James LaBrie interview

Matt Bolender: We have your newest creation, The Astonishing – a great album, great music. But the caveat to this whole part is that now you’re playing Images and Words in its entirety and parts of The Astonishing. How did this come about?

JL: We were out for almost a year touring behind The Astonishing. What was rearing its beautiful head was the fact that the 25th anniversary of Images and Words was coming up, and that was an iconic album for us; it put us on the map globally. So it was something that couldn’t be ignored, so we had to pay tribute to it. We had to say, “This is what we’ve gotta do. Most of ‘17, we have to get behind this album and go out and tour it,” so that’s how that came about. It was kind of like, “OK, let’s phase out The Astonishing, and let’s bring in the anniversary tour.”

MB: Well The Astonishing [is an] amazing album. One song kind of stands out to me and that’s ‘The Gift of Music.’ What I’m thinking about the song – it’s not anywhere in context about how you guys wrote it – but the world today, especially in the school system, music is becoming harder and harder to achieve as a child, to learn music, to be taught music.

JL: It’s really sad. Unless you have a lot of money and your parents are gonna put you in private schooling and they have ways of putting you into Ivy League schools like Juilliard and stuff like that. It’s very unfortunate. When I was going to school, there was tons of money there. Every school had one or two music teachers and you were being taught and educated on all types of music. So you were immediately inspired to want to connect with this form of art, from kindergarten on. Nowadays, if you want anything to do with that industry, you’ve gotta do it outside of school for the most part. I mean it still does exist here and there, but not anywhere near the level. I think it’s unfortunate, but at the same time, the internet has given people that classroom. If they’re very passionate about music, they can go online, they can find any kind of music. There’s tutorials and everything that exists online, as well. So it’s up to the individual to really research it.

MB: I don’t know if you remember David Foster. [James doesn’t appear to] Well they came up this new thing in cable called DMX, and I remember distinctly hearing over and over on DMX – which had a rock/progressive channel back in ‘92, ‘93, ‘94 – and two songs came up every 20 minutes, and that was ‘Pull Me Under’ and ‘Another Day.’ Two songs that have really catapulted your career. How does life feel going back to that music and that whole album playing it now?

JL: As a band and as people, we reminisce about those times. It brings up a lot of memories; we’re kind of reliving the moments back then, when we started out. When we first started out with the Images tour, it was the band and a tour manager in a van, driving from city to city, playing little clubs, showering at the clubs. Days off, we’d get a day room. It was like, “Oh my God!” We paid our dues, and then all of a sudden ‘Pull Me Under’ blew up, and it was everywhere on MTV and radio. All of the sudden everything just exploded for us. It was a completely different world. It also puts perspective on where we were, just how precarious a business it is. If ‘Pull Me Under’ hadn’t taken off, I don’t think you and I would be sitting here talking today. Granted, we would have continued to tour. Would we have been going to Europe, Japan and everywhere else? Maybe, but to what capacity? I don’t know – not very much. And if the album hadn’t been successful, yes, the label might have let us do another album, but if that album had been mediocre in the water too, because we didn’t get any recognition, I think that would have been the end of us. So ‘Pull Me Under’ really was that catalyst that gave us that template or wave that we were able to ride for quite some time, and allowed us to be doing this 25, 30 years later. We’re very fortunate that that did happen. It was all timing.

Even bumping into these guys [coming] from Toronto, Canada, it was timing. I happen to be with a band, Winter Rose, we were out touring with Lee Aaron who was the ‘metal queen’ back then, and she approached me like, “Hey, you should be thinking about doing a solo album.” I’m like, “No, this is my band. Winter Rose is mine.” And Rich Chycki – who now works with us as an engineer, mixes our Dream Theater albums and has done some stuff with me – I said, “This is our baby.” But long story short, she unbeknownst to me threw the tape down to New York, because she heard about this band looking for a singer. Boom! It was all timing, and being ready for the time. If you get the call, are you ready? [snaps fingers] You gotta do it and you gotta give it your all. We’ll sit on the bus, going from city to city or country to country and even sitting backstage, and we just come up with these stories. “Oh my God! Do you remember...?” It’s just crazy – everything that we’ve done since then and what we were doing at the time.

MB: It’s amazing that ‘92 was that big year and then you came on so strong in the progressive rock world. Let’s face it, the progressive rock world has had some heavy hitters – mostly from the ‘70s to be honest and the ‘80s – but the ‘90s, you guys were really the guys who carried the torch. Today I don’t know if there’s that many bands that really are doing that good as Dream Theater and all the other bands. Do you see anybody out there coming on that might be able to kind of carry this forward? I mean the spirit carries on.

JL: There’s a lot of progressive music going on out there. There’s a lot of talent, there are a lot of great artists out there. When I’ve read in various magazines and online – a lot of them are still saying, “The reason that our band is doing what is dong today is because of Dream Theater. I remember listening to them in elementary school, middle school,” and I’m like, “What!?” [laughs] You have the Neal Morse Band, Pain Salvation – they’re still going.

MB: What about Royal Hunt? Have you heard Royal Hunt?

JL: Yeah, I mean they were around in the ‘90s.

MB: They weren’t quite that big in the United States...

JL: That movement is still going – there’s no doubt about it. With me myself, I’m listening to anybody from Two Door Cinema Club to Young The Giant, and Mutemath, Shiny Toy Guns. I’m all over the place right now with who I want to listen to and who I find inspiring. But I think it’s cool because we still get that recognition and we still have that nod of appreciation that we made it acceptable again for people to have no parameters and to be creative beyond what was to be the norm, because the norm is just so tired.

MB: What do you remember about the Maritime? It was kind of a dumpy little place, like a meeting hall for sailors of some sort or unions. Do you remember any of those shows?

JL: I don’t know if I was thinking...

MB: I know Mike almost got hit by a car...

JL: There was another place there where I remember seeing that Jimi Hendrix played and all that. Where was that? I thinking in San Fran.

MB: Jimi Hendrix Experience? The Fillmore. Did you play the Fillmore?

JL: We played the Fillmore once. I remember walking around and seeing all these posters, and I remember thinking that was that was pretty cool. I was like, “Holy s***! Well these guys were here... Hey, that’s OK! We’ll do it.” But no, I don’t remember every single venue, although when we do go back to similar venues, you’re all, “Geez, I remember this room.” Some of it has kind of withered away.

MB: You’re 54 now and you’re still in your prime, your voice is still great in the rock world, because let’s face it there’s people like Jon Anderson, Rob Halford, Robert Plant who are [in their] early 70s, late 60s, who are doing this. What are you thinking when you go out there on stage? You ever think, “There’s something here I really love,” but [have] you ever burned out?

JL: I think it depends on how you feel. I think if you’re feeling sick, yeah. You go out on stage and go, “This sucks! I do not want to be here!” And I think anyone else would tell you the same thing. I mean you’re not feeling well, that’s the last place you wanna be, but you’re expected to go up there and give it your all. They don’t want to hear about that. The fans paid damn good money to see you perform, so give it. But I think for the most part I would like to see that Dream Theater as an entity, that we’d be doing this for at least another 10+ years. I really do. I see that everyone is kind of collected, we’re all in agreement to that. But 68? I don’t know. I remember saying this to Jordan when we were over in Asia, I said, “I can see [at] 68, me playing guitar and singing Dream Theater songs in a more acoustic setting and version, and playing little intimate clubs and just having fun with it that way,” but who knows what’s in the cards? I think it has to always make sense. I think the day that someone’s just saying the reason you’re gonna do this is cuz of this [gestures for money], it’s all wrong.

MB: So many bands are doing that these days. It’s crazy.

JL: It’s because it’s extremely tempting. But how wrong is that, that your there and your heart’s not there? When you start thinking that way, that’s scary. But right now, I think that we’re all having an incredible time out here, and I think that’s what we’re riding on. We’re all looking forward to the next album. We all pretty much know where we wanna go with the next album, but we have a clear vision of what it needs to be and direction, where we want to take it. So that’s exciting. That won’t be out until ‘19. ‘18 is just gonna be rest time, and then get into the studio and write and record. Then come out with a new album in 2019 and start another tour.

MB: How has the process changed? [On] the recording side, how has life changed from ‘92 to now, to actually creating a record?

JL: Obviously, if you feel something then you jot it down. Thank God for these things [shows his phone] because you got a riff in your head or a melody, you don’t want to lose it. I also know that when we do soundcheck, if somebody starts jamming on something, we are always recording, we have ProTools – we record every show as well – so we have tons of that to go back to. So if there’s a seed there, we earmark it. And individually what we’re doing when we’re home, and then bringing that when we start to write and say, “Here’s some of my ideas.” Then they’ll go, “OK here’s some of what we got. Let’s start listening to this.” Then we filter through it, eventually finding, “Here’s the good. There’s the not-so-good. Let’s forget about that.” And then still being connected as five guys in a room getting on to something. I’m going, “Wow! Wait a minute – what was that?” and just forming it.

MB: Was it always five guys in a room back in the older days? I mean I did a Neal Morse interview recently, but obviously that whole thing wouldn’t have happened if Mike hadn’t probably have gone his other ways. I mean, was it different then?

JL: Here’s what I’ve always said: piano and guitar are the primary instruments for writing. So John Petrucci and Jordan, as it currently is, are the primary writers. That doesn’t say that myself and Mike and John don’t get involved. We do, absolutely. But I think that that’s always been the case right from the very beginning of Dream Theater, even when Kevin Moore was there and John Petrucci. A lot of the seeds always came from those two. And yes, other members always got involved and said, “Let’s try this and try that.” However, you go about interacting with one another and composing and putting something together. And that still kind of exists today. There’s that interaction when it comes to composing. Like I said, it’s always been that the riffs and that seem to stem from those instruments. And not to say that somebody else isn’t coming in and going, “Here’s an idea that I have,” or feeding off of somebody’s melody, or feeding off even a lyrical idea. These things also play into it.

MB: Just seeing you guys onstage, it looks like so much work. What’s incredible too is that the energy level of what you guys do on stage is what blows me away more than anything about Dream Theater. The music and the sounds are just amazing, but the energy level – how do you do it so many dates a year?

JL: Adrenaline. Thank God for that! I’ve always said that if you’re not nervous before you go on, if you don’t got the jitters, then you’re dead. I think that it all has to do with [being] excited, you got thousands of people up front, they’re freaking pumped. You also have to remind yourself, “Hey man, this is the only time they’re seeing you. They paid good money to come and see you tonight. This is their moment. This is what they’re gonna walk away with and have to hold on to for the next two years, because that’s probably how long it’s gonna be before they see you again. So let’s leave it with a bang. Let’s leave it so that it’s undeniable to them, so that when they go away, they go, ‘Oh my God! That was frickin’ awesome, and I can’t wait to see them again!’” That’s the idea and then you’re having fun. You don’t wanna look like you’re in pain up there.

It’s so funny because sometimes you can go through real low, like an hour before the show. You’re like “Oh my God! I think I’d go to sleep right now because I slept like crap last night!” You might have sleep deprivation or whatever. And you can only do so much caffeine, cuz after a while that doesn’t even have an effect; in fact that might even put you down. It’s so funny, because throughout the course of the last two years that we’ve been touring, ever so often John will come up to me; he goes, “Oh my God!” It’s like, “John, we’re onstage in 20 minutes.” “Holy s***! I know!” And he’s going crazy on his guitar warming up, and I’ll be the same way. But you just feel it building up and you can hear the [roar of the crowd in the venue] and you start getting into it. By the time you’re hitting the stage, it’s like you’re right back to feeling like you’re 20 years old, you’re pumping 300 pounds above your head. It has to be that way or what the hell?

MB: I’ve seen shows like that where you’re kinda like, “Oh boy!” and that reminds me of this final word is that when you leave the fans with great images and words, that is what brings you back again

JL: Yeah, that’s why we named it that! [laughs]