Mike Portnoy interview (excerpt)

note: podcast has more than YT link

Mark Strigl: Dream Theater has been known to do sometimes entire albums of covers; any plans to do that with Dream Theater again?

Mike Portnoy: There’s no plans for that now. That was a tradition that I came up with where if we do two nights in the same city when we were doing the ‘Evening With’ tours. If there were two nights in the same city, the second night we would cover a classic album. We did Master Of Puppets, Number Of The Beast, Dark Side Of The Moon and Deep Purple’s Made In Japan. As of now, there’s no ‘Evening With’ tours in the works, but if and when there are in the future, then yeah, the tradition will continue.

John Ostronomy: Speaking of Number of the Beast, you’re out with Iron Maiden right now. Were all the members of Dream Theater Maiden fans?

MP: Some more so than others. Myself, John Petrucci John Myung are the three founders of Dream Theater, and when we formed the band 25 years ago, Maiden was like the blueprint that we were born out of. Really, when we formed Dream Theater, we wanted to be a cross between Maiden and Rush. That was what our goals were with the sound of Dream Theater. So for the three of us especially, it’s totally a dream come true; they’re absolutely one of our biggest influences.

JO: You guys started the band up at Berklee in ‘85; how long did you stay at Berklee?

MP: We were at Berklee for one year/two semesters; ‘85 into ‘86, and we met each other within the first couple weeks of school. Well, I met them – those two were up there together – and I met them, and we formed Dream Theater and basically spent the year there playing every single day. We would get the rehearsal rooms. You could only get two hours at a time with those. So we would actually wake up in the morning to reserve those rooms, each of the three of us, to get a six-hour block, and we did it every day. After spending a year there and really getting to know each other and forming the nucleus of Dream Theater, we decided to just pursue that dream, and we left Berklee after two semesters.

JO: Well, it worked out perfectly. I was going to ask you, now, you have to bring in your own gear in those rooms. I don’t know if people know that, but me as a drummer, it was insane. Every time you went to the practice, you had to lug your kit down and then set it up, and then when you’re done, you break it down and take it back to your room again.

MP: It was the only time in the history of my drumming career that I did that. Obviously now I have a drum tech that’s been with me for 20 years, but even before Berklee, back in the early days of junior high school when I was in my first cover band, there were always kids that wanted to help out. But that year at Berklee, for us to rehearse every day, we had to move the drums in, set them up, play, break them down, move them out – every day. And we had a routine. Like me, John, and John would go for dinner at TJ’s at 5 o’clock. We’d eat dinner, and then they’d come by with their little rolling cart by my room, and we’d load up the drums and move into E19. And we had the same room every day for a year.

MS: I wanted to ask you – at one point, you said, “At this point Dream Theater definitely does not need to open for anybody,” but you’ve chosen to do the Maiden tour, which is I’m sure partly just simply because you respect Maiden so much. Is that the case?

MP: Absolutely. We’ve been doing this for a long time now, and we’ve made a career out of headlining and doing it our ways. And throughout this 25-year career, we’ve only been an opening band twice before this; we did a tour with Deep Purple in ‘98 and we did the tour with Yes in 2004. So we really made a career out of doing it our way, but I’ve always said, “There were still three bands on that wish list, and if we got the call, we’d pack up and go.” And it was Maiden, Metallica and Rush – those are the three remaining bands we would absolutely change all of our plans for to tour with. We weren’t planning on touring at this point of the album cycle; we were planning on being done, but when Maiden calls, you pack up your bags and you go.

MS: And you are staying so busy – the Avenged Sevenfold record is coming out at the end of this month, July 2010, and you will be going right out on the road with them, is that correct?

MP: Yeah. It’s crazy. I’m doing this whole tour with Dream Theater and Maiden, and it ends July 20th, and then I begin rehearsals with Avenged Sevenfold July 21st. So literally the next day, and then I head out with them for the rest of the year. It’s crazy – I’m doing this whole North American tour with Maiden and Dream Theater, and then I’m gonna go out and do it like practically the same exact venues all over again; it’s gonna be like Groundhog Day for me.

MS: What was it like working with those guys? Obviously young guys, different style of music...

MP: Different style of music in some respect; I mean, those guys are younger and they’re way more mainstream than Dream Theater, at least here in America in terms of their career. They’re great musicians and they have a lot of that kind of shredding side to the band, so it may not be as unnatural as some people may think. I mean, at least Jimmy and Matt (the Rev and M. Shadows) are huge Dream Theater fans, so it was more of a natural fit than some people may think on the surface. It was an amazing experience because of the emotional aspect of it. [It was] only a few weeks after the Rev’s funeral and they were obviously still in serious mourning, and they had never played with another drummer before; they’d been together since like grade school, so for them to be in the studio with another drummer was a big adjustment and an emotional experience for them. For me, it was an honor to be chosen to come in and do something like that in such an emotional situation. After a couple days of getting comfortable and just getting past that nervous feeling that they were going through, then it all fell into place and we hit it off great. Musically, we locked perfectly and I’m happy with the way the album came out. And personally, we totally hit it off. It was an experience that really bonded us; it was more than just a recording session for me. It was an emotional experience.

MS: Cool. And then you’re going to come off the road with them. I was reading Dream Theater is already talking about another record that you would start recording early next year?

MP: Hmmm... We’re gonna take it one step at a time here. I gotta finish off 2010 before I think of 2011. So we’ll see what happens.

JO: Since we’re talking about recording a new album, I like that you guys don’t sit and come up while you’re on tour with new stuff. You wait until you get into the studio, and then you start the writing process. I think that’s cool.

MP: Dream Theater’s always been collaborative writers. We’ve never been the type of band where one person comes in with finished songs or even finished ideas for that matter. We’ve always gotten together and jammed and that’s the way this band has written since the Berklee days 25 years ago and that formula has never changed. The way we do it now– I think like five out of the last six Dream Theater albums we basically moved into a recording studio empty-handed, nothing written; we just move in and set up shop, and write and record simultaneously. We’ll write a song, and when the song is done, we’ll get right into recording it while it’s fresh, while we’re inspired, and while the vision and the focus is there, we tackle it.

JO: BearTracks is one of the studios that you record at, right? Where is that?

MP: BearTracks is in Rockland County, New York. We’ve done, I think, four or five albums there. And then they closed a few years ago, as so many professional studios.

JO: The Hit Factory, where you recorded?

MP: Yeah, we closed BearTracks. We closed the Hit Factory. So we were kind of like a nightmare. When somebody sees Dream Theater moving in, they think we’re the kiss of death. But quite the contrary, we’re actually one of the few bands these days that still does it that way. We’ve done our last couple albums at Avatar here in New York City.

JO: On this tour, you guys are doing a little bit of a shorter set and you’re not doing some of the tunes that you would normally do on a headlining Dream Theater tour. Tell us how you picked the tunes that are on this?

MP: When we do a normal Dream Theater tour, I always write a setlist that is completely aimed at our fans. I look at every setlist from a particular city. So when we play New York, I’ll look at what we played in New York the previous two or three times, and I’ll write a setlist that’s completely different that doesn’t repeat anything. However the purpose of this tour with Maiden is – and I say this with all due respect to our fans – that we’re not aiming this setlist at our fans; we’re aiming this setlist at Maiden fans, and we’re trying to make some new fans out of their fan base. So I wrote a setlist for this tour that’s the same every night. I just basically thought of what would be the ultimate setlist to grab these people and have them get a crash course in the metal side of Dream Theater. And I wrote a six song setlist which basically is all of the hits that never were but all the hits that should have been: ‘A Rite Of Passage,’ ‘Constant Motion,’ ‘Pull Me Under’; the stuff that’s a little bit more accessible and a lot more metal.

MS: Are you doing ‘Panic Attack’?

MP: Yeah ‘Panic Attack’ – actually, strangely enough has become one of our most popular songs as a result of it being in Rock Band 2. But for so many years, we lived in the shadow ‘Pull Me Under,’ and that was our only hit. For so many years, we lived in the shadow of ‘Pull Me Under’, and that was our only hit. But now because of Rock Band 2, [‘Panic Attack’ is] like our number one most downloaded song on iTunes, because kids know the song from that.

MS: I was gonna say you’re reaching a new generation of fans.

MP: Yeah, absolutely.

MS: ...who then go on to discover hopefully your other music.

JO: I wanted to ask you about the Transatlantic project; are you doing any more stuff with them this year?

MP: Well, the rest of my years is gonna be with Avenged Sevenfold. I just did do two months of touring with Transatlantic in between the Dream Theater tours. Transatlantic is real old-school prog quote unquote supergroup guys from different prog bands. I put that project together just to pay tribute to that side of what I love. I love so many different kinds of music, but that’s a big side of me as well. And we did three albums through the years, and we just did a two-month tour.

JO: You had mentioned in previous interviews that for a while, some people weren’t think [prog] was that cool and now all these bands, like Mastodon or Muse, everybody is doing it now, and it’s a cool thing. But you guys stuck to it and just did it.

MP: We’ve been prog all along. We’re not jumping on the prog bandwagon. We’ve been waving that flag proudly for over 20 years now and we were never ashamed to admit it. We are prog from the beginning. We formed this band because we were trying to fill that void. All of our favorite prog bands like Yes, Rush, Genesis in the mid-80s when we formed, they were doing five-minute pop songs, so we wanted to hear those 15 minute epics with this crazy musicianship, and we also wanted to have that metal edge because we were listening to Maiden and Priest and Sabbath. So that’s where Dream Theater formed, but we’ve always been proud to be prog.

MS: Speaking of prog, any plans to continue ProgNation?

MP: Well, Progressive Nation was a package that I assembled, and it was basically a response to try to get a lot of different progressive bands from different sides of the music and metal world. A band like Opeth is progressive, and a band like Bigelf is progressive, but yet they sound nothing like each other. So we’ve done two runs through the States now, and it is something I hope to continue in the future. But that being said, I know a lot of our fans miss the big, long Dream Theater show as well. So in a perfect world, we can alternate; maybe do one round of an Evening With Dream Theater and then one round with Progressive Nation and in a perfect world, be able to do both sides.

MS: Now you composed a 12-step epic symphony, would you call it?

MP: [laughs] Sure!

MS: It was in honor or in tribute to Bill W. Is that ever going to come out? And can you talk a little bit about who Bill W. actually is? It’s not Bill Ward, I’m assuming.

MP: No. [laughs] Bill W. is the guy that founded Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been clean and sober for over 10 years now. It changed my life. I had a drinking problem and an addictive personality. God bless the people that can do it in moderation, but I never was able to do it in moderation. I needed to get clean and sober in order to be sitting here with you today. Once I did, the 12 steps were a huge part of my life – and are a big part of my life – and I wanted to write about it. And I didn’t think I could kind of cover such a big topic in one song. So I had this idea of breaking it up over the course of many albums and writing a song about the first three steps and then the fourth and fifth step and then the sixth and seventh step and having it over the course of several albums and have these songs that would ultimately interconnect when the whole big piece was done. And it took five albums and almost 10 years to complete the five chapters that will ultimately come together to create all 12 steps, and hopefully someday we’ll perform them in its entirety on stage.