric Ladyland Studios.

SH: Something that has come up on the internet lately is talk about there being digital static on some of the When Dream and Day Unite Demos, and I’ve even heard it myself. It doesn’t sound like something that’s coming from your original analog tape. Are you aware of that?

MP: I haven’t checked that. I’ve seen talk of that. There obviously are audio imperfections because of the source material. I mean a lot of that source material is coming off my cassettes–

SH: But it didn’t sound like anything having to do with the analog–

MP: It’s very possible it could’ve happen during the transfer. Once I hand over the master tapes to the manufacturer, unfortunately it’s out of my hands. So if that’s the case – if that’s something that did happen in the manufacturing process, I can only say that it’s unfortunate, but it’s out of my hands. We’re not talking about printing up 200,000 Train of Thought CDs – we’re talking about just a coupla thousand–

SH: So there’s probably not going to be any way to resolve the issue then, is there?

MP: No – no we really can’t do that. We’ll try our best to keep the quality at the highest level possible, but we are somewhat restricted by the source material.

SH: Speaking of When Dream and Day Unite, how did it feel to perform that entire album in LA?

MP: That was great! Actually, I even alluded to it back in our interview 2 years ago, so that was on my mind. I actually knew last year we were gonna do that. I even said to the guys and to our manager and booking agent “I don’t know where we’re gonna be, but I’ll tell you that on March 6th 2004, this is what we’re doing.” And we kept it completely under cover. We didn’t want to announce it, we didn’t want to promote it – we wanted it to be a complete surprise! I even mentioned to our manager and to our booking agent “try to put us some place cool on March 6th” and it worked out good that it happened to be in LA, and it happened to be in such a beautiful venue. It was totally great – it was exactly the special evening I hoped it would be! Doing When Dream and Day Unite has been something that the fans have been asking for, for a decade now. And then the icing on the cake was Charlie and Derek joining us, and that was just really, really special!

SH: Yeah, and that jam within Metropolis during the encore was very, very cool!

MP: And I know your next question! [smiles]

SH: Of course – being that it was recorded on–

MP: Oh no no no! I thought you would have another question! [laughs] I thought you were gonna ask “where was Kevin Moore?”

SH: No – I kind of assumed that you probably invited him–

MP: He was invited, of course–

SH: But of course he turned it down.

MP: Yeah.

SH: He’s probably still over in Istanbul, isn’t he?

MP: Yeah – although we did offer to fly him over. We were going to pick up the plane fare. But he’s still uncomfortable with being associated–

SH: Acknowledging his past.

MP: Yeah, exactly.

SH: No, the question I was gonna ask you actually was being that the LA show was recorded on both audio and video, what are the chances of us seeing some sort of release of that, and if so, what form would it be in – audio, video or both?

MP: Hopefully both audio and video, and it would be for Ytsejam Records. It wouldn’t be on Elektra.

SH: With regards to this performance, why did you decide to use the original intro to Status Seeker, since in the past you’ve mentioned that you didn’t like it, or that you hated it, or that it was too wimpy or whatever?

MP: There were bits and pieces from the live versions and from the studio versions. For instance, we used the live ending to Status Seeker, but the studio intro. With Ytsejam, I debated whether or not to do a drum solo in it. For the Killing Hand, we did the updated–

SH: The original–

MP: No, we did the newer version.

SH: Well, it was the live version, but it started off with the acoustic–

MP: Right – it was a variation of the studio intro mixed with the ’96 version. Yeah there was a lot of contemplation about which versions to use, and I tried to mix it up as best as possible for the presentation of the album from start to finish. Another example was the decision to segue Light Fuse into Afterlife. It had a nice live flow to it that way.

SH: Can we expect that with the other album anniversaries, that we’ll be seeing similar performances of those albums?

MP: No – I mean every year we could say it’s the anniversary of something. This year is the tenth anniversary of Awake, and we already celebrated the tenth anniversary of Images and Words. That’s not to say that special things like this won’t pop up from time to time, because anything is possible. But When Dream and Day Unite was a special anniversary, because that was something that everyone had always wanted to see performed with the current line-up. So it made sense to celebrate that.

SH: What about the Majesty demos in that case?

MP: [laughs] When I ran this idea by the band, and said “we’ll do Dream and Day complete,” it was delivered with the promise “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna do the Majesty demos in 2006!”

SH: Awww man!! [laughs]

MP: It was hard enough for everybody to go back and relearn Dream and Day... Nah – I don’t think the Majesty demos are a possibility. I promised I wouldn’t put those guys through that! [lots of laughs]

SH: What about the original version of A Change of Seasons?

MP: [thinking] No – we have no interest in revisiting that. That song is always kind of changing when we revisit it, but there’s no reason to revisit the original. We changed it for a reason – there’s no reason to go back to it.

SH: About a year and a half ago, 12 minutes of the original Metropolis 2 rehearsal tape had surfaced on the Internet – how long was the entire song? I ask because in your comments when confirming what it was, you stated that it was missing about 10 minutes of the song, which would add up to 22 or 23 minutes – but in older interviews when you guys were in the process of writing it, it was said to be 25 or even 30 minutes in length.

MP: It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the whole thing, but if my memory serves me correctly, it was around 22 or 23 minutes.

SH: So that rehearsal tape was pretty much the finalized arrangement of the song – it wasn’t like you were gonna add any more to it?

MP: Yeah – the version that we laid down was the final version, but it was never properly recorded. The only version of it from start to finish is just a real crappy rehearsal recording with stops in it. Not everybody had mastered their parts yet, so it was unpresentable to the public.

SH: Just getting something down on tape.

MP: Yeah. But if you have heard those tapes, most of it is Overture 1928, a good chunk of Dance of Eternity, and an instrumental version of One Last Time. Most of it is those three songs. There are a lot of riffs that ended up on the cutting room floor and it’s not likely that we would revisit a lot of that because it was written with Derek, so it was a part of that writing session. Once we did Scenes From a Memory, we kind of picked and choosed what we wanted to include and anything else we left behind.

SH: I have a feeling that that will answer my next question, which is if you guys would ever perform the original Metropolis 2? I remember reading an interview with John Petrucci in an old issue of the Images and Words fanzine and he had mentioned that he had pretty much completed the lyrics for it, so I thought I’d ask since it sounds like the song was completed.

MP: He was either mis-quoted or misunderstood or blatantly lying, but that’s not like John to lie so... No, there was never lyrics written to that version – it was all instrumental. And like I said, the stuff that did get used was Overture, Dance of Eternity and the instrumental of One Last Time, so none of that was lyrical passages.

SH: So the chances of us ever hearing that live are next-to-nil then?

MP: Yeah. I don’t think so.

SH: In the latest issue of Theater of Dreams, there are photos of most of the charts used when you guys were writing out the songs for Train of Thought, and I found it interesting that there was a lack of mention of Metallica and some of the other bands even though they obviously were there. When writing, do you guys ever go back and change anything, realizing that the fans are gonna pick it apart and say “oh this sounds like this band or that band?”

MP: Occasionally, there might be something we think sounds too much like something else, and we’ll go back and change it.

SH: I’m just curious as to why – specifically on As I Am – that Jordan is so low in the mix? Because when I see you guys live, his keyboards cut right through and I can hear them fine, especially on that song.

MP: He’s not low in the mix. One of the biggest misunderstandings with Train of Thought is that Jordan is not a part of the songs, or not part of the mixes. On most of these songs, he’s doubling the guitar, just the same way 2-guitar bands would – Metallica, Iron Maiden or whatever. He took that approach to a lot of these songs. So a lot of parts in As I Am where you think it’s only guitar, it’s actually guitar doubled with keyboards to help thicken it up or add a different timbre to it. So that’s one of the biggest misunderstandings about Train of Thought is that everyone thinks there’s no keyboards, when really people just don’t realize what Jordan is playing – they mistake it for only guitar. In those moments where it’s really heavy, and you’re not really able to distinguish a keyboard sound, he’s doubling the guitars or thickening up the guitar parts.

SH: The only reason why I really ask is because I remember listening to As I Am and live you can hear a distinctive keyboard part much more so – especially during the bridge and chorus. But even in general, they seem to be much more up front in the live setting.

MP: Well, live you’re always going to get a different perspective because of the mix or because of where you’re standing in the venue. So you’re going to hear things different and hear things popping out.

SH: In that same interview from the last issue, you made comments that Andy Wallace would have been a great choice for mixing Train of Thought – why didn’t you use him?

MP: Basically, he was unavailable. We did contact him and we did speak to him. He’s the busiest guy in the music business right now. Everyday, he’s mixing somebody else. At the point that we started to consider him and talk about him, we were getting close to the mix time and there just wasn’t enough notice to book him. It was kinda last minute when we started considering him.

SH: So it’s not like you guys will always stick with Kevin Shirley for mixing future albums, correct?

MP: [thinking] Well...our options...can be open. We really enjoy working with Kevin, but there are certain members that would love to work with somebody else, so we’ll see what happens.

SH: In that case, would you ever consider having Steven Wilson mix an album?

MP: Absolutely. I really really like him as a person – I know him well – and I respect his work. So yeah, he would probably be on the very top of my list if we were going to move on and use somebody else to mix our albums.

SH: Very cool! Now moving on to the songwriting...is the basic framework of the song – the verse, bridge and chorus – written out before the instrumental sections?

MP: No. We write chronologically or linearly.

SH: I was wondering how you develop the instrumental sections and determine where they should go within the song.

MP: Usually, the long instrumental sections are at the beginning, the middle and/or the end. Occasionally, we’ve broken that arrangement rule, but for the most part, we kind of know where the vocal parts belong.

SH: With lots of comments made on-line that Train of Thought was written too quickly, would you ever consider writing a batch of songs, letting them sit, and then going back and re-examining them–

MP: I have to backtrack – I have to defend that. People think that we wrote this album too quickly; we wrote this album at the exact pace that it needed to be written at – no longer and no shorter. We didn’t have a clock hanging above our head. That’s the way we write – whether it be doing a Liquid Tension album or doing a Dream Theater album – we write until we feel the song is finished. Train of Thought happened to take 3 weeks. The Awake album was written in about 3 to 4 weeks as well!

SH: And nobody questions that one.

MP: Exactly. It’s nothing different than any other time. We’ll book a certain amount of time in the studio, we’ll see what comes out. If we need more time, we’ll take more time. If we don’t need that time, then we won’t use that much time. We just write until the song is done. I just want to set that record straight – we did not rush this album – we took as long as it needed to take.

SH: I bring this up again because there still is the argument “maybe if they’d let the song ‘mature’” and I personally was thinking of the example of A Change of Seasons, although I realize that it’s an extreme case. But still, you wrote it and then 6 years later you came back and changed things around.

MP: That was only because we weren’t given the opportunity to record it. So if you have something sitting on the shelf for 8 years, then you have the time to revisit it. I mean we were even ready to record it in 1989.

SH: So in the case of the Train of Thought tracks, if you would have let them sit for a few months and then come back to them, would you have been perfectly fine with the way they were originally written?

MP: Things did change a bit as is apparent if you listen to the live instrumental demos, which I assume eventually years down the road will somehow make their way through Ytsejam Records. From the versions written in the rehearsal studios, to the versions recorded, there were slight changes here and there that were made. That was one of the benefits of writing in advance. So from the writing process, to the recording process to the mixing and mastering process, we’re constantly tweaking stuff and changing things here and there.

SH: Now that Train of Thought has been out for a while, would you be willing to divulge what inspiration corner was for it?

MP: I think it’s obvious – Master of Puppets, Number of the Beast, Moving Pictures...

SH: Since they had been mentioned in past interviews, was Mudvayne one of the bands?

MP: Yeah, we used Mudvayne for sonic presentation. We knew when we made this record, that we wanted to make a classic album, and we kind of had in our minds what the classic albums in our books were – ya know Number of the Beast, Master of Puppets, Moving Pictures – we’ve kind of used those as blueprints. The songs are in the 5-6-7 minute zone, the album is in the 50 minute zone, maybe an instrumental on it. We kind of had that as a blueprint and that was kind of our inspiration corner. But we ended up taking things into our own direction anyway – the songs ended up being longer...

SH: I think you’ve already kinda answered my next question, but would you ever consider using just Dream Theater CDs as inspiration corner, perhaps to come up with a “classic” Dream Theater album?

MP: I think every time we make a record, we want it to be a classic Dream Theater record. That’s our goal every time. Every time we make a Dream Theater record, we’re trying to be true to ourselves while still progressing and experimenting with new things. That’s the way every album we ever made has been, and will be. But that being said, we would never make a record with the mindset “let’s try to re-do this” or use Images and Words or Awake as inspiration corner – we don’t ever want to repeat ourselves. In fact, we would use those more as references for things not to do, because we’ve already done them! There’s been times where we have looked at our past records and said “wait – we’ve already done that – we can’t do that again.” So if anything, those earlier albums are not so much an influence, they’re more of a guideline for us to not repeat ourselves.

SH: With your side projects, is the release of Hammer of the Gods on the horizon, and if so when and in what form?

MP: It would likely be a CD available just from my website, hopefully very soon.

SH: Is it going to be the New York performance, the Montreal or both?

MP: Uhhh...Montreal with bonus tracks from New York. I think that’s what my plan was.

SH: So are there any other tribute bands to come?

MP: No, I haven’t been asked to do any and I’m surely not looking for extra work, so it’s a matter of if someone comes to me with a project.

SH: When you did Testimony with Neal Morse, were you strictly a hired hand, or did you contribute to the writing and/or arranging of the material?

MP: No, I was a session drummer for lack of a better word. I came in as a friend, to help support him, help him sell some records and as a drummer to offer my artistic delivery. Basically that’s his baby. I had very little ideas or input – I wanted to stay out of his way and let him do his thing. It’s his thing for both the album and the tour – I was basically just a hired gun.

SH: Any clues to if or when anything is to be released from the Testimony tour?

MP: I believe a DVD within the next month or two from the Tilburg show. That’s something that Neal knows better than me, but from what I understand, it’s on it’s way. By the time this interview has been published it will probably be out! [laughs]

SH: Will there be anything further from OSI, or were you too turned off by the final product?

MP: Ya know, I wasn’t turned off at all by the final product. I was more turned off by the creative process, but with the final product, I’m very happy actually. I think it’s a great album – it was the creative process that was very frustrating for me, but the end result is really great.

SH: So despite Kevin’s slicing and dicing of your drum tracks, you’re not that–

MP: It wasn’t an easy project for me to swallow and be involved with. The process ended up being way more different than what I had hoped it would be. But at the end of the day, for the type of record that it is, I think it’s really great.

SH: So if Jim and Kevin were to come up to you and say “let’s do another one,” would you be open to it?

MP: They both have already asked me indirectly, without actually putting a deal or a timetable on the table, and to be honest, at this stage I’m not sure. It’s not high on my priority list. But I’m not saying it would never happen, but it’s not going to happen as of this moment. But anything can happen in the future.

SH: Last but not least, are there any side projects in the works, such as the heavy metal project that in the past you’ve said you wanted to do?

MP: There’s nothing in the works. Like I just said with the tribute thing, I’m not looking for work. In fact I’m looking for time off, if anything. So unless something comes crawling to me, I have no plans or even desire to do anything outside of Dream Theater for the time being.

SH: With that heavy project that you’ve said that you’d like to eventually get around to doing, who are some of the people that you’d like to work with? Who would you envision would be some of the key players if you had your choice?

MP: Vocally, I’ve always mentioned Mike Patton as one of my heroes. He’s done a million projects, so I guess what’s a million and one to him? And of course Daniel Gildenlöw is the other vocalist I’ve always wanted to do something with. I mean, we did the Zeppelin thing together, but I’d love to do something original with him. I think he’s a just an absolutely incredible talent. As far as heavy bass players go, I’ve become good friends with David Ellefson from Megadeth; he and I have talked about some day doing something together in some capacity. So if I ever was to do something heavy, he’d be on my list. It also would be cool to work with Jason Newsted – I don’t know him but he’d be somebody cool to work with on a heavy project. As far as guitar players go, I’ve mentioned Dimebag Darrell in the past, but he’s just too much of a heavy drinker and I’m a recovering alcoholic, so I don’t think I could be around his influence! [laughs] Four or five years ago, I used to hang with the Pantera guys, but now I have to steer clear of them. I’ve often thought of doing something with Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth. He and I are in touch and we’ve become friends. I’ve thought it would be cool to do something with him. Who knows? But this is all just hypothetical talk, because as of this moment I’m not looking for work.

SH: Anything further to add? Anything else I forgot to ask?

MP: Nah. As always, I think you’ve covered a lot of ground and I’m sure you’ve provoked a lot of answers out of me that will keep the fans–

SH: Hopefully happy! [laughs]

MP: Actually, I’ve learned that there’s nothing that can keep Dream Theater fans happy! [lots of laughs] As hard as I try, it will never happen.

SH: Well, there’s some of us who certainly appreciate your efforts!

MP: That’s good. I appreciate you guys – thank you.

SH: As always, thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you.

MP: My pleasure.