Dream Theater’s LaBrie Eyes Grammy

25 Jan 2014

TORONTO — The script for Hollywood award nominees is well-established: conjure endless gratitude, praise the competition and always, always downplay the importance of winning. Well, James LaBrie — the Canadian frontman of U.S. metal institution Dream Theater — doesn’t play by the rules.

Because on the occasion of the band’s second Grammy nomination in three years for best metal performance, he’s honest in his hope for a trophy.

“I think we feel that we have a very, very strong possibility of clinching the Grammy,” he said recently down the line from Pamplona, Spain, where the band was preparing for a concert. “I’m thinking positive and I think we have a really, really strong chance of winning.”

How about the competition, which includes Anthrax, Killswitch Engage and heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath?

“I think our only formidable force against us would be Black Sabbath,” LaBrie responds. “They’ve been around for 40 years plus.”

Part of LaBrie’s confidence might be informed by the specific song nominated. The Enemy Inside, from the band’s self-titled 12th album, is a barrage of blistering riffs and drum shellac. It’s also an empathetic look at posttraumatic stress disorder in soldiers returning home from war.

The nightmarish music video depicts a disoriented former soldier, his face pixelated, sprinting around a bleak cityscape while glancing furtively all around him.

“The more people who are aware of people who are psychologically affected or ill from the conflicts of war, the better,” LaBrie said. “We realize just what it is that we are putting these brave men and women through. And not only on the battlefield, but postwar, when they come home they’re changed people. … They can never be who they once were. It’s impossible.

“You start reading about it and it’s pretty horrible,” he added. “War in itself is just absolutely ludicrous.”

LaBrie joined the Massachusetts metal institution back in 1991. (Coincidentally, he notes, he flew down from his Toronto area home to New York for an audition on the same day the U.S. launched Operation Desert Storm.) When the band offered him the role of lead singer — Charlie Dominici had been the band’s original vocalist — he enthusiastically accepted, on one condition.

“I said, awesome. I’m totally into it. I think this band is amazing. But one thing I need to establish: I’m not moving down here. I’m staying in Toronto. That’s where I want to be. That’s where I’m from.”

It’s required LaBrie to commute via plane to the band’s New York headquarters. When they’re recording or rehearsing, he’ll stay for the week and return home on the weekend. But he said it’s a necessary sacrifice for his family. And he just prefers living in Canada. “I’ve been around the world about 13 times now, and there’s so many incredible, beautiful, phenomenal places that exist on our planet,” he said. “But still, I love to go back to the Toronto area.” LaBrie brought his wife and teenage son and daughter to his first Grammys. His son arrived in L.A. with the goal of meeting dubstep producer Skrillex, a wish he surprisingly fulfilled during a chance encounter at the airport.

The day after Dream Theater’s last Grammys — they lost out to Foo Fighters — LaBrie and the band had to hop on a flight to Zurich, where the jet-lagged lads had to be “jacked up on several espressos” to get through a show that evening.

Again in the midst of a European tour, this year they’ll skip the Grammys to preserve their sanity, but watch from afar.