Dream Theater: Twenty Years To Radio City

“There’s a few real special things that we have in store,” says Mike Portnoy about the final night of their current tour. Talking about the anniversary show booked at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, the Dream Theater drummer promises that night will be memorable. Reluctant to reveal exact details, he only says, “we’ll be doing something that we’ve always wanted to do, and it’s going to be really exciting.”

It’s been twenty years since Sundance, the Bayshore, Long Island club where they played their first show. Portnoy met guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung when the three were Berklee College of Music students in Boston. Originally called Majesty, the name inspired in part by “Bastille Day” from the 1975 Rush album Caress Of Steel, their early demo tape caught the attention of the progressive rock underground. When Dream And Day Unite was released on the MCA subsidiary Mechanic Records in 1989, but it would be three more years before Images And Words would introduce singer James LaBrie and the success of “Pull Me Under” would generate the buzz of radio and MTV notoriety.

Once that unexpected tide of mainstream popularity receded, Dream Theater Really started the task of building a core audience that has been the foundation of continued success. Most recently, the band spent the last eleven months on the road in support of Octavarium, their eighth studio album. That entire tour has been a celebration of their two decades together, says Portnoy, who phoned from Seoul, Korea, talking exclusively to Metal Edge about their career, longevity, and the monumental Radio City gig that will be the finale of their first twenty years.

Metal Edge: Is there a collective pride, not only in sustaining a band for twenty years, but the fact that it’s been done in an industry not really conducive to progressive music?

Mike Portnoy: Oh, absolutely. We are proud, we are grateful, we are appreciative. We know how difficult it could have been for us. We’re probably one of the only “prog” bands that sustained a major label deal all these years, and it’s pretty amazing. I’ve said it to you a million times before, it’s attributed absolutely to our fan base.

ME: Rather than asking what stands out most, looking back over twenty years, what happened differently than you might have anticipated when you started?

MP: The only thing that kind of took us by surprise was that little spurt of mainstream commercial exposure around ‘92, ‘93, when we were on the radio and MTV all the time. Most bands kind of expect that in order to have a career. To us, that was the unexpected kind of pothole in the road, [laughs] believe it or not. Yes, it opened doors for us on many levels, but once that simmered off, we began building our own career after the dust had settled from that. Everything that’s happened since then is the way we pictured developing this band.

ME: Which is funny, because people look at that point as enabling everything else. But from what you just said, it sounds like everything else was the goal, regardless of that.

MP: Yeah, absolutely. We’re very happy with the way we function now, without having to play the industry game. I mean, that was a nice jolt to our career at that point, but it ended up probably creating more problems in subsequent years than it was worth. We are much more comfortable working on our terms and have been for the past ten years.

ME: So you’ve been able to succeed despite success. [Laughs]

MP: [Chuckles] Yeah. We appreciate that we had that, because we probably wouldn’t have been able to get to this point without that. And surely a lot of people were introduced to us from that period, but the reality is, the world we’ve built is really completely separate from that period.

ME: In what ways have the players evolved, both in terms of technical approach and creativity and also as people, as well?

MP: I think our evolution as people is way bigger and more significant than our evolution as musicians. To be honest, I think we were already good musicians back at Berklee, and I think a lot of the skills that we have to this day were already founded back then. I think the personal changes are the biggest difference. When we formed the band twenty years ago, we were a bunch of college kids working day jobs. We didn’t have girlfriends at the time, and now we all have families and children. We’ve kind of built this whole empire with the world of Dream Theater, that we’re actually able to make a really good living and have nice homes and provide for families.

ME: You started out as students, presumably playing music for fun. And, somewhere along the way, it did turn into the business of a career. Twenty years later, do you still feel that same anticipation and excitement about playing music with each other, in spite of it actually being, to some extent, a business?

MP: Yeah, yeah, we do. We have really good managers and business managers and things like that – and good crew when we’re on the road – to separate us as much as possible from the business, in order to keep the music inspiring. And, we still find a way to challenge ourselves musically and do new things, whether it be writing and recording new material or going on the road and playing for new people. On this tour, we went to some South American and Asian markets we’ve never gone to. Plus, we challenge ourselves on the road by doing these little cover albums and stuff, like we did Dark Side Of The Moon and Deep Purple’s Made In Japan [live] in the past couple months. I’ll always keep the set list interesting and exciting for us to always keep it musically exciting and interesting – and unpredictable, most importantly – for the band.

ME: Everything you’ve just described, is that something you keep in the back of your mind – to take steps to remain creative and fresh? Or is it something more instinctive, like hey, this would be fun?

MP: It’s instinctive, I think. It’s fun, never wanting to play the same set list night after night. Not only is that really exciting and rewarding to the fans – and I think that’s what keeps them coming year after year – but it is also something that keeps us on the edge. We just can’t go on cruise control. We always have to be on our toes, rehearsing and learning new things. It’s a win-win situation , for us and the fans.

ME: To this point in the conversation, we’ve been talking about how the band has changed. But from your perspective, how has the Dream Theater audience most noticeably changed over the course of twenty years?

MP: Well, they’ve gotten bigger, larger in size. It’s amazing that we’re still growing. We’re not one of those bands twenty years into our career, where the venues are getting smaller and the audiences are getting smaller. It’s actually quite the opposite. And in terms of their makeup, you know, it hasn’t changed that much. Our whole career, it’s always been a combination of musicians, metalheads, and prog fans, and it still is. It’s just that the fans with us fifteen years ago are getting older, and now they’re bringing along kids of their own. The old fans get older, and then the new fans start to come in and mingle with them.

ME: There’s an old picture online of you, John and John – it must have been taken at Berklee – and you all look really, really young.

MP: [Laughing] Yeah, well, we were. We were 18 years old. We’ve now been together longer than we were alive before being together, more than half our lives at this point.

ME: Having seen that picture, when you’re playing to new audiences, do you ever look out and see yourselves, as far as who you were at that age?

MP: Absolutely. That’s part of the drive that keeps me working as hard as I do for this band. It’s completely in relating to our audience. I totally remember what I was like when I was a 17-year-old in high school, sleeping out for Rush tickets or Frank Zappa tickets, and driving down to Maryland to go see Roger Waters on multiple nights. I remember that fanaticism, and I can totally, completely relate to it. I remember cutting school one morning and taking the city bus to the local mall to go get Van Halen tickets at 7:00 a.m.

ME: Of all the venues in the world, why Radio City Music Hall for the momentous concert?

MP: It’s one of those venues on our checklist of places we want to play in our career. I saw Rush play there in ‘83, and I saw Iron Maiden and Queensrÿche play there back in [pauses]... maybe ‘85, ‘86 or so. And I saw The Who perform Tommy in its entirety there in 1989. So, myself, I have real special memories of that place. But, it’s a very prestigious place that very few rock or metal bands get the opportunity to play. Being New Yorkers, as well, the entire tour finishing in New York City is very significant and special for us. Just everything about it is going to be incredibly special. We also have a couple surprises up our sleeve as well, which will be conducive to that venue. And, we’re filming it for a DVD release, so people that weren’t able to make the show will be able to enjoy it later in the year.

ME: Given that bands like Iron Maiden and Rush have been regularly cited as having a direct formative impact on Dream Theater, fan that you still are, did it go through your mind that you’re joining an elite club?

MP: Yeah, absolutely. You know, as soon as we confirmed the date, there was definitely a real excitement and a real feeling of accomplishment, to be joining that elite club of bands to play this legendary place. It surely is [pauses]... you know, having not even done it yet at the time of this interview, just the fact that it’s booked is one of the highlights of our career. [Laughs]

ME: It’s really kind of funny that it’s taken you twenty years to get from Long Island to New York City.

MP: Yeah, [Laughing] to get from Sundance in Bayshore, Long Island to Radio City in twenty years.

ME: Any thought about revisiting that very first show at Radio City, maybe a Queensrÿche or S.O.D. cover?

MP: Well, what we have been doing on this entire tour, and surely we’ll do that night as well, is performing the very, very first song ever written by myself and John, a song called “Another Won” – the very first track we ever wrote together, and it’s the first track on the Majesty demo. The entire set list for this tour was built in a way where the entire show goes chronologically through our career. We start the show with a few Octavarium tracks, just to get things started. But then there’s a video that rolls back through time, right back to the very beginning in 1985, and we begin the chronological experience with this track, “Another Won.” And then we go through each album, playing at least one song off of every album, and then ending back at Octavarium. So, it’s very much in keeping with the Octavarium concept of going full circle, and you really do get to see the full twenty-year experience throughout the night.

ME: For someone who has always been meticulous about planning set lists, what criteria goes into one for such a celebratory occasion as the show in New York?

MP: Usually when I construct a set list from night to night, it’s based on a particular city and offering that particular city a different show from the previous tours. The other criteria is shows in driving distance from each other-making them different. But when we’re filming a DVD or live CD, such as the Radio City show – or the Live At Budokan show on the last tour – all those previous rules get chucked out the window. Really, the only criteria for me for those shows is doing a set list that offers material that wasn’t on any of the previous live releases. So, really, the main objective with this Radio City set list is to offer different material from any of the previous Dream Theater DVDs and to still maintain the 20-year chronological celebration.

ME: Will previous members of the band be part of the show?

MP: No. I can definitely confirm that they won’t be. On the last tour, we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our first album, and we had a couple of ex-members join us. The idea for doing something similar at Radio City crossed my mind, and I threw the invitation out to [keyboardist] Kevin Moore, first and foremost, because he’s the ex-member that has yet to reunite with us onstage. And once again, he passed on the invitation. He’s just very uncomfortable with that kind of exposure and association. He’s spent his post-Dream Theater career trying to distance himself from that and this kind of music. So, with him passing, we’re not going to have any ex-members for the show. Without Kevin doing it, I wouldn’t really want to pursue that concept.

ME: Anniversary designations sometimes become hindsight points of new beginning. Considering that Dream Theater already pursues varying creativity from project to project, how does the band plan on following not just the last record but the last 20 years?

MP: Well, actually, Radio City does indeed mark the ending of an era, because we’re taking the entire summer off, our first summer off in ten years. We’ll regroup in September to work on the next album. But, Octavarium was our last album with Atlantic/Elektra Records. The Radio City DVD will be an independent contract, just a one-off deal for that particular product We actually spent fourteen years working off a seven-album deal that just kept getting picked up and renewed, album after album. We signed it in ‘91 and finally finished it in 2005, and here we are, free agents. So, it very much is the end of this chapter for us, as we will shop for a new deal and see what our options are at this point.

ME: What aspects of longevity are positive and is there a downside to having been a band for 20 years?

MP: I don’t think there’s a downside, because we’ve all given each other the freedom to work outside of Dream Theater. If we had a noose around each other’s neck and nobody was allowed to ever do anything outside of Dream Theater, then 20 years could be very, very hazardous to further longevity, because you start to feel strangled. But the fact that we’ve given each other so much freedom, I think has been a very positive, healthy thing for this band and has probably contributed to our longevity. And I think, as a result, we get along better than we ever have. We are more focused than we ever have been, and we could easily go another 20 at this point.

ME: Is that the plan?

MP: Yeah, I mean, we don’t – I don’t know how to do anything else, [Laughing] you know? I can’t be a plumber; I can’t go back to delivering Chinese food, so we have to continue. As long as the fans are still there, we’ll keep doing it. We’re like Doritos – keep eating, we’ll make more.