Mike Portnoy interview (excerpts)

Used Bin Radio: Part of what’s so fascinating about you as a musician is your relationship that you have with the fans. You’re super in touch, you’re a Twitter freak. I know because I follow you on Twitter. So I feel like I know what you’re doing almost all the time, which I love, actually. I think we probably all grew up in the day of where the rock star was constantly behind the curtain, and now the curtain has fully been removed. So I love that. But you’re big on your own forum, and your fans are just nuts for you, and you seem to give a lot back to your fans.

Mike Portnoy: Well, I’ve always put a tremendous emphasis on that interaction and that relationship with the fans way before the internet. In the mid-80s when Dream Theater was just starting out, I was the one that always answered all the fan mail, and I was the one that always sent the demos to the metal magazines and did the tape trading circuit. I was always that guy. And as the band developed and as time developed, I kept taking it to new levels. I was the one that always oversaw the fan clubs and the websites and the official bootlegs and changing the setlist and doing the special gigs and the special shows and the special performances with different covers and things like that. I always ran Dream Theater for the fans because I was always a big fan myself, and I always knew what I wanted my favorite fans to do. So I always did that even before the internet. But then once the internet came around, it blew it open to a whole new level of interaction.

I remember in the late 90s reading the Ytsejam digest and staying on top of what the fans were saying and what the fans were wanting. Then came the forums on the websites and on my site and on the Dream Theater site. I became very interactive with that. Then obviously in the last five or ten years or whatever with social media and Facebook and Twitter I took to it like a fish in water. It was something that just totally suited my personality and the way that I love to interact with the fans. Not to say that it’s always been great because, first of all, a lot of my openness online has stirred s*** up and got me in trouble when I was just innocently trying to share things with the fans or be open with the fans. Sometimes something that I’ll innocently write on my website or on my Twitter will suddenly be taken out of context and blown up into a headline that just pisses people off and makes me look like an a****** or a bad guy. I’m just trying to share and be open with the fans. So there’s been situations like that where my openness in those forums has been a bad thing.

And the other side of the coin is I’m able to read what everybody says, and I take that stuff to heart. I want the fans to be happy and I want the fans to enjoy what’s going on. And when I feel a lot of the negativity and the bitching and the moaning and the witch hunts that go on with some of these websites, it makes me insane. It makes me crazy. I may read 99 great comments, but it’s always that one that totally gets to me and hurts me or saddens me. So it’s kind of dangerous in that respect, too. And I’ve learned, especially in the past year and a half, that I’m a much happier, serene person when I don’t read that crap. And for the last 25 years or so, it’s been very important for me to hear the fans and see what the fans have to say. But there’s a certain danger in that at this level, when it’s that easy for people to write nasty things. There’s a lot of 12-year-old kids sitting in their parents’ basements that are using their computers as weapons. And they just write the nastiest things about their favorite musicians. So I try to take it all with a grain of salt and do my best to be productive and positive and serve the fans as best as possible, but at the same time, don’t revolve my life around it.

UBR: I read your forum. I’m on there. I post every once in a while. Most of the people on there love their music and they love the stuff that you do. But there really is a certain group that are just a******. I think you handle it pretty well for the most part. I wanted to share this story because there is some nastiness on there, but some of the good stuff. Rafael Faria from Brazil had posted on the forum a picture of his collection of your stuff, and you had responded with, “Maybe Santa needs to come early ‘cause you’re missing some stuff.” And sure enough, when he was in New York, there’s a photo of a bunch of stuff he was missing. All the CDs and DVDs, you brought them and you hand delivered them and took photos with the guy. And I just don’t think that happens very often. And that’s the beautiful thing about your relationship with your fans, is you get to see stuff like that.

MP: Well, the fans mean so much to me. They really, really do. As dangerous as Twitter and Facebook could be, like I just said, I really am grateful to have it. I love reading the positive things and I love when the fans are nice and genuinely enthusiastic and positive about what’s going on. So that’s why I do it. I really do.

UBR: One of the things you brought up earlier was the official bootlegs and the Ytsejam website, which has been pretty much dormant. So I just wanted to see, was there any possibility of getting that going, maybe doing Flying Colors demos or Adrenaline Mob live shows or that kind of thing?

MP: Well, I’m not at liberty to utilize Ytsejam for anything of my own, but my work ethic and my love for providing for the fans is not going to change no matter what band I’m in. So that same enthusiasm and passion and drive that I drove Dream Theater with for all those years will apply to everything I do. And I think it’s pretty evident already. I mean, if you look at the amount of gigs and products and DVDs and CDs that I’ve been working on in the past year and a half, there’s at least a dozen different bands that I’ve worked with and made things available from. So I will continue to do and provide for the fans with everything I do.

UBR: Do you have every show that you play – do you record?

MP: I do. I mean, I don’t have the very, very early ones, like the ones in the eighties and stuff. I didn’t have the technology to record. But basically, from the Images And Words tour forward, I pretty much have every live recording, every studio session everything I’ve done with every band and every project.

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UBR: One other place I wanted to shift gears to for just a second is your sobriety. In particular, I know on the Dream Theater records you had put different various pieces of the ‘12-Step Suite’. Is that something you would ever consider playing live? Maybe on the anniversary of your sobriety or something like that?

MP: Well, it was always my intention to connect the five songs and play it live in its entirety. It was my intention to do it with Dream Theater, and I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. After I finished the steps 10, 11, and 12 on the Black Clouds album, we were doing the Progressive Nation tour, and obviously that wasn’t a long enough set to do it. So I was planning on doing it on the next Dream Theater world tour, but obviously we know how that played out. So it’s just sitting there on the shelves now. I’m very thankful that I got to at least finish the writing of it and complete all five songs and all 12 chapters. I still would love to perform it in its entirety one day from start to finish, because that was always the intention. That was always the way it was written and meant to be performed. So it’s something that I still hope to do in my lifetime. We’ll see.

UBR: So you didn’t think that the Maiden tour was a good place to do the ‘12-Step Suite’?

MP: No, no. It wasn’t even long enough – that was just a 45-minute set. It actually would have been very fitting because it’s f***ing some of the heaviest stuff in the Dream Theater catalog. So it actually would have been great, but it was too conceptual. For me, the last set of lyrics I wrote with Dream Theater were ‘The Shattered Fortress’ and ‘The Best Of Times.’ And there was so much closure with those being the last two sets of lyrics I wrote with Dream Theater – finishing the ‘12-Step Suite’, and then also being able to write that song for my father. You know, those two songs really gave me so

much lyrical closure that I wouldn’t be surprised if I never wrote another lyric again, to be honest with you, just because I feel like that said it all. It was just a great place to finish for me.

UBR: Right. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Pretty heavy stuff.

MP: Thank you. Well, I mean, those lyrics – and also ‘The Best Of Times,’ just because I just mentioned it – those are examples where songs go beyond just being songs. I mean, those are moments in my life that will transcend music and a song on an album. The experience I had with ‘The Best Of Times’ and sharing that with my dad at his bedside before he died, that was a life-changing experience. And writing about the 12 steps and being able to share that with other people around the world that are struggling with addiction and being able to reach them and share my struggles with them. Those aren’t just lyrics. That’s not just, “Let’s get up and party.” Those are things that are pouring your heart and soul out there and trying to really make a difference, at least in my own life. In those cases, those were songs and lyrics that transcended music for me. Those were life experiences that are now forever written down and shared.