Mike Portnoy interview (excerpts)

Kim Sakariassen: So, thank you for allowing me to interview you this time

Mike Portnoy: Sure, I’m an open book.

KS: You’re 50 years in three weeks.

MP: Yeah, yeah...

KS: Is that strange to think about?

MP: I guess so, yeah... I mean it’s just strange... Time goes fast, time is fleeting. Not only is it strange to be turning 50 but it’s just strange that it’s 2017. I remember when I was young and seeing the movie, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and thinking, “Oh my God, that’s like just so futuristic! Oh my God, will we even be alive?” And here we are it’s already 16 years past that. So time is a strange thing but my kids are now growing up and time gets faster as we get older.

KS: And you’re celebrating your 50 years by doing a special tour as well with “Shattered Fortress”.

MP: Well it was never supposed to be a tour, to be honest. I mean it was only ever going to be just a set at my 50th birthday bash on “Cruise to the Edge” and you know, now that it’s already happened, that show was supposed to be something that celebrates my whole career. So we had Transatlantic and Flying Colors, and did some Liquid Tension music. And of course I had to play Dream Theater music, so it seemed like it was the perfect time and place to finally do the ‘12 Step Suite.’ And honestly it was never my intention to do anything more than just that, and then once the word got out then suddenly Night of the Prog in Loreley invited me and then Be Prog, My Friend in Barcelona invited me and I was like, “All right, well maybe not everybody can go to the cruise – it’s very expensive.” So being I’m already up and running and rehearsed why not? But only now, this is it. So I figured it’s my 50th birthday year and I’ll do this in some select markets and it will be special for the fans and good for me to get it out of my system, but that’s it. Just one time only.

KS: How did you choose the people to go with you on that tour?

MP: Well, I guess it dates back a few years. Haken was doing a US tour and my son’s band Next To None was opening for them. And at the final show of the tour they asked if I would come up and play ‘The Mirror’ with them – Haken, I’m talking about. And so I went up and played ‘The Mirror’ with them and they just killed it – it was perfect. So in the back of my mind, I thought if I ever was going to do the ‘12 Step Suite,’ this is the band. They’re all incredible musicians individually, and even as a band I think Haken is this new generation’s prog metal super-band. I think they are kind of like what I used to do with Dream Theater, but a modern-day version.

KS: Yeah they’re one of my favorite bands as well...

MP: Yeah. So I knew in the back of my head I wanted to have them as my backing band if I was to ever do the ‘12 Step Suite.’ But then I had the idea of also adding Eric Gillette because Eric plays with me in the Neal Morse Band, and of all the guitar players I’ve played with through the years, he reminds me the most of John Petrucci – he just has got such a similar style. So I knew I wanted him to be a part of it as well, so here we are now with three guitar players – because Haken has two guitar players. I wasn’t going to do one without the other, and then Eric as well. So it’s now a big kind of Dream Theater orchestra.

KS: So, you’re doing ‘12 Step Suite’ on this tour. Are you doing other Dream Theater songs or other songs from your catalog as well?

MP: Other Dream Theater songs that are my lyrics – I stay only with that. But there’s a lot of songs I wrote the lyrics to. And whenever I wrote the lyrics, I wrote the vocal melodies, and I also did a lot of singing usually within those songs. So yeah, it’s all about the ‘12 Step Suite.’ But inevitably, some of these shows we’re going to have a little extra time, maybe a 90-minute show or whatever. So there will be some extra songs as well.

KS: So what’s your take... this is actually the 25th year since Images and Words was released. That means for you this has been 25 years where you can actually call music your full-time career. You couldn’t do that with When Dream and Day Unite. How has music changed – the music business – for you?

MP: Well there’s the business, and then there is the music itself – those are two different questions. But it’s like we were just saying about the evolution – when Images and Words came out 25 years ago, there weren’t any other the bands combining progressive music and heavy metal. Dream Theater gets a lot of credit for kind of inventing that style. I don’t think we invented it, I think we just kind of combined a lot of different things. I get a lot of credit for the style of drumming I do, and surely I was just a conglomeration of all the drummer’s I grew up listening to. The music scene was very, very different back then when we made that album in ‘91 and then it came out of ‘92. The whole grunge movement was taking over, and it was just a very different scene. But even if you compare the music business then to the way it is now, it’s worlds apart. Back then, you had to get a record deal if you wanted to make a record or get any success or go on tour, you had to get a record deal. And that’s why we spent years waiting to make that album because we had to have a record deal before we could move forward. Nowadays, bands are just recording on their laptops in their basements. You can put it out on YouTube or Facebook or whatever social media, and you could be heard all the way from Australia to Japan to Omaha, Nebraska, right out of your basement. You don’t need a record deal and sales are completely different. Back then, bands were selling millions of records. Now, the expression that I’ve heard is ‘back then you had thousands of bands selling millions of records, now you have millions bands selling thousands of records’. So there’s pros and cons to the way the whole music business has evolved.

KS: So with what you’re doing now, what do you see you’re gonna do in the future? Do you know?

MP: I always have a short term vision because I have to plan the next six to nine to twelve months of my life. I have to kind of think ahead, and at any given moment, I have three or four different projects going at the same time. Last year was kind of The Winery Dogs and Twisted Sister. Now this year, it’s the Neal Morse Band and then I have these Shattered Fortress shows, but I’ve already started work on a Metal Allegiance album, I’ve already started working a Flying Colors album and I’ve already begun work on a new band, a new project I have. So that’s all laying the groundwork for what will be coming to fruition in 2018. So I think about a year in advance, but I don’t think long term for the future. I just kind of go one project at the time.

KS: So that has changed since you became a freelancer, as such, as since you left...

MP: Well with Dream Theater, honestly, one of the main reasons I was getting a little complacent or bored was, it was just this cycle that just kept going. You could set your watch to, “OK, two years from now, I’m going to be playing the same venue, to the same audience.” And every two years you write-record-tour, write-record-tour, write-record-tour. After a while, it started to get a little frustrating for me, and a little predictable for me. I needed to shake it up and have a change and my God, what I’ve done in the last six years is, like 20 albums with 12 different bands and they’re all so stylistically different from each other. So to me that’s more exciting and fulfilling, just to have different opportunities, different flavors and different people with all of these different things.