Mike Portnoy interview (excerpts)

The future of Liquid Tension Experiment

MP: Well, right now there’s no plans for any new Liquid Tension Experiment music. The four of us had an amazing time of reuniting for those live shows in 2008, so I think the four of us are all open to working together again in the future whether it be live or in the studio. It’s just a matter of timing and the circumstances being right

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Your house as a rock museum

MP: I wouldn’t say my house is like a museum; my basement is like a museum. The rest of my house is my wife’s. [laughs] My wife is very much into decorating and having a normal, beautiful home. So the whole rest of the house looks like a beautiful home that you’d see on MTV Cribs, but then you go in through the basement, and suddenly it turns into like the Hard Rock Cafe. It’s just memorabilia everywhere, drum sets, autographed pictures, tens of thousands of CDs and DVDs, and archives and magazines and books. So yeah, my basement is definitely like a museum.

The need to improve on drumming

MP: Of course as a drummer, I always see room for improvement. I wish I had more time to practice like I used to when I was younger, but my life is just very different now. My professional life is so incredibly busy. I’m always touring or in the studio. And then my personal life is so full with my wife and my two children who I don’t spend enough time with as it is that I don’t get to practice drums like I used to when I was younger. I see all of the drummers today just have these unbelievable techniques, whether they be technical players like Thomas Lang, or if they be death metal drummers that have this unbelievable speed. All of that inspires me and intimidates me, even. I wish I had the time and focus to really continue to pursue getting better because I know there’s so much more out there. But I am what I am; I’m happy with what I am and who I am, and I know my place in the evolution of drumming. I know there’s drummers out there today that can play circles around me and I’m all right with that. I’m not trying to be the best drummer in the world. I kind of have a place in the evolution of and history of drums. In the early 90s or so, I played a part in bringing progressive music and metal and all that kind of stuff together. It’s all evolution and there would be no Mike Portnoy if it wasn’t for Ringo Starr and Keith Moon. Evolution goes on and now there’s drummers today that are just taking these progressive ideas and these metal techniques and taking them to whole new levels that are unbelievable and totally inspiring.

About writing lyrics

MP: Lyric writing for me, to be honest with you, came more out of necessities and passion. When Kevin left the band, I felt I would kind of pick up the slack and start writing some more lyrics, and now through the last 15 years or so I guess I’ve written a few dozen sets of lyrics with Dream Theater. And I’m proud of what I’ve written it’s been very therapeutic for me to write the ‘12 Step Suite’ and to have written a song to my father and written a song for my mother with ‘A Change of Seasons’ and also to have written everything from soft, gentle songs about my children like with ‘Goodnight Kiss,’ too angry hate-filled songs like ‘Honor Thy Father.’ It’s been very therapeutic for me to have all these different outlets lyrically, but to be honest with you, it’s not my biggest passion. It’s very possible I may not even write lyrics anymore for the next Dream Theater records and beyond. I’ve been telling John Petrucci for many years now, “You write all the lyrics. I don’t feel the need to.” I wear so many different hats in the band; that’s one hat I could easily just get rid of and concentrate on other things. And I know John Petrucci would love to be the sole lyricist. I mean I know he loves writing lyrics. So now with my ‘12 Step Suite’ behind me, it’s very possible I might be done, at least for now.

Myung get back to writing

MP: A lot of fans keep asking for John Myung to write lyrics, and for some reason I get criticized as if I’m holding him back, but that’s not the case. I keep encouraging them to write lyrics. Me and John Petrucci together many years ago asked that anybody that writes lyrics in the band bring them in a prepared manner, the way that we do, and John Myung’s always brought just kind of loose ends. Kevin or John Petrucci or myself would have to tie them together and make lyrics out of them. That’s just his style and I would love for John to continue to contribute, but that’s for him to decide not us.

Missing playing another music genre

MP: No, I feel very fulfilled. Just this year alone, I’m playing with four different bands and they’re all very different from each other. I started the year with Hail, which is just like classic metal and thrash, small drum set up, double bass, just full-on Motorhead, Slayer, Metallica, Maiden, Priest. That was one side of me. And then you have Transatlantic doing something that’s not metal at all; it’s completely classic rock, prog. All five of us are singing live. So this is very much another kind of playing. Then I’ll be back with Dream Theater next month on the road with Iron Maiden. Dream Theater’s all about technique and progressive metal and chops. And then I’m gonna be on the road with Avenged Sevenfold, which is a whole other thing; a younger generation and more of today’s contemporary metal and pop type of sensibility. So in all these cases, I’m doing different things, and I have a love for so many styles of rock and metal. It could be anything from King Diamond and Mercyful Fate all the way to Radiohead and Muse, and I’m just a fan of good music, and I try to do different things with what I do with my career as well.

Imagine that the next Dream Theater album would be the last

MP: Strangely hypothetical question, because hopefully the next Dream Theater record won’t be the last as you’re asking. I think Dream Theater can be making records for the rest of our lives. Every time we make a record, we want it to be the best it could be. You never know if it’s going to be a last record, so you always want to put everything you’ve got into it. Whether the next Dream Theater record or 20 years from now, or the way it’s been for the last 10 years, any time we make a record, we want it to have the three essential ingredients of progressive, metal and melodic. We want it to be heavy and have balls and be cutting edge in terms of aggression and heaviness. We want it to be progressive, we want to have a lot of odd time signatures and movements and twists and turns and stuff that’s very epic. And then we also want it to be melodic; we want to have songs that sometimes are softer, sometimes are big and anthemic, but all the time very memorable and hummable and melodic. That’s always been the formula for Dream Theater – those three elements – and that’s not going to change whether it’s the next album or ten albums from now. That’s going to always be the focus of what we put into our albums.