Mike Portnoy, Derek Sherinian interview (excerpts)

In typical Portnoy fashion, the album was written at speed, with the writing commencing in March and the album being delivered to the record label in July. That pace is something which is nothing new to those who have followed his career, but for any band to record an album as compelling as this debut in such a short period remains startling.

“I think that over the last 20 albums I’ve made, most have been made this way,” says Portnoy. “I don’t think the quality of anything I’ve done this way has suffered as a result of working quickly – it’s just a matter of being very focused and creative. The only time in recent history when I spent a ridiculous amount of time making records was with Dream Theater and, to be honest, there was a lot of money wasted on those records.”

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There’s an inevitably, though, that with two former Dream Theater members forming a progressive metal band, comparisons between the two acts will naturally follow.

Perhaps surprisingly, Portnoy remains relaxed about the Dream Theater-related questions that will unquestionably pepper every interview over the next 18 months. Indeed, he reveals that he’s been able to “build up a very nice personal relationship with both John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess over the last couple of years”, adding that he’s “comfortable in my own skin and feel I have definitely moved on”.

Yet Portnoy suggests that one of Sherinian’s motivations in reforming the band was to invite comparisons between the two acts.

“If I’m being honest, a lot of Derek’s incentive to form this band was to, in his words, ‘Reclaim my rightful throne to the genre that I helped create,”‘ he laughs. “But once we got together and started making the music itself, it really went to so many different places that go way beyond the Dream Theater world. It has the progressive metal moments on ‘Gods Of The Sun’, ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Opus Maximus’, and those three epics are definitely progressive metal material in the Dream Theater vein. But then you hear songs like ‘Signs Of The Time’ or ‘Coming Home’ and they have a hard rock, Van Halen, Deep Purple kind of influence. The album ended up becoming very diverse and something that transcends the progressive metal tag.”

Sherinian is more forthright in his assessment of Sons Of Apollo’s prospects and perhaps, given the manner of his replacement in Dream Theater in 1999, there’s a suspicion that he’s been waiting for a moment to perform in a band that can invoke musical revenge on his old bandmates.

“It really is an original sound and it’s not fair to compare us with Dream Theater,” he says. “Dream Theater really isn’t the Dream Theater it was. With Sons Of Apollo, people are going to hear the influence that Mike Portnoy brings into a band and you’re going to see the spirit that’s maybe not in Dream Theater now.

“I read a lot of the message boards and it seems that a lot of Dream Theater fans weren’t happy with that last release. I haven’t heard it, but the consensus seems to be that it was very Walt Disney and didn’t have any balls to it. So we want to invite those fans to come over to Sons Of Apollo because I’ll tell you, man for man, pound for pound, there’s not a band with the virtuosity, the balls and the presentation that we have.

“I’m not saying that in an arrogant way. I’m saying that because it’s a fact. I think Sons Of Apollo is the best thing that will ever happen to Dream Theater and if it gives them a new spark of inspiration to start making great records again, then it’s only beneficial for the fans.”

Such statements could merely be seen as PR bluster to provoke interest in the project, but he makes a forceful argument. This band is ludicrously talented and with the commercial attributes possessed by some of their songs, they have the potential to achieve a mainstream success not seen in the genre for a long time. It’s a fact not lost on Sherinian, as he closes with an upbeat soliloquy that you suspect is only partially tongue-in-cheek.

“I’m going to make a bold statement,” he proclaims. “Dream Theater have sat on top of the throne for the last 20 years and have been completely unchallenged until now. But now is the era of the Sons. There’s only so much room at the top of prog metal, so they need to start clearing their shit out now because we intend to have our thrones put in there by October 20th...”