James LaBrie Interview

BW&BK sat down with DREAM THEATER frontman James LaBrie recently in the midst of completing his current solo record, due out through InsideOut next March.

When asked about Dream Theater walking similar career footsteps to that of Canuck prog legends RUSH, he was quick to respond: “Yes, absolutely. It’s been a slow climb. We feel that each and every tour, each and every release - I mean obviously sales, because of technology - once again - isn’t really a true reflection of what you are doing as a band. It all comes down to how your tour is going, and it’s been going great. When you think of it, when we started out we were playing little clubs of anywhere from 500 - 1,000 people and in a lot of areas in the world now we are playing anywhere from a club that holds 2,000 to playing in front of 20,000 people, depending on where we are. We’re in a good situation and we do feel that things are continuing to climb. We did this tour with YES, that we just came off of, and you know what was the amazing thing? As long as we’ve been doing this, and in the kind of style that we’re first always mentioned for, being progressive - even though there is many other sides to us - the classical, jazz, hard rock approach, but a lot of these fans from Yes are like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going out to buy your stuff, I can’t believe it.’ We were thinking to ourselves, ‘Wait a minute, you are into this kind of music?’ But Yes is more of the light, classical approach progressively, where as we’re like taking in a much harder, edgier approach to the progressive elements. But it was incredible because we were out with a band that has been noted for it’s progressive smarts or brilliance and here we were playing in front of people that were going, ‘I’ve never heard you guys before.’ In fact, a lot of them were saying, ‘Oh, so you’re just a new band, you just came out, what a couple of years ago?’ I kid you not. And your going, ‘What? No.’”

Was there much interaction with Yes, particular vocal legend Jon Anderson?

“To be quite honest with you, was there a lot of interaction between us and Yes? No. Because the way that those guys work, their whole approach to performing each and every night is that they show up at the venue 15 minutes before, and then they go on stage. Whereas we are there, we sound check every day. The only guy that sound checks in Yes is Steve Howe. He goes there and plays through his guitar and he hears the sounds and make sure that he is comfortable and that’s it. The rest of the guys, they show up, like I said, 15-20 minutes before the show, they walk on stage, they do their show and they leave. It wasn’t until near the end of the tour that we started to have a little more interaction with the guys, you know, like Steve and talking with Alan White (drums) and even Jon Anderson came in one night because he came and he listened to most of the set. He said, ‘Wow, I love you guys, you guys are great, it’s really great to see a contemporary band like yourselves doing this kind of music, and doing it well.’ That is a great compliment, coming from him ‘cause he’s so into the progressive side of music, the more epic approach to songs, something that is a little more meaningful than just getting a quick bang or whatever. He was very cool. I think for the most part they’re into their routine. They know what they want to do, they know how to go about it, they’ve been doing it for 35 years.”

LaBrie is currently writing and rehearsing in New York City with his Dream Theater bandmates on the followup to 2003’s Train Of Thought.

His as-yet-untitled solo was recorded at a secret “cottage studio” located in Balm Beach, Ontario (just outside of Midland - one hour north of Toronto). The Mullmuzzler moniker is history and he will move onward and upward as simply the James LaBrie Band. Joining the singer on the recording are longtime co-writer/keyboardist Matt Guillory, Italian newcomer guitarist Marco Sfogli, drummer Mike Mangini (ex-Extreme, Annihilator, Steve Vai, Tribe Of Judah), bassist Bryan Beller and writer/guitarist Brian Wherry. LaBrie is producing alongside engineer/mixer Richard Chycki (LaBrie’s former Winter Rose bandmate who’s also worked with Mick Jagger and Aerosmith recently).