Jim Pitulski article-interview (excerpt)

Like more than a few artists on his label, Jim Pitulski sports flecks of gray at the temples – a testament to a long, fruitful career in the progressive-rock business, and, perhaps, mementos of babysitting the world’s fastest guitarists on Japanese tours. But a note of excitement still creeps into his voice as he retells some old war stories.

Pitulski grew up in Beechview, but in the late 1980s left Pittsburgh and his job as a manager and buyer for Eide’s record store. Moving to New York, he landed a string of marketing and promotional jobs at labels like Caroline, Columbia and Polygram. But it was at his first real job, an MCA subsidiary called Mechanic Records, that he crossed paths with the future of progressive metal... and his own future career.

“I was reviewing demos, and I got a demo from a band called Majesty,” Pitulski recalls. Pitulski had always been a fan of progressive rock – the long compositions and album-length concept suites composed by bands like Yes, early Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. And when he heard Majesty, “I was like, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe somebody’s doing this again!’ A young band that takes those old prog sensibilities I loved... and they’re updating it, and combining it with Rush. It blew my doors off, and we ended up signing them.”

But Majesty got off to a rocky start. Another band had already laid claim to the name Majesty; a lawsuit prompted the band to switch its name to Dream Theater. And in 1992, on the eve of the release of its second album, Images and Words, Dream Theater lost its management. So the band called its old friend Jim Pitulski, who agreed to manage the group instead.

“We put out the single ‘Pull Me Under,’ and the floodgates opened,” he says.

“Pull Me Under” became a hit, and Images and Words went gold in the U.S.... and platinum in Japan.

With Images and Words selling 15,000-20,000 copies a week, the former Eide’s manager now found himself caught in a tidal wave. “It became very lucrative,” he says.

“Pull Me Under” was Dream Theater’s only hit. But through it, the group earned a loyal following that appreciated its progressive focus, and went on to become one of the most recognizable – and successful – names in progressive metal throughout the 1990s. Dream Theater influenced a genre now represented by groups like Tool, A Perfect Circle and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and still inspires nearly every kid with an Ibanez guitar.

Roundtable Management, Pitulski’s company, expanded to include other progressive acts, but he had lost some of his taste for artist management by the late ‘90s – just in time for a fresh start.

Europeans devoured progressive rock to an even greater extent than did Americans. And during Pitulski’s travels with Dream Theater, he met the proprietors of InsideOut, a German label that had seized a large share of the burgeoning progressive-rock market. The company was looking for someone to head up an American subsidiary, and Pitulski was looking for a change.

So in 1999, when Pitulski moved back to Pittsburgh to be near family, he launched InsideOut Music America from his Green Tree apartment. And there, he grappled with a knotty problem.