Mike Portnoy’s Drum Theater part 1

It’s amazing for me to think that it was back in August 1997 that I wrote my original piece with this title – the publication of which followed in the fall/winter issue (number 15) of the Images and Words DTIFC fanzine run by Neil Elliott.

I have a lot to thank Neil for as times have moved on apace and since he got me my first meeting with MP in December ‘97 in London, I have gone on to write extensively on Mike’s drum kit changes, issuing regular updates on kit developments and DT gear related topics ever since. This included interviewing MP twice and being lucky enough to be welcomed into the ever growing DT family and be even luckier to be published in Images and Words and more recently in Theater of Dreams. I feel privileged and very fortunate – I even have the nickname given to me by MP of Eagle Eye Al because I have an uncanny knack of being able to spot the smallest of details relating to MP’s kit (as you’ll see when you read this piece!).

Octavarium, the latest Dream Theater album, was the last recording made at legendary studio The Hit Factory before it closed its doors at the end of February 2005. I spoke with Kerry and we decided that the Portnoy drum kit history needed hauling into the new year and that the time was right to update the original instalments I did on MP’s kit and pull everything together to provide the definitive kit history on all MP drum related happenings.

Stick with it (pun intended!) There’s plenty here for drummers and non-drummers alike!

The story starts with a return back to WDADU, with information provided direct from Mike when I interviewed him in October 2000 – I wanted to get some background on the very early DT days mainly for a collaboration I was working on with the Italian Dreamers on Mike’s kit history, so let’s get Mike to open things up.... enjoy! Over to Mike!

I used to base my kit heavily on Neil Peart’s set-up at the time and Neil had 6, 8, 10 and 12” concert toms to his left and I had 6”, 8” and 10” rototoms in the same position. If I remember correctly, I had the two 24” kicks with, I think, 13”, 14” and 15” rack toms across the top with 16” and 18” floor toms.... And I had a fourth which I believe was a 12” angled up like the rototoms to my left.

This kit was my black Imperial Star which I used on “WDADU” and “Images And Words”. I’ve had that kit since day one of Dream Theater/Majesty.

I used Zildjian cymbals, which again was the Neil peart influence – I guess any drummer when they’re starting off will model their kit on the drummers that they admire, but for me with Tama, it wasn’t just Neil that played them. Bill Bruford, Stewart Copeland and Simon Phillips also all played Tama back in ‘82 or whenever, but Neil was top dog for me... There was no question that Tama were the drums I wanted to play.

Cymbal-wise, it was always the two 18” crashes out front, and I had another 18” or 20” crash to my left and also another (18”) crash kind of over the ride right front. The ride was positioned over the two floor toms and this idea was carried through to the Mapex kit too. Then two china’s left and right and some splashes – it was always a very similar type of setup, just little things that got changed over the years – I think there was an 8” or 10” splash I used to have over the ride to my right too.

I wore drummer’s gloves ‘cos we were posers back then! There were even some purple handkerchiefs hanging off the hardware too!

I’ve also been lucky enough to never have had to set up my own kit. Even way back when I was in junior high school, playing with Intruder at St. Mary’s church, there were still friends that were willing to help out. Even back in the early Majesty days I had a couple of guys, one of which was back in high school with me with Rising Power, then the first Dream Theater tour I had another friend of mine do the first couple of months with us and then that’s when Jose (Baraquio) came on board.

The only period actually in my life when I set up my own drums was throughout the time at Berklee. Me, John (Petrucci) and John (Myung) used to rehearse every night for six hours at Berklee from 6:00pm to midnight and every night we had to set up and break down our gear. So they came by my room at 5:00pm and we’d go have dinner in the cafeteria then go up with one of these push-carts to my room and take my drums and go down to the rehearsal room which was E19 and I’d set up the kit. Play on it. Then at the end of the night, break it down and bring it back to my room.

I played a smaller kit back then too and I was only playing with two toms in the centre, just because I had to set it up every night. So it was much more compact.

When Drums and Sticks Unite

There have been three kit styles since WDADU and what I’ve done is deliberately left the exact specification out as this has been listed many times – I’ve concentrated on the things that may have not been so obvious!

On the Live in Tokyo video studio footage, we see Mike using the same black Tama Imperial Star kit he talked about in the WDADU days, though by now the toms across the top of the kit were 12”, 13” and 14” with 16” and 18” floor toms, the Rototoms have been lowered to MP’s left and set in more of a flattened attitude. The kit at this point (during the recording of Images and Words) was also yet to have the “Majesty” symbol applied (this paint job never got done on the kick drums, just the toms).

The only endorsement MP had at this time was with his stick supplier Hot Sticks. The Rototoms were to be pensioned off in favour of the LP Timbalitos by the time the studio shot videos of “Another Day” and “Take the Time” were done, although on the “Pull Me Under” video they are clearly on the kit. Also by the time of this shoot, the Majesty symbol had been applied. MP is also clearly still using Zildjian cymbals on the PMU video and it’s interesting to note that Images and Words was recorded with Zildjian cymbals almost exclusively. Also by the time of the “Another Day” and “Take the Time” video shoot, Mike had bagged an endorsement deal with Sabian for his cymbals (this of course remains), whilst he additionally secured a deal with Remo for drumhead supply.

This video shoot also reveals the woodblock to MP’s left with “HO” his drumtech Jose Baraquio’s nickname – on it (N.B. Jose is no longer with Mike, having moved on after the last DT show in Japan in April 2004 – Mike now has a new full time tech).

Mike used this same setup right up to the end of the “Music in Progress” tour at the end of 1993, so it definitely saw some action! On the “Tokyo” video, the 16” crash cymbal to his left had an addition of a 10” B8 Pro China Splash, the only cymbal addition since Images and Words up to that point. One other odd thing from the live footage on this video is that the cymbals do not have the Sabian logo stamped on them, just an observation – I never did find out why this was!

Prior to the rehearsal/recording of Awake, Mike was approached by the (then) upcoming drum company Mapex and took on a major deal with them, having a custom black maple shell kit constructed, which saw numerous changes and additions.

A rack system now supported the majority of the drums/hardware. An 8” power tom was added and the drum sizes across the top of the kit were now 8”, 10”, 12” and 14” with the floors and kicks as before. The 14 x 6.5 metal shell Tama snare was replaced by a wood shell Mapex of 5.5” depth and four Octoban style drums were positioned to MP’s left. These were actually smaller in depth compared to the Tama versions and also had custom holders to mount them in place rather than the more static Tama style of holder for four drums in a group like Mike had them. These were not Mapex catalogue items, they were totally custom for MP and sounded incredible!!

The first publicity shots of this kit (one of which appeared on the cover of issue 6 of “Images and Words”) showed that MP had not at that point added the 16” crash cymbal to his front left and also when those pics were taken had not secured his endorsement with Latin Percussion – he still had in place his bar chimes and tambourine from the Tama kit and there were no other percussion toys at that point – he had Remo Pinstripe heads on the toms and the 16” crash, which was to his far left on the Tama kit, had gone.

By the time of the recording of Awake, Mike temporarily changed his heads on the toms for coated Ambassadors, though the kicks still had Pinstripes, the snare was still a CS coated head with white dot, and the Octoban style drums had clear Ambassadors – this head arrangement was in place for the whole of the recording of the Awake album. The splashes had to be slightly repositioned for the recording as you can see if you look closely at the liner notes – the 8” and 10” splashes are way higher than normal, as is the 6” cymbal disk. Presumably this was for better sound separation during the recording.

The coated heads were still in place for the recording of the “Lie” video too, which saw the new kit in all its glory, though they were never used in a live setting. Also, by the time this video was shot, the 16” crash had appeared to his front left and the 10” China Splash, which used to be on top of the 16” crash to MP’s left on the Tama kit, now had its own boom arm to sit on! The LP deal had been secured and Mike was surrounded by much percussion: the tambourine above the 14” tom was now an LP version and had been joined by another to the left of MP’s hi-hat; double row bar chimes were added under the 20” China to his right and 35 bar studio chimes were on top of the percussion table to his left, which also contained LP Granite Blocks, cowbells, tri-bells, triangles, Vibra-Slap and bell tree. Congas and bongos were also in evidence on the “Lie” shoot. The original Mapex logo kick drum heads were still in place with large holes cut in them. One curious thing was that for this shoot there were blue backing heads attached inside the front kick heads with smaller holes cut in them – not sure why this was, but they added that extra something to the look of the kit in that video.

By the time the Awake tour started, Mike had incredible new front kick heads in place of the album cover images, with smaller mic portholes cut in them (using Holz rim supports) and much smaller MaPex logos, with the “M” and the “P” highlighted – a nice touch!!

This kit stayed mainly unchanged throughout the whole of the “Waking up the World” tour, the only changes coming for the recording of “A Change of Seasons” when a set of Sabian “crotales” (mini tuned disks) were added over the floor toms and a 6” splash cymbal appeared over the right hand tambourine. Also, a Sabian bell disk replaced the 10” China Splash to MP’s far left.

This kit then remained the same until it was replaced and appeared in this configuration for all subsequent live shows (mainly festivals) and even stayed the same when Mike embarked on his numerous clinic appearances in 1995, though the Octoban heads sometimes got changed for CS Black Dot variants – even the Awake front kick heads stayed in place. This configuration remained for the shooting of the “Progressive Drum Concepts” video, but by the time this video was released worldwide (it was originally only shot for the Japanese market) Mike had changed to Tama so the Mapex logos had to be blurred out! (When the video was shot MP was still with Mapex) One other interesting thing I noticed was when you get the opening “panoramic” shot of the kit, you can just notice on the ride that there is an MP autograph (I only noticed it as I was looking at it in slow motion – how sad am I!!!). I asked Mike why this was and he confirmed it and said the reason was that when the video was shot in New York, somehow there was a hold up with some of his regular cymbals so he asked the Long Island Drum Center if they could help as he had not long done a clinic there. They supplied some of the missing items, one of which was the 22” ride, which Mike had signed at his clinic as a “giveaway”, so that was the story on that – check it out!

The new Tama deal saw Mike using their top of the line Starclassic maple shell drums. MP went over to “power” depths on the front toms and replaced the 14” rack tom with a 13” version. The 16” and 18” floor toms got replaced with 14” and 16” mounted power toms. The 16” power tom had a fairly short life on the kit however, as it was part of the original spec on the purple/white/purple US kit and saw live action for the “Fix for ‘96” shows. It even found its way into the Falling Into Infinity studio sessions, but was soon replaced by a Tama “Gong” bass drum – this particular variant being mounted on MP’s rack with two floor tom legs attached to support it rather than the more usual catalogue option of a “rollaway” stand. The Gong bass drum arrived midsession for the FII recording.

The snare changed too – it was now mounted using Tama’s patented “air-ride” system and was sprayed the same purple fade as the rest of the kit. The snare also benefited from a three-way foot-controlled snare strainer system originally conceived by MP and built by Tama – the snares were adjustable by a foot pedal to be loose/tight/on/off. This system worked very well and can be heard to great effect on FII.

Mike was also now using “standard” Tama Octobans (albeit they were sprayed white/purple and given Starclassic lugs) and he had the four to his left mounted in a more conventional line with two more on the right hand side of the kit. This meant the position of the ride cymbal had to change, becoming more centralised, whilst the right hand tambourine moved more to MP’s right side. This had the 6” splash mounted above it now too. The two hi-hats he had with the Mapex kit (open and closed) were replaced with a foot pedal controlled OW version (this varied in the coming years too between DW and Tama versions with the Tama version winning out!). The hi-hat was also fitted with a “drop-clutch” device, which meant open/closed hi-hat sticking was more accessible.

The 6” cymbal disc, which had been a feature on MP’s kits since Images and Words (at least) was removed (this used to be between the 8” and 10” splashes), but extra Sabian “Bell Disks” were added to MP’s far left and a Sabian “Thunder Sheet” was added to his right rear. A Sabian 10” China Kang was added above the Octobans on the left side and the 12” splash was raised to sit also above the right hand Octobans.

The first pair of Octobans to MP’s left were not mounted on standard Tama holders (the other two pairs were), these were positioned on custom brackets made by Tama to allow the first two drums to be placed more freely.

The new “Purple Monster” (with 14” and 16” toms) debuted at the “Fix for 96” holiday shows and had the standard black front heads with portholes cut out and was supported by the usual “Holz” protectors. (These shows also marked MP’s debut singing backup vocals!!)

Interestingly, the first promo shots to appear of the new kit must have shown it in it’s VERY early days of delivery. It showed Evans heads fitted (standard Tama fitment) instead of MP’s Remos. There was also an inaccuracy in the Remo promo adds stating that he used Powerstroke 3 kick drum heads – as far as I can tell Powerstroke 3s were never used.

Mike came to Europe during March ‘96 to do some Tama/Hoshino clinics and for these he used locally supplied Starclassic kits in natural finish and standard black Octobans. At this point, he was still setting the left Octobans in a stacked formation, but this varied from place to place. Similar kits were used by MP, but with sunburst fade finish when DT came to Europe prior to recording FII (April ‘97). The kit then also had black Octobans and black Gong bass drum – no rack this time (everything mounted on stands with clamps) and no percussion toys either.

About this time too, Mike changed his stick supplier from “Hot Sticks” to Promark, with that company making MP a signature stick (the 420N – the 420 designating Mike’s birthday of April 20th!!) with nylon tip. These remain to this day and interestingly feature the normal Promark “bands” around the centre of the stick rather than two thirds down the stick – this was because with Mike using the butt end of his left hand stick. The bands/logo would get damaged very quickly so they moved them to the centre – cool! (This was adopted by Promark throughout their range).

The “purple monster” for the US was joined for the “Touring Into Infinity” tours by two identical kits for Europe and Japan (the European kit being stored in the UK when DT had downtime and the Japanese kit stored there). The Euro kit was green/white/green and the Japan kit was red/white/red – as time went on too, Mike had Promark sticks with green bands (for Europe) made in addition to the standard red band models (so if you have one of those as a souvenir, they’re pretty rare!) In addition to the drums being coloured for the area they were based, the “1st Chair” throne/stools were also finished in the same colours as the kits – super cool! (Though as the kit got used through the upcoming legs and tours, the thrones, certainly on the Euro kit, got replaced by more normal black versions – MP usually has a towel over his thrones anyway to soak up some of the sweat and in fact on the “Train of Thought tour started using sets of 6 custom-made towel wraps, that slotted over the stool seats).

When FII was recorded, Mike had two kits set up in the studio. In addition to the “Purple Monster”, he had a four drum set made up of parts of his original Imperial Star kit: 24” kick, 12” mounted tom and 16” floor tom. The snare tended to be one of his normal Starclassic air-ride mounted units, cymbal selection was 22” Rock ride, 16” and 18” AA crashes, 10” splash and 12” mini china – a double pedal was set up too.