Mike Portnoy interview

Graham Hartmann: It’s Wikipedia fact or fiction time with Mr. Mike Portnoy. Thank you so much for coming, man.

Mike Portnoy: My pleasure.

GH: That’s awesome that we actually heard that you’re actually fan of the series, so that’s like such a cool honor for me. It’s awesome to have you here. So obviously you know how works, so let’s get into it, shall we? You’re born Michael–

MP: That’s true. I was born.

GH: Born, ok, yes. That’s one more than usual. You were born Michael Stephen Portnoy.

MP: That is correct. Stephen with a “p-h.”

GH: Yeah, that’s how they got it. Alright fact. Your father worked as a DJ at a local radio station and this helped you gain an appreciation for music at an early age.

MP: Absolutely that is fact. My dad did many things when I was born. He was actually making a film at that time, and he was like in circles here in New York City with Martin Scorsese was coming up, and Brian DePalma was coming up. But his film never came out. He went on from there to doing a bunch of other things, including working at a radio station – KRML in Carmel, California. He saw the movie Play Misty for Me with Clint Eastwood. In that movie, Clint Eastwood was a DJ at KRML Caramel, California, and my dad was like “that’s the life I want!” So he picked up, moved to Carmel, got a job at the radio station.

GH: Damn!

MP: Yeah. I grew up doing the radio show with him. He’d let me spin the records.

GH: How old were you?

MP: This is around ‘73, ‘74, so I was around six or seven. I would want to play Cheech and Chong records and stuff life that, and he let me just pick whatever I wanted. My first taste of fame was placing a collect call to the operator, and the operator recognized my voice, ‘cause she was listening to the radio show.

GH: No way. Wow! All up since there, too. Not bad! Most people was like that’s their only taste of fame. It ends right there. You’ve peaked at 8, 6 years old, whatever and you’re done.

MP: But he’s the reason I became such a music fan.

GH: Says your father suggested the name “Dream Theater,” which was the name of a small theater he ran in Monterey, California.

MP: Well, fact that he was the one who suggested the name, but fiction that he ran it.

GH: He didn’t run it.

MP: No. It was a movie theater called “The Dream Theater,” and they would show all midnight movies. I used to go see Rocky Horror there, Rock and Roll High School, Clockwork Orange... It was all the midnight movies. And I used to go there every weekend. It was this really cool movie theater. When we were fishing for names – I remember getting home and there was a message on my answering machine, like, “What do you think of the name ‘Dream Theater’?” And I didn’t even give it a second thought. I was like, “Nah! I don’t like that!” Then, a couple days later, when the band was just struggling to come up with a name, I was like, “You know, my dad left this message on my machine. What do you think of this?” And everybody liked it, so we went with it.

GH: There you go! Charlie Dominici was let go, because the band was starting to feel the limitations of his voice. You guys were looking for more of a Bruce Dickinson/Geoff Tate type of singer. And it says that he infamously shouted, “Scream for me Long Beach,” which Is like a Bruce thing that he says. Several times through one of the shows. But you were performing in Bayshore.

MP: Well, that information is fact, but it’s fiction that it was Charlie.

GH: Oh, really!

MP: Yeah. So it was somebody else that did that. Charlie, we let go because he was much older than us, and he came from a different background. With Charlie, it was like Billy Joel trying to sing with Queensrÿche, and he just wasn’t the right fit. Great musician, great voice but not for a progressive metal band. So we went on another search for a new singer, and we were working with this guy Steve Stone from Seattle, who was like a Geoff Tate look-alike and sound-alike. We were working with him, and we had this gig opening for Marillion scheduled, and we were supposed to do the gig instrumentally. But we were like, “You know what? Halfway through the show, why don’t we bring this guy Steve out, and we’ll unveil our new singer!” Before the gig, I was showing him Live...After Death – the video. I was like, “This is what we want. We want a Bruce Dickinson-type front man.” So he gets on stage, and he just kept saying, “Scream for me Long Beach! Scream for me Long Beach!” And we were in Bayshore! So that was a very short-lived relationship. We immediately fired him after that.

GH: The Great Hanshin earthquake struck in Japan while Dream Theater was touring there. The band held a minute silence at every show in Japan in memory of those who died.

MP: Well, fact yeah, we were stuck there for this big earthquake in ‘95. So that is a fact. But we didn’t do a minute long silence thing at every show. We just did it at one show the next day when we played Osaka. But, yeah, that was terrifying being in an earthquake. I mean, I’m from New York – I’d never been in an earthquake. I remember it woke us up at like five in the morning, and I was like on the 32nd floor of this hotel and I remember looking out the window and just seeing the whole building rocking like this. [Mike sways back and forth] And I’ve never run down 32 flights of stairs so fast. I was pushing old people out of the way! [laughs]

GH: It’s freaky man! Like those buildings are designed–

MP: They’re designed to do that, but I didn’t know that at the time, but it was terrifying!

GH: It says that you consumed your final alcoholic drink on April 20th, 2000 after the final show of Dream Theater’s Scenes From a Memory tour. You found AA, the 12 step program. You credit it for saving your life. It says you make it a priority to attend meetings while touring.

MP: Fact, yeah! Actually April 20th is also my birthday by total coincidence. But it wasn’t like I gave up drinking on my birthday. It just so happened that that was the last night of the tour, and when I got on the plane the next day, I never picked up a drink again. I had been trying to quit for years, and I knew it was a problem. I would always say, “I’m not gonna drink tonight,” and sure enough, I’d find myself completely wasted by the end of the night, always drinking with the opening band, or with crew guys. Just could never say no. But after that final gig of that European tour, I got on a plane and went to AA as soon as I got home. And yeah, I haven’t picked up a drink since.

GH: Finally. Was there a rock bottom for you or was it just enough’s enough?

MP: Yeah, I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I knew that I no longer had control over the drink. The drink had control over me. It’s just sick and tired of waking up every day hung over, having blacked out the night before. Just not knowing what I had done and just being reckless. You know my two kids were just recently born, and I didn’t want to become a rock ‘n’ roll casualty like Keith Moon or John Bonham. So I finally just threw in the towel.

GH: In 2010, you announced that you’d be leaving Dream Theater citing better relationships in other projects, feeling burnt out and your desire for a five-year break.

MP: Well, obviously the fact that I left the band is a fact. But the five-year break thing is fiction. That’s an urban legend. I never said five years. I just wanted to have A hiatus just ‘cause we had been going 25 years – boom-boom-boom – no break. Write-record-tour, write-record-tour. It was burning me out. It didn’t mean I wanted to stop making music. One of the biggest misconceptions was after I left Dream Theater, I went off and did like five different bands and side projects, and everyone was like, “We thought you wanted a break!” It was like, “I didn’t want a break from making music. I just needed a break from the Dream Theater camp.” It was 25 years without a break in that camp, and I was just fried and needed other people and other musical outlets in my life. But the five year hiatus, I think I suggested a hiatus of any length, and somehow it got misinterpreted as a five year [period], which coincidentally would’ve been now. So it would’ve been up by now, actually, if it was a five-year hiatus.

GH: After you played on Avenged Sevenfold’s Nightmare album and toured with them – this is the way Wikipedia put it: “the band decided to sever ties” with you.

MP: Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. All I was ever committed for was the first six months of the Nightmare tour, and ending in December of 2010. So that was all that they ever committed to, that was all I ever committed to, and we saw that through to its completion. Where we were going to go from there, we didn’t know, and I think once I left Dream Theater, it was so much drama, the stupid headlines and all the bulls*** – I think it really turned the Avenged guys off. And I never put out these press releases and was trying to be in the Blabbermouth headlines everyday. But these websites were doing whatever they could to get the dirt. So I think Avenged really wanted to stay away from all that controversy, and at that point, it’s like, “Let’s finish out what was agreed upon, and then I’ll go do my thing” and they’ll do their thing. I don’t think they wanted to be held responsible for my decision to leave the band.

GH: Ok, you feel like they would’ve probably gotten some backlash–

MP: If I would’ve stayed with them a little bit longer... I think there already was backlash in their camp. And I think that they were feeling that heat and they didn’t want controversy. They were still healing from the Rev’s death, so the last thing they wanted was all this Dream Theater bulls***. So I don’t blame them, I get it.

GH: Gotcha. It says that you approached Dream Theater to rejoin after they had already brought Mike Mangini in. Mangini had, at this time, left his job at Berkelee. He was a professor, so your offer was rebuffed via Dream Theater’s lawyer.

MP: [laughs] Can I pass? Am I allowed to pass on any of these?

GH: You don’t need to answer if you don’t want.

MP: I’ll just say that once I left, there was a tremendous amount of legalities and technicalities, and Avenged was feeling the way like I just described to you. I’ll just say that I was doing whatever it would take to keep peace and keep things going smooth. At that point, they were only speaking through their lawyer. There’s a lot... It’s a 25 year relationship coming to an end, so obviously it goes very, very deep. Not only personally and emotionally, but also legally and all the red tape that’s involved with something like that. So it was a tough time, a tough period. Luckily, we all got through it. But I don’t wish that kind of stuff on anybody in a band – it’s tough.