The Best Of The Best – Reader’s Choice Awards

Mike Mangini

Drummer Of The Year

Runners-Up

• Taylor Hawk ins

• Josh Freese

• Chris Dave

Progressive Rock Drummer Of The Year

Runners-Up

• Neil Peart

• Gavin Harrison

• Marco Minnemann

Interviewed By Dave Constantin

DRUM!: A lot has changed for you over the last few years. What did this past year look like?

Mike Mangini: I’ve been in Dream Theater land, as everyone knows. It’s a big commitment, whether we’re playing together or we’re not, because I want to keep progressing, and there are a lot of things that I haven’t practiced enough to be able to do that have always been in my head. And then each time I achieve something a whole new set of things comes in. It’s almost like a blessing and a curse. There’s never enough time. And when I’m in between Dream Theater land I’m doing the drum clinic thing, or with my family. Or, now, I took up golf within the last year, and that’s become like a disease, in a good way. [laughs]

But Dream Theater finished at the beginning of September last year. We had been going and going and going and going. And every single month off that the band had, I did at least one week’s worth of drum clinics. So I was away from home and my family almost all the time. And when the band finished in early September, [D.T. guitarist] John Petrucci asked me to go on tour with him to South America for the G3 tour. The interesting thing about being in Dream Theater is there’s a ton of downtime. Yeah, we have press things to do, and we all practice a lot, of course, but really, there’s plenty of downtime to be doing stuff in the middle. So it’s just an awesome situation.

D!: You went from being a full-time instructor to full-time rock star with Dream Theater. Was that a difficult transition?

MM: Although I took all the clinics that came in between Dream Theater tours, I was actually more frantic, more busy, and 20-million times as stressed out before joining Dream Theater. Joining Dream Theater relieved me. My life completely took a turnaround. Even people hanging out with me noticed my neck wasn’t as tight. [laughs]

Working at Berklee is extremely great. I mean, really. My colleagues there are fantastic; I’ve always loved teaching; being able to do that at that facility was really really cool. However, working with that job, you still have to supplement your income with another job, and it’s really difficult to nil the time. I resigned at the very end of 2010 when life with Dream Theater started. And my last few months at Berklee were even more stressful than any time in the history of my life, because I was dealing with all the stuff that went along with my lite at that time, and I had to construct a drum set to record the first album with the band. Because I decided I had to go through the entire catalog of ten records to get a sense of how to make a combination of the set that I would be comfortable playing and the set that I would be required to play in order to play ten records of material.

D!: Is that kit still evolving?

MM: Tidbits change. My tech and the different sound engineers were constantly in communication with me. I was constantly asking them questions like, “What about this drumhead combination? What about this? How does it really sound?” And basically I nailed it. After I had recorded A Dramatic Turn Of Events and we went on the road, really nothing has structurally changed on the drums, and nothing really changed when we did this last record. I did change a few cymbals and drumhead types. But pretty much the wisest thing I ever did was to go through that catalog of Dream Theater before settling into my own little spot.

D!: At this point, do you feel that “new drummer smell” has finally washed off and you’re now accepted by fans as the rightful drummer for Dream Theater – as opposed to still being viewed as Mike Portnoy’s replacement?

MM: Absolutely. And the reality of that can be truthfully understood from the people that were there. All of those fans that came out to support the band gave me such an overwhelming amount of support and positivity that it is absolutely, totally, completely mind-blowing to me. Now, I’m discussing that reality rather than a projected reality by a small number of people that didn’t check it out and still had ideas or opinions. But they didn’t even see it. It was the idea in their head that I couldn’t possibly work out. And a lot of people still stick with that. That little struggle is not over. But it will be once this new record comes out. I can say that.

D!: Well, obviously enough of our readers admire your technical skill as being at the pinnacle of the craft. Do you have one signature thing on drums that no one else can do as well as you?

MM: Well, I do, but I do have to have a disclaimer that our drum community is the greatest thing probably on planet Earth. We have something that apparently other instrument communities don’t have at the level we have it, with the camaraderie, the magazines, the festivals, the whole thing. It’s pretty amazing. Because of that, I’m friends with most of my peers. So eventually everybody realizes that each person is in and of themselves special and unique. But, there are skills outside of us all that are attainable by anybody. So, if I were to say that, yes, there’s something that I do that nobody else does, I’m not silly enough to think that nobody else can sit there and just practice to technically do it. But there’s a difference between something being in a person’s heart and not. And what is in my heart is to orchestrate in a completely ambidextrous way on the drum kit.

If I were playing on a 4-piece kit – which I’m totally happy doing, believe me – I would play differently. But true ambidexterity – not just hitting a drum on the left or hitting a pedal – is required to change up the feel. In the stereo image when I switch from the right side of the kit to the left side of the kit, you can feel it. It doesn’t matter if it’s totally audible by somebody who doesn’t know anything about music. But the feeling is there. And in order to do that, my limbs have to have a reflection of being as equal as possible. That’s my calling.

D!: Now that our readers have decided you’re the greatest drummer in the world, what’s next? Disneyland?

MM: [laughs] If I can take the family with me, yes. But really, I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate everybody that supported me. It really is wonderful. I’m just smiling from ear to ear with one piece of good news after another. It really is a great time in my life.