Terry Date interview (excerpt)

Episode 192 (beginning at 37 minutes in)

(transcribed by TMW)

Focus on Metal: When you got hooked up with Dream Theater, did you feel like that was a little bit of a stretch thing – a little bit different than what you had been doing, with the kind of the prog aspect of that band, or were you ready to dive into something like that?

Terry Date: I had always been a fan of prog. That type of metal, I’ve always loved. Getting back to what we talked about with time signatures, I went out there for a couple weeks before we did the record to hear rehearsals. I was staying with Mike Portnoy during that time. During the day before we rehearsed, I recognized the music was very complicated, so I said “Mike, we got some time to kill here. Why don’t you just give me some time signatures for these songs, so that I can write some of this stuff down so that I can keep track a little bit.” And he goes “OK. Measure one is 7/8, measure two is 3/4...” <laughs> Every measure was a different time signature. And I was like “oh forget it! Let’s just go do it!” <laughs> But that was a lot of fun. We did that at the same studio in Philadelphia that I did [Metal Church’s] Blessing in Disguise. We did them back-to-back. I can’t remember which one came first. We did that first Dream Theater record in three weeks – record and mix. For as complex as that thing was, it still kind of blows me away at how fast we did that record.

FoM: It’s just as well they can play!

TD: I know! When you get guys that can play well, it makes my job way, way, way easier. It’s really a matter of just catching a moment at that point.

FoM: Were you surprised – obviously you talk about being a fan of prog, so you know that a lot of prog bands usually have a very niche fan base. So were you really surprised at how broadly accepted that album was when it came out?

TD: I don’t know if I’m ever surprised anymore. Cause some records that I think are gonna be really big don’t make it. And some that I think are gonna be a niche project find popularity. I’m really never surprised anymore. I just try to make the record to where we’re all happy with it and let everything else fall into place. But I was very happy for them. I mean they are really talented, nice guys. So I was really, really happy that it did get out there and do well. I think the second record they did might have been the one that really broke them out. I’ve always been a big believer that you build your fanbase slowly and then they stay with you for a long time. So by putting that first record out – it may not have gone out and tore up the charts or anything – but by doing that, they built themselves a really strong, loyal fanbase so that anything they did after that, their fanbase would always buy.