Mike Portnoy, Mikael Akerfeldt conversation

Mike Portnoy: The first time I heard you guys was Blackwater Park because Steven Wilson was telling me about you guys. Porcupine Tree opened for us in 2000 and he was telling me all about you guys. I'd only heard the name and I just thought you were just strictly black metal, death metal and I didn't realize how diverse your overall sound was. So I heard Blackwater Park and then from then I was totally a fan. But I don't remember the first time I spoke to you.

Mikael Akerfeldt: Actually we were supposed to go to a show, you we're playing in Stockholm. I couldn't go at the time, so you met my wife, I think, first. Then I met you at a later gig or something.

MP: It had such an impact on both of us, we can't even remember. I remember I was playing the Damnation CD for our intermission music on I think the Train Of Thought tour.

MA: We must have met on that tour, because I remember going to a Dream Theater gig and you played the Damnation record in the pause, I think. So we must have met then.

MP: Yeah, I guess so.

MA: Maybe I was drunk. [laughs]

MP: I was sober and I still don't remember. But we were emailing each other before then, I think. Just talking about s***.

MA: Yeah, and then we met like... We haven't met that many times. Like three or four times.

MP: I mean, I went and saw Opeth in Finland, in New York City and then also on Gigantour.

MA: New Jersey, Gigantour.

MP: Right. So, I've seen you guys like three or four times.

MA: Yeah, that's right. The horrible Finnish gig you came to.

MP: You thought that was horrible?

MA: Awww that was s***.

MP: Really?

MA: It was really horrible.

MP: I thought it was amazing. I only saw the second half of the show. We were doing pre-production in Finland for the Octavarium tour, and they were playing. And I only saw the second half of the show and the audience was in a f***in’ trance. You could hear a pin drop. I thought it was intense.

MA: I thought it was maybe because we sucked.

MP: No – no.

MA: We had a lighting guy, like a really nice guy, but it’s just like pitch black all the time and I couldn't see.

MP: I thought it was supposed to be pitch black all the time. I thought that added to the mood. I was like, “Man!” I felt like I was at a show in 1971 seeing Pink Floyd, like the Live At Pompeii period. It was just like you could hear a pin drop.

MA: I hated it. But I remember James came to that show as well, and some of your crew. [fadeout] I can talk forever about [Dream Theater]. I'm trying to keep my cool, but I've been a big fan of Mike and Dream Theater since they dropped their second album. It was a video for ‘Pull Me Under’.

MP: Horrible video. Hate that video.

MA: At the time I just got into Yes, but I was looking for a band like Dream Theater, I guess. That song just blew my head clean off and the singer James had a Napalm Death T-shirt. I was like, “Yeah!” Like [I could] kind of related to, because I was a big Napalm Death fan.

MP: See, James isn't even a Napalm Death fan. I don't think he's ever even heard them. He just happened to put that shirt on that day because Barney was a friend of mine.

MA: He's a big fan, too.

MP: Yeah, Barney was our first metal crossover fan. So James just put that shirt on, but it was amazing how much street credibility that shirt gave us.

MA: Yeah, I was like, “Wow, that's really cool.” Because at the time I was more or less a death metal/black metal head. But I always liked good guitar players. I loved John Petrucci, good musicians overall. I've been looking for a band like that for a long time, I guess. I think we sound the way we do much thanks to you guys actually, to be honest.

MP: That's very cool, man. Thank you.

MA: And I bought every album since, so yeah, I'm a massive fan. What can I say?

MP: That's awesome, because most people hate us. [both laugh] It's all because of Napalm Death's shirt. If it wasn't for that shirt, you would have brushed us off like everyone else.

MA: No, not at all. I really liked that song, and just instantly went out and bought the record.

MP: Did you see us when we played in Sweden on that tour?

MA: Not on that tour. I saw you on the Awake tour.

MP: At Circus?

MA: Yeah.

MP: Oh my God! That was a memorable gig.

MA: I remember James came in and the mic wasn't working. He was just throwing the mic. It was for the song ‘Pull Me Under’.

MP: We opened the show with that. His mic wasn't working and he just threw a f***ing pissy fit. Threw his mic, walked off stage and I remember we stopped.

MA: Yeah, and you came back in and started over again.

MP: I can't believe you were there, man. That was a nightmare.

MA: I was there with a friend of mine and I was like, “Wow, this is...”

MP: And you still like the show even though...

MA: I loved the show. I actually got like almost tears in my eyes. It was such a good, fantastic show. It was one of my favorite, best shows I've ever been to. I really love it. The place is good. The Circus is a very nice venue as well.

MP: Was Fates Warning opening for us? I think they were opening on that tour.

MA: Maybe that was a later tour – Vanden Plas...

MP: Yeah, that was a later tour.

MA: OK, yeah, maybe it was Fates Warning.

MP: The two things I remember about that gig is that. It was a nightmare with the show starting like that, but then also we slept over, parked in the parking lot that night and I got so piss drunk on the bus that night hanging out with Leif Edling. He hung out all night on the bus and that was back in my drinking days, and I remember waking up the next morning. He was like in the parking lot with his clothes off, and he had thrown up outside the bus – it was one of those crazy nights.

MA: Yeah... It was a good show anyway.

MP: It was a good night. I can't believe you were at that show.

MA: Yeah, that was my first Dream Theater gig. If I was home, I went to all the gigs you did in Stockholm.

MP: Was the first time we met at a Sweden Rock Festival or no?

MA: That might have been it actually, now that you mention it.

MP: And wasn't that where you – if I heard the story correctly – isn't that where you met your new guitar player?

MA: Yeah, we met there. I remember, because I had met James just prior to Sweden Rock because we did the Ayreon record. So I might have met you for the first time at Sweden Rock, actually.

MP: That was the first show of the tour, which was also a disaster. You've seen like all the most disastrous shows.

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MP: Dream Theater’s always compared to progressive rock bands and stuff like that. And that's some of my favorite music of all time, but also classic rock. I mean, actually the other Dream Theater guys listen to prog rock bands like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, but they don't really listen to classic rock like I do, like the Beatles and Zeppelin and Cream and Hendrix and the Doors and Procol Harum. That was a big part of my childhood. And then the other Dream Theater guys don't really listen to the more obscure metal stuff like I grew up on. I mean, the classic metal stuff like Priest and old Maiden and old Scorpions and Accept like we were talking about, but also the thrash scene. That's my background.

MA: For me it's basically the same. Heavy metal in Sweden was massive in the early '80s, and I listened to all those bands, like Maiden, Sabbath, Priest. I love guitar players, so I was very much into the Scorpions – Matthias Jabs and Uli Roth and all those guys, Michael Schenker. Yngwie Malmsteen later on. I love him. And basically it was like evolution – you start with whatever classic rock from the ‘70s and then the heavy metal bands of the ‘80s and then go into thrash and speed metal, and somebody played like Bathory. I got into death metal, black metal. That's basically when I started the band, in the late ‘80s. I was very late with prog rock. I didn't get into that until maybe early ‘90s. At the time, I always had like a Venom shirt on, Possessed, that kind of thing. And then got into the whole prog thing and started collecting records and just fell in love with that style of music. I guess that's why I like you so much the first time I heard you, because it was like a combination of everything I'd been listening to up to that point.

MP: It just naturally falls out of us. Me especially listening to all that kind of stuff. I've never hidden my influences. I'm always a huge music fan. I love talking about the music I grew up listening to. But I'm not afraid for it to come out in Dream Theater's music either. To me, Dream Theater was just trying to take all of that stuff and throw it into a melting pot.

MA: It makes sense, being a musician. Sometimes I get surprised with people who are so afraid to play the music that they like to play, which I think is the same for you guys as it is for us. Anything that we come up with, even though it might sound like nothing like we've done before, that's cool as long as it's good. I guess both of us have a lot [to] thank whatever influence the bands that we grew up with.

MP: I think that's a sign of a progressive band. I mean, progressive doesn't have to mean over-technical or long songs. I think one of the elements of a progressive band is that diversity. I think most of Dream Theater's audience and Opeth's audience are open-minded listeners that like Sabbath just as much as they like Pink Floyd. I think a lot of our audience are those type of people.

MA: Yeah, I think the term progressive rock, when they started using that in the late ‘60s or whatever, it was because the band was blending blues, jazz and rock and whatever. And just putting everything into their songs, which, I guess that's why they labeled it that way.

MP: If you look at King Crimson, that's what they were doing. It was psychedelic music, it was blues, it was jazz.

MA: It was like a jazz band. It was like some songs, like it's a jazz song.

MP: So people just called that style progressive, which is basically just everything. And I think that's what Dream Theater and Opeth and so many other of these bands today that have that progressive label – they don't have to sound like Yes or Genesis to be a progressive band. I think a lot of progressive bands are just as influenced by maybe Motorhead or the Ramones. I love the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and that has nothing to do with progressive.

MA: You don't need to be like, just because we're a progressive band, that we can't appreciate the Misfits or something. But I think with Dream Theater, I think you must have been one of the pioneers for the progressive metal type of tag.

MP: I think maybe we were just the first to get lucky to get the acceptance or recognition, because Fates Warning came before us, and Watchtower, and even like Helloween or Mercyful Fate. Mercyful Fate was doing all these time changes and everything. And Queensrÿche. Even early Metallica albums had long songs.

MA: ...And Justice For All.

MP: Yeah! So Dream Theater somehow became the poster boy for this progressive metal sound, but there were certainly many, many others—

MA: I think Maiden was also. I know for a fact that Steve Harris is a big fan of Van Der Graaf Generator.

MP: Jethro Tull...

MA: Yeah, they did covers.

MP: Yeah. They did ‘Cross-Eyed Mary’ and they were doing long songs.

MA: They did a Nektar cover: ‘King Of Twilight’.

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MP: For this tour or the Progressive Nation lineup in general. I mean, the first level is I wanted to do a kind of package tour or festival tour for musician-oriented or progressive-oriented bands. I've been talking about that with my manager and agent for 10 years now, but wanted to do it. And we kept saying, “One day we'll do it, one day we'll do it.” So that was the first level. The second level was that we had been talking about Dream Theater and Opeth doing a tour together – many, many years. Finally, the timing seemed to work out. We were on the road and they had their new album coming out next spring. So the teaming up started with Opeth jumping on to our tour in the spring, it started as just the two of us. And then that's when I went to our manager and said, "Look, we have already us and Opeth together. Let's expand it and get this thing off the ground and actually do the first annual package.” I came up with the name Progressive Nation and picked some other bands that I thought were doing some really cool stuff. And that was kind of the origins of the tour.

MA: It's nice to start promoting our new album and that kind of stuff. It's cool to play the new songs, but it's a big honor for us to play with Dream Theater; as far as I know it's like theater kind of venues which I think is going to be very nice.

MP: Are you guys used to seated venues?

MA: Yeah, we did a tour like that actually.

MP: And your audience is cool with that?

MA: Yeah. Our audience, they're gracious. They might as well sit there.

MP: Well, I know half of your audience loves to just sit and take it in, but then you have the metal part of the audience that wants the mosh pit.

MA: Of course. But to be honest, I appreciate them listening to the songs. A seated audience is not a problem for me. It was like when you’re playing a heavier song or something, and you headbang and you look out expecting to see like a sea people going insane and it’s just like... [quietly gives thumbs up] But it's alright, doesn't matter to me. That's what it used to be back in the day.

MP: Actually, I prefer seated venues because we play so long and I feel bad when I look out into the audience. Even though Dream Theater is only going to do 90 minutes on this tour, the whole show is going to be a very long experience, so you want people to be comfortable. If they have to stand for four and a half, five hours – which in some venues like New York City unfortunately is a standing venue, so it's going to be a long night in some cities – but for the most part the seated venues I think will make the whole experience more comfortable to take in. [fadeout] So two questions: Are you gonna do any or much new material, or are you gonna shift your set to be less heavy or more heavy?

MA: Well, it's one of the things we talked about, because me and Frederik went to see you guys last time you played in Stockholm, and at that time the tour was already done. We were like, "OK, what the f*** should we do?" because you guys are so amazing musicians. I think we're gonna concentrate on brutality, actually.

MP: I was hoping just to have something mellow, ‘cause you're gonna make us sound like wimps.

MA: No, that's the thing, because that's the only thing that we could safely outshine Dream Theater, because I can do the screams. I don't think James can do it.

MP: Oh man, we're in trouble.

MA: So we're gonna do, I think, some of our heaviest songs. We're probably going to play some kind of long songs, but it's no use for us to try and play what we think the musician kind of buffs like. "Oh that sounds complicated," whatever, it's no use. We’re just gonna go for the heavy stuff that you immediately can headbang to.

MP: Are you gonna play much new material from the new album?

MA: Yeah, I think we're playing one song at least – it's a pretty long song. I think we play for an hour or something, so we're doing at least one song. It’s one of the heaviest songs on the new album. We might play more, but we've got nine albums – you want to try and cover... I’m sure you have the same problem. That's why I play so long.

MP: And the album won't be out, right?

MA: No it's out in early June.

MP: So when we do Progressive Nation, it won't have been out yet.

MA: No, probably some snippets out, or maybe it [will have] leaked by this time. But we're trying to cover as many albums as we can.

MP: I know the problem. And you have the same problem as us with such long songs. It's hard.

MA: We don't really need to write setlists. If we play two hours, we play like nine songs.

MP: With us, that's why we ended up doing the ‘Evening with Dream Theater’ for so many years, in order to cover the catalog and you're playing mostly 10, 15 minute songs.

MA: But that must have killed you.

MP: It did. That's why we stopped doing it. That's what we need you guys to come help bail us out.

MA: Yeah, because we did those three hours... It wasn't even three hours, it was like two hours, 45 minutes. It's horrible. And we started with a song from the first album and then worked our way up to the last album, at the time which was Ghost Reveries, and those songs are much more complicated to play. At that time in the set we were like really exhausted, and you're playing the most difficult songs.

MP: Although I find playing the difficult songs later is easier than opening with the most difficult songs.

MA: No, I want to have them like second, third, that kind of stuff. But at the end of the set, [we’re] exhausted.

MP: I know it. We did that for five years.

MA: Yeah, no way.

MP: We just did it in Australia. We just came from Australia and we never toured down there, so we did the ‘Evening with’ for them, just to make up for lost time. We got off stage every night and it's like, “How the f*** did we used to do this every night?” And there's bands like Rush or even The Rolling Stones or whatever play really, really long shows like that. And they're 20 years older than us.

MA: Yeah. But I guess they do a gig and then maybe take a couple of days off or whatever.

MP: I thought their music is a little less intense.

MA: Yeah, I would have to say [playing ‘Satisfaction’ is] probably easier than playing ‘A Change Of Seasons’, right? [laughs]