One Last Time

On the 2nd of December we had the opportunity to do a phone interview with Mike Portnoy. Knowing that this was going to be our final interview with the spokesman of Dream Theater we tried to get some answers on questions that were still unanswered. The search for these questions led us directly to Scott Hansen, who is almost as anal on Dream Theater as Mike himself. Scott came up with a fair list of questions which we used throughout the interview, so thanks Scott!! We also tried to get some info on the new album, but as Dream Theater was still writing songs at that time, Mike didn’t want to spill the whole bean, but please read below what he wanted to share.

Denis: How was the US leg and the Asian leg for the “Train Of Thought Tour”?

MP: Great, the Asian leg was similar to what you guys got in Europe and what we did on the first American leg. The Budokan show pretty much captures basically the whole “Evening With...” show. The second leg was obviously very different, because we were an opening band and on the road with Yes. So that was a completely different experience. It was really good, but a very different situation for us, to have a shorter set list, to have limited stage space. And we were playing for another band’s audience. I would say that a good 50% or so of the audience was ours and there was that other 50% which were a much older crowd, so we had to really fight to win them over. It was good, a good challenge and a fun summer.

Denis: Do you look differently at Yes now you’ve toured with them, as you are a longtime fan of Yes?

MP: Not musically, I still have the same amount of respect for them as I’ve always had and I think that they sound as good as ever. Actually I saw them, I think it was 2002, when Porcupine Tree was the opening band and I was really disappointed by Yes then, so I had lost a little faith in them. Personally I have known Alan and Steve for many years now, so it gave me the chance to get to know the other guys a little bit better. It’s kind of different when you tour with your idols, I guess it deflates some of the mystique. We saw a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, the arguing and the band members not getting along and so.

Denis: You also played the Yes cover Machine Messiah, did the guys from Yes know that you were going to play that song?

MP: The first 2 or 3 shows on the tour we didn’t put it in yet and waited until we had a bit of a relationship with the guys. Beforehand I asked Steve and Alan if they would object or if the other guys would have a problem with it. They were totally up for it and were completely supportive.

Denis: And what were their reactions to the Dream Theater version?

MP: They loved it, we didn’t hear anything from Jon and Rick as it’s not one of their songs. But Steve, Alan and Chris all told us that they thought it was awesome. Steve even started playing it at sound check on guitar. I guess it renewed his interest in the song. He started warming up with it during his sound check. Alan even came up and joined me. At the last show in Mexico we played it together.

Erik: About the set list, you didn’t change it that much throughout this tour. Any particular reason for that?

MP: We moved a couple of songs, in the order of the songs earlier in the tour, just to get a good flow. But basically we just played the same set every night. When I put together the set list it took some time to find the right formula that would be perfect for a Yes audience and also pleasing our audience. It was really important to focus more on the epic and progressive stuff and maybe shy away a little bit more from the “Train Of Thought” material. I also didn’t want to repeat too much from the “Evening With...” shows we did earlier in the year. Once I finally tapped into that formula, I didn’t want to stray from it. It felt like the right set for this tour, we were only the opening band and playing for 65 minutes. Also a lot of Dream Theater fans wouldn’t go to multiple shows because it’s a higher ticket price and a shorter set. As an opening band I think it works to do something like that, we did the same thing on the Deep Purple/ELP tour back in 1998.

Denis: About upcoming tours: do you have any ideas for a new Instrumedley with different songs?

MP: Anything is possible, but right now who knows? I always like doing creative stuff like that. I’m always into the idea of experimenting with things. We did it before with Caught In A Web and New Millennium. We won’t know for the coming tours until we are preparing for them.

Denis: The last tour had only been one leg in Europe and with upcoming tours probably also being shorter what are the chances of a second night where you cover a whole album of a different band?

MP: That is really up to our booking agent, he knows that we like doing the two nights in a row and we want to continue doing them. Me personally I like doing those album covers and I hope we can still work them into our tour itinerary in the future. Just to elaborate on only having done one leg. We would have liked to have done a second leg if we could have gone to different markets. Because there were surely a lot of markets, especially in Eastern Europe, that we never got to hit on the “Train Of Thought Tour”. The timing didn’t work out for us to get back over. There’s no saying that we wouldn’t do a second leg or even a third if it would get us to different markets. We just don’t want to keep repeating the same markets, more than once, unless we are offering something completely different.

Denis: Do you have more one-off covers that you want to play in the upcoming tour(s)?

MP: Absolutely, I have got a list a mile long! For one-off songs and for whole albums. It’s just waiting to get tackled.

Denis: I read somewhere on the Internet that you would like to do a tribute to Rush, like you did for the Beatles (Yellow Matter Custard) and Led Zeppelin (Hammer Of The Gods). Is this something you’d consider?

MP: I don’t think I would do a Rush tribute because Rush is a band that Dream Theater can and does cover. When I did Yellow Matter Custard and Hammer Of The Gods, that was something that was not necessarily suited for Dream Theater. I would rather pay tribute to Rush or Yes with Dream Theater.

Erik: What ever happened to the Hammer Of The Gods recording?

MP: That’s actually in the hands of the gods. (laughs) That’s one of the projects I’m working on. We are seeing if we can gather enough good material from it to make it releasable and I’m hoping so.

Denis: Can we ask you some questions about the new album?

MP: Yeah, I’m probably going to be vague in answering them, whatever I can answer I will.

Denis: (laughs) I already guessed that. Did opening for Yes had any impact on the direction for the new album?

MP: I think we had already decided what approach we wanted to take even before we did the Yes tour. We kind of had an idea of the direction we wanted to go.

Denis: Ok. Every Dream Theater album has an inspiration corner, can you give some insight in the albums that will inspire the new album?

MP: There is definitely a group of maybe 5 or 6 bands that are definitely directly influencing the direction of this album. There is no way in hell I’m going to disclose them because they will be over-analysed and scrutinized by the fans before hearing the album. I don’t want to put ideas in people’s heads before they have actually heard the music.

Denis. On the status of the album, how many songs do you have?

MP: As of today we have four done. All four of the ones we have written so far will have vocals and the melodies are finished to them and the lyrics are on their way. Right now me, James and John are all writing lyrics to the existing songs as we continue writing more. We are covering a lot of ground and working hard.

Erik: Does this mean that you’ll write this album in more than 30 days, like you did for “Train Of Thought”?

MP: Well, we are writing as we go. The whole process will take 2, 3 or 4 months. If you would have added up the days from writing versus the days of recording I don’t know whether we’d equal. We wrote “Train Of Thought” in a month, but we also wrote “Awake” in a month, that’s nothing different. If you would add up all the days it took to write “Scenes From A Memory” it may be the same thing. We write at a certain pace and that’s the way we work, whether it is written in the studio or beforehand, nothing is compromised at all.

Denis: Do you have someone in mind already to do the mixing for this album? Will it be Kevin Shirley again?

MP: We have a list and we’re definitely exploring options. As of now it’s likely not going to be Kevin Shirley, we are keeping our options open and see what happens.

Erik: Is this a consequence of the direction of the album?

MP: No, we just don’t like to do the same thing over and over again. We have been working with Kevin for almost 10 years now. So we felt it time for a new ear, we’ll see what happens.

Denis: Has James already been in the studio?

MP: He has been with us the whole time when we wrote. What usually happens is, we write a song and James has been present to that. Once we have the song and we begin tracking and at that point James will go home. Usually the only people in the studio then will be me and John Petrucci and then whoever is tracking, so either John Myung or Jordan.

Denis: I also read on your forum today that Jordan is using a grand piano for this album, is that correct?

MP: Yeah, he has got it set up in his room. He is surrounded by keyboards right now. He’s got like 6 or 7 different keyboards and he also bought himself a lap steel guitar, which was definitely inspired by Steve Howe. He also got this thing that is called the Continuum which is kind of like a fretless keyboard. So he is definitely experimenting with a lot of different sounds, which is very cool. While talking about equipment, I have 2 set-ups in the studio, the Siamese Monster and I also have my John Bonham kit from the Hammer Of The Gods shows.

Denis: Any idea how long it will take to write and record the whole album?

MP: We started November 1st and right now we are projecting to be finished by February. The label has penciled in a May release and a tour beginning in July over in Europe. Of course things may change, but the plan is to start with a summer approach, which would be festivals and maybe smaller cities in Europe and do the same thing in America around August/September. And then follow it up with the full headlining “An Evening With...” shows in the fall and the winter. It is kind of a backward schedule from what we usually do. But this is the first album we have recorded in the winter since “Images & Words”. Usually we record in the spring and the summer and have the album out in the fall. The whole schedule is now backwards as we did a shorter tour for ‘Train Of Thought.”

Denis: Is it correct that this will be the final album for your current record company?

MP: Yeah that’s right.

Denis: Did you already make plans for future releases?

MP: It’s hard to say. We really don’t have to make decisions about that until next year or even possibly 2006. It’s premature to know what exactly we are going to do, but we are surely excited to have our options open. Whatever we do, we’ll make sure that we maintain complete creative independence and also to be able to release official bootlegs, live show downloads and things like that.

Denis: I think that InsideOut Music would be a great label for you guys considering the high quality of products they release. In my opinion it would benefit the band and the fans.

MP: We’ll see. We have got like a year or two to make a decision.

Erik: Talking about the possibility to download live recordings from Dream Theater, is that something you are working on?

MP: Well, it’s not something we are working on as long as we are signed to Elektra, although the new album will be released on Atlantic, I don’t think we have the ability to do that. But once we’re free from the contract, that’s surely something we want to do in the future.

Denis: Switching to Ytsejam Records, do you already have the new titles for the upcoming releases?

MP: Yeah, I have actually been hard at work on them. It’s a great set the next three that are coming out. It will also include the first ever Ytsejam Records DVD. I can spill the beans as most people have probably anticipated at least a few of these next titles. One of them will be the “When Dream And Day Unite” show from Los Angeles and that will be DVD and CD. The DVD is going to be really cool, in addition to the entire LA performance of the album and the encore, I have been putting together a full documentary of the original “When Dream And Day Unite” album. It will include live footage from my own archive as well as interviews from back then, it really is a look back. Actually the whole package is called “When Dream And Day Reunite.”

Denis: You know that there is already a silver bootleg out from that actual gig?

MP: Yeah, I have seen it, but the YJR release sounds amazing as we did a proper mix and the DVD was shot with five cameras, so I’m sure it will be a great package. We also did an audio commentary for it, which we actually recorded yesterday.

Denis: Any other titles? I assume the Iron Maiden cover show will be released?

MP: Yeah, that’s going to be in the next batch as well. That one sounds fucking amazing! We are actually releasing the Paris show, because it was multi-track recorded and me and Doug Oberkircher just mixed it a few weeks ago. I’m still debating on the third release, I’ll make a decision on that within a couple of weeks.

Denis: The demos for “Images & Words”?

MP: That’s definitely one of the ones I’m debating on. I’m pretty sure it will be that one.

Denis: Are you planning to tour with Neal Morse promoting the “One” album?

MP: I think so, I think Neal is looking into tour dates in the spring. So after we are done with the Dream Theater album, but before it comes out. That is my only window of opportunity and that would probably be March or April. So he is investigating for some shows in Europe.

Denis: Any other side projects you are working on or will do in the near future?

MP: No, that’s it. Right now I’m very, very much focused on Dream Theater and I have my hands busy with Ytsejam Records releases and MP.com with the archive stuff. There’s a lot of stuff on the plate. I have like 6 or 7 different Dream Theater related projects going at the moment.

Denis: Looking over your whole musical career, do you have any musical regrets?

MP: It’s already been well documented, but the two most frustrating periods musically or creatively were the creative side of “Images & Words” and the making of “Falling Into Infinity”. Working with David Prater was really difficult and he was a hard person to work with. He made the making of “Images & Words” very difficult. During “Falling Into Infinity” it was not the fault of the producer, but there was a lot of external pressure by Kevin and the record company to make a lot of compromises. Take Away My Pain especially was the biggest disappointment in that album. It took what was once an incredibly emotionally drenched song and turned it into a trip to Hawaii. Every move we’ve made since “Scenes From A Memory” has been exactly where Dream Theater as a band wanted and needed to go. I don’t regret a single move we’ve made since.

Denis: Do you think that Raise The Knife will ever be played live?

MP: This is something we talked about at the audio commentary of the Mike Portnoy “Live At The Budokan” release. I think that Raise The Knife is a great song and one of the most overlooked and true progressive epics in the Dream Theater catalogue. I think it’s a really cool song, but the problem is that if we would put it into our live show there might be five people that’d be ecstatic and love it, but there’d be another two thousand that would be completely confused.

Denis: Do you really think so? The song is released on the Fan Club CD of 1999 and it’s also widely available on Internet.

MP: It actually was on my master song list for the “Train Of Thought Tour” and Jordan even learned it and transcribed it. We were preparing to possibly throw it in, but by the time we got into rehearsal there was so much other material that it ended up being pushed aside. So there’s always a possibility that it could reappear at some point in our career.

Denis: That’s great and something to look forward to and I think it’s one of the best songs of the whole “Falling Into Infinity” sessions.

MP: It’s actually the only one from that period that’s never been played live. The other ones were all played in the winter of ‘98.

Denis. Why did you guys re-record A Vision in 1989 with Charlie after the “When Dream And Day Unite” sessions? Why wasn’t it included with WDADU?

MP: We recorded it as an experiment. We felt it was a really good song and could be even a great single perhaps. By the time we did “When Dream And Day Unite” or “Images & Words” we just moved on and felt that the new material was stronger.

Denis: Speaking about “When Dream And Day Unite”. It seems that every year there’s a new re-release. Why don’t you buy back the rights of this album?

MP: If we could buy it we would have done so many years ago. It’s not available for us to buy. In order to get out of our contract back in 1991 we had to buy out of the contract to Mechanic and they retained the rights of the record and they have no interest in selling it back to us. Our release of the “When Dream And Day Reunite” package is the only way we can actually update the record. The original is great to have for your collection, but it bothers me that the record company keeps re-releasing it without any upgrades. Like remixing it or bonus tracks, they basically keep releasing the same thing over and over and forcing the fans that want to have it to keep spending on the same product.

Denis: Well this is about it for our questions, we kind of hoped that you would tell us a little bit more about the new album, but we do understand your point of view.

MP: The problem is if I compare the new album to a certain style or if I tell you the song length or any specific information I can give you, it’s going to be over-analysed and dissected and everybody is going to make major assumptions and accusations without having heard a single note. The only thing I will say is that it’s going to shock a lot of people in the same way that “Train Of Thought” shocked a lot of people. I can also say that it’s something different than what we did with “Train Of Thought” or “Six Degrees...” We kind of went as far as we could with those albums. So this new one is something completely different. As it was with “Train Of Thought” this doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the way we are going to be for the rest of our career. (Edit: By now we know that the recording for the album was finished on February the 25th, the release has been penciled for June the 7th and that Dream Theater will kick off their 2005/2006 World Tour in Europe in June).

Denis: Were you surprised by some really negative reactions on “Train Of Thought”, where people were complaining that it was too heavy and too much influenced by Metallica?

MP: No, I wasn’t surprised at all, I kind of expected that. We knew that it was a radical album, so of course you’re going to divide fans when you do that. We have to continue to challenge ourselves. We don’t want to ever make the same album twice. I think that a lot of our fans realise that and take each album as a new fresh experiment. “Train Of Thought” was inevitably not going to be for everybody’s taste and I can probably say the same thing about our next album and the same thing with “Six Degrees...”. I think it is safe to say that the only album we made that truly pleased everybody was “Scenes From A Memory” and perhaps maybe “Images & Words”. That was because it was kind of safe, we worked within a formula we knew would appeal to everybody. So we don’t necessarily want to always have that kind of formula for each album, we want to experiment with different things.

Denis: As this is our final interview, any final words?

MP: What can I say? It has been a great ride with you guys. You guys have been a class act all the way and you have delivered a great Fan Club and a great fanzine for the fans. So I want to thank you guys for being such a big part of the band’s development of our career over the last ten years and help the band grow. We are so appreciative of that, we are definitely going to miss having you guys.

Denis & Erik: Wow, thank you. It was our pleasure! Thanks for the interview and say goodbye to the other guys and hopefully we’ll see you on the new tour!

MP: Yeah, sure. I hope you’ll always still be fans.

Denis & Erik: Of course, no problem. (laughs)