James LaBrie interview

Laura Vähähyyppä: What do you think is your secret, because after such a long career, it seems like [its] even more creative than ever nowadays?

James LaBrie: I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re never short on ideas. The main composers in the band musically – I’m saying the seeds, the riffs, the chordal progressions, everything – a lot of it comes from guitar, it’s a writing instrument; piano, it’s a writing instrument. That’s not to say that us others are not involved, but that has always been the situation with Dream Theater where John and Jordan are with the writing instruments, so a lot of it starts, a lot of it develops there. And then it is the input of the others that also create where and how it ends up being. We all come in with seeds, we all come in with ideas, riffs and everything like that, but I think really it comes down to that we’re never short on ideas. Even with this album, there was so much material that we came in with and it was up on the easel board and it just sat there, and we didn’t do anything with it! We go, “We have it we’ve got it documented so we can go back to it,” but we all know that by the time we go back into the studio to record another album, we’ll have all these new ideas and we’ll gravitate more towards the new ideas than what we had. It just seems to be that’s one of the beauties of this band is that we’ve never sat there and looked at each other, “What do you got?” “I don’t know – what do you got?” It’s never been the situation, so we’re blessed in that sense.

LV: There’s a lot of bands that don’t release albums that often anymore; it’s like five years, six year periods, but with you guys, it’s [a] totally different thing. Do you get bored with the old songs or do you just have [that many] ideas?

JL: You don’t get bored with the old songs. It’s always something that you’re gonna be proud of. A lot of artists [will] say, “When I listen to that song now, there’s things that I would change,” but that’s OK because you keep continuing to grow and you look at things differently and your perspective continuously changes musically. But I think it’s never something where we look back and we go, “Ah you know, ehhh, not proud of that.” It’s always something that you go, “No, we are proud and I stand 100% still behind what we’ve done.” As far as why we continue to want to record and do that, at this point we could probably just say, “Let’s just go out and tour.” People are coming out to hear this album, that album, these songs, these songs. But to us, it’s more than that. The thing that keeps us going, the thing that really inspires us is being able to know that at some point, we’re gonna once again go into the studio and create new music and really throw ourselves into a creative environment, and you feel so invigorated by it. You feel stimulated, you feel alive, and you need that. I think that’s human nature that you constantly need to be challenging yourself and creating something new or you become stagnant; you become complacent, and complacent is evil I think, because that’s not a good place to be.

LV: It seems like now with the self-titled album you find one more level and find new energy. Do you also feel it all or is it just something that...

JL: Well the reason that we thought it was [a good idea to self-title the album] at this point in our career is that’s exactly what was going on: we felt that we had really arrived at a new place as a band. A Dramatic Turn of Events was a transitional period for us, and I think we transcended all areas where people were more or less skeptical, people were really concerned as to whether we could continue to be who we had been, and would we continue to be a band that was still identifiable. So that was the period where we created A Dramatic Turn of Events, which we’re extremely proud of; it was a great album, a great tour, showing that we’re still bringing a great show to the stage, we’re having a lot of fun up here. So when it came to the point where we were about to get into writing and recording a new album, it was, “You know what guys? Now let’s get back to really creating something that we feel really represents a new beginning for us or another chapter or that we’ve walked through a door that can really – to a certain degree, without a shadow of a doubt – show that we are going into something else here, but at the same time maintaining who and what we are musically. I think we did that with the self-titled album. I think musically it’s a real tour de force for us, and it really proves that we’re continuing to evolve, continuing to grow as a band.