Originally published in Groove Portal.it · December 2012
Peter Wildoer interview (excerpt)
Interview2 min read
Hi Peter and welcome on GroovePortal, first of all i would like to talk about your experience during the Dream Theater auditions:
Hey Emiliano and thanks for having me here. The Dream Theater audition was absolutely amazing! I got an email from James [LaBrie] and he asked me if I was interested in auditioning for DT. Of course I was! Some week later I got all info and a list with the drummers. I just laughed when I saw the other drummer’s names. They are all the top elite of heavier contemporary drumming and to be a part of that list was mind blowing. I then spent about a month to prepare by learning the songs and just overall working on technique, stamina and speed. I wanted to be the best I could of course.
I was so freaking nervous when we got to New York two days prior to the audition for me. One goal for my trip was to at least meet with Virgil Donati who is one of my favorite drummers and I’m so very inspired by his dedication to the craft of drumming. When he called me on my hotel room and asked me to come hang with him I was stoked. Very cool! I also “spied” on Mike Mangini when he arrived at his audition but I didn’t dare to go there to say hi.
The actual audition was very cool. My wife and I arrived at S.I.R. Studios and had a warm welcome by the guys in DT, their manager and his wife and everybody else who was there (film team, techs etc.). All in all I think there were about 20 people in the room and that made me even more nervous, hahahha. I had enough time to set up the drums the way I wanted, did some warm up and then we started with a jam. I kind of had to remind myself that I was jamming with DT! We then went through the three songs (A nightmare to remember, Dance of eternity and The spirit carries on). That went really well and the tension was gone after the first minute of the first song |A nightmare to remember].
After that they played me some ideas that was really progressive with lots of odd meters etc. If was VERY hard but I kind of got my head around it after a while and they were happy. After that we did an interview and just had a great hang an Petrucci said that I had to stay to have the best pizza in New York and so we did. All in all it was a fantastic experience and I had the time of my life.