Mike Portnoy interview (excerpt)

Don Jamison: Well you won a few awards recently for drumming. It’s been a good year for you.

Mike Portnoy: It’s been a good year, yeah.

Eddie Trunk: But it’s been a conflicted year, because obviously the band that you are synonymous with that was your band, Dream Theater, made a lot of news when it... well, you’re not in the band anymore. So some time’s passed since the announcement. They’ve moved on, you’ve moved on, you’ve got other things going on. But how are you feeling these days about the whole thing?

MP: How I feel about that is, it’s sad for me. How I feel about where I’m at now, I’m excited, so it’s mixed feelings. You know the story, but just to quickly rehash it...

ET: You should because I don’t think people are totally clear, because did you quit? Were you fired? I mean I think it’s important to distinguish that because I don’t think everybody really has a handle on it.

MP: The quick Reader’s Digest version is, as any musician will tell you, being in a band is like being in a marriage. But actually being in a band is like four marriages – you’re not married to one person, you’re married to four people.

DJ: So you’re like a Mormon basically? [lots of laughs]

MP: Yeah. So like any marriage, you go through bumps, and I’ll just say that I think we could have used a break, because 25 years without a break is a long time. I can’t name any bands that have been together 25 years boom-boom-boom write-record-tour, write-record-tour, without taking a break. And I love the guys – we’re brothers and it was really hard for me to even suggest it. I love the baby – Dream Theater is my baby, it’s my child – but sometimes a marriage stays together for the sake of a child and not necessarily the sake of the relationship. I’ll always love the baby. I guess I kind of fell out of love with a couple little wives. And I just want to say that I didn’t want to leave the band. I said, “Look, 25 years is a long time. Let’s just take a year or two and then come back together. The fans would be excited, we would be refreshed,” and they didn’t want to wait. So I either had to go unwillingly and start the next record or step aside.

ET: But you played in Avenged Sevenfold during the downtime from Dream Theater, before you were out of the band, so do you think that played a role that during the downtime that you were out playing with someone else and they’re like, “We’re ready to work”?

MP: Well, I mean that could have played into them not wanting to wait anymore, but the fact of the matter is when I was playing with Avenged, Dream Theater had just finished up 14 months. And after a 14-month tour we’ll always take a few months off, but I was talking about a year or so, and Avenged played no part in my decision. To be completely honest, I had been thinking about it for a while. The writing was kind of on the wall internally. There were two moments of clarity for me that happened before this went down that I knew that maybe it was time for a break. One was I was out one night in New York with you guys. I was out when Fozzy played...

DJ: Oh great! It’s our fault now! [laughs]

ET: Here comes the Dream Theater hate mail!

MP: No, but one of the nights we were out, we went and saw Jericho our good friend, and the Avenged guys were there with us that night, and the Anthrax guys were there, and Vinnie Paul was there, we went for dinner with Jericho, and Bumblefoot, the ZO2 guys... I went for dinner with all these guys, and you guys are some of my closest friends – you guys and Jericho and the Anthrax guys. And I looked around and I said, “None of the Dream Theater guys really know any of these people who are my best friends!” I was like, “Man, I guess I’ve really grown apart – I have a whole different circle that I move in.” And the other moment was, it was the very last show of the Dream Theater tour, we were in Tokyo. We just spent 14 months on the road. It was the last show of the tour and we had a band and crew dinner at the hotel after the show. We’re all feeling sentimental, it’s the end of a run – the band, the crew, everyone’s tight. And without naming names, one of the band members showed up to dinner with headphones and an iPod, and sat at the entire dinner listening to his iPod rather than socializing with us. And I said to myself, “Something’s gotta change.” I thought the band needed a shake-up, I just didn’t think it was going to be removing myself that was gonna do it!

Jim Florentine: Do you see any scenario at all maybe going back one day?

MP: Yeah. Whether or not that’ll happen, I don’t know. It’s up to them really. I would absolutely love to be reunited with the guys in a couple of years, but who knows what’s going to happen with them now, so really it’s up to them and where they go. In the meantime, I really don’t want people to think that I’m lingering on this – I’m only answering it because you’ve asked me.

ET: Well it’s an important topic.

JF: This is like the Oprah metal show. We needed to have you out here. We thought you might cry, but obviously you’re not gonna. [lots of laughs] But no, we just wanted you to get your story out, cause there’s always stuff on the internet and all this stuff...

ET: And that’s an active community for Dream Theater and Mike...

MP: It’s been difficult for me to even talk about this, and people think – because there’ll be Blabbermouth headlines – I’ll pour out my heart and soul trying to explain this so people understand, and yet these websites will reduce it to a shocking blurb, just trying to strike up controversy. The reality is, this is a heartbreaking thing for me, and I miss and love those guys, and that was my band 25 years. So it’s a hard thing for me to stand back and see without me. I used to joke with those guys all the time. I was like, “Guys, if I die in a plane crash, don’t go on without me! Don’t say ‘He would have wanted us to continue!’” [lots of laughs] I used to say, “That’s basically saying ‘Well he’s completely replaceable.’” So I used to joke about that all the time. So now when I see Dream Theater without me, I gotta be honest, it breaks my heart. There’s the Blabbermouth blurb right there! Oh God, I’m doomed! [lots of laughs]