Mike Portnoy interview (excerpts)

Johnny Christ: I wanted to just start out [getting] to know everything about Mike Portnoy. I mean we were on the road together and everything like that, so I feel like a know a fair amount, but let’s start out with growing up in Long Island – what was that like for you? Your childhood, your family, when you first fell in love with the drums. What can you tell me about all that?

Mike Portnoy: Well, I was born 4/20/1967, so I’m a 420 boy.

JC: Wait a minute – so that’s why you have ‘Mike Portnoy 420’ on your things.

MP: Yeah. It’s everything. My drumsticks are 420... Everyone thinks I’m a stoner but really that’s my birthday. Yeah, me and Adolf Hitler – we’re both 420 boys. So I was born in ‘67, so I came out the summer of love in Long Island, New York. I grew up with all the typical late ‘60s, early ‘70s stuff, watching Saturday morning cartoons and H.R. Pufnstuf, grew up listening to the Beatles, the Who, Zeppelin and the Stones – all that late ‘60s stuff. Eventually, [I] just migrated towards music. My dad was a disc jockey on the radio in the early ‘70s, and he introduced me to all that music, all that classic rock stuff, so I was immediately surrounded by it. So I knew I would eventually become a musician. I started playing piano but it just wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll enough for me. I needed to hit things; I just had energy and I was always hyper, so I ended up eventually getting a drum kit.

JC: What was your first drumkit?

MP: It was just a little Mickey Mouse kit, just a little toy kit. I didn’t get my first real drumkit until I was about 10 or 11. I went visiting family down in Florida and they had a real drum kit in the garage, and the whole time I was visiting them, they couldn’t peel me off the drum kit, so at that point my family knew they wanted to get me a real kit, and for my 11th birthday I got my first real drum set. It’s weird because my grandfather was the one that bought it for me, and he actually had a heart attack that day and ended up passing away from it, so that was kind of like his parting gift to me. It was crazy timing, so at that point I was committed; I had to like fulfill his legacy. At that point it was mid-to-late ‘70s, and I was listening to a lot of Kiss and later on the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and stuff like that, so I grew up the first 10 years of my life playing classic rock, punk rock and early heavy metal stuff like Kiss and Sabbath and all that kind of stuff. I didn’t really discover the progressive stuff till later and I got more serious as a mid-teen.

JC: You touched upon a little bit of your dad Howard Portnoy being a DJ, so you grew up and you already had a celebrity in the house, right?

MP: Yeah, he was a crazy guy that did so many different things through his life. He was he made a movie, he wrote a book, he was a DJ for a few years. When I was born, he was making a movie; he was hanging around in the New York scene with Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, Robert De Niro – they were all starting out, too. Scorsese and De Palma were making their first films, and my dad was friends with them and he was making his first film. Obviously they went on to be f***in’ legends and my dad’s film never got released, so he just went from gig to gig to gig.

JC: What was that movie about?

MP: It was a movie called Felicia and it was just like a trippy art film. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s and smoking pot and stuff that I was able to even watch it and appreciate it. But here’s the craziest thing on how my dad became a disc jockey: him and my mom got divorced when I was a kid, so he wanted to leave New York and he saw the movie Play Misty For Me with Clint Eastwood. It was a movie came earlier about ‘71; it’s a movie about a disc jockey on a radio station in Carmel, California, disc jockeying at this station called KRML, and this chick becomes obsessed with him. It’s like a Fatal Attraction kind of story; this chick gets obsessed with him and ends up like trying to kill him. Anyway, my dad saw the movie and fell in love with the looks and the scenery of Carmel, California, and was like, “Man, that looks like a great gig, being a disc jockey at KRML radio in Carmel!” So my dad literally picked up, left New York, drove to Carmel and got a gig at that radio station, literally doing exactly what Clint Eastwood was in the movie.

JC: So you followed him out to California?

MP: No, I stayed in New York with my mom and her new husband, and I would basically just see my dad a couple times a year. I’d go out for the summer and stuff. I would actually go and do the radio show with him. He would do the morning show and he’d let me pick the tunes and stuff. My first taste of fame was when I was around five, six years old from doing the radio show with him. I called up the operator to place to collect call, and I was like, “Collect call from Mike,” and operator’s like, “Are you Mike Portnoy?” I was like a little five year old kid, but she knew me from the radio show.

JC: I never realized your childhood star! It explains a lot, Mike! [laughs]

MP: And my dad would let me pick weird s***! He’d let me take over and I’d be playing like Cheech and Chong records on the morning show.

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JC: Another thing that you mentioned [was] you were living with your mom, and there’s no easy way to segue into this, but she was taken from you early on, right?

MP: Yeah, after I was born she had my brother and my sister with her second husband, and she raised the three of us. When I was 17, she got into a freak plane crash. It was just completely devastating and shocking. I was 17 and my brother and my sister were a few years younger than me, so it was devastating. There’s a crazy story – it was a crazy coincidence, that afternoon before the accident, in school, my health teacher was giving a class about carpe diem, seize the day, about how to appreciate life. “You never know what might happen, life changes at the drop of a dime, appreciate the people you have in your life, you never know when they’re gonna be gone.” So he gives this totally heavy, heavy lesson in class at that day, and I go home that night and my mom’s getting ready to go out to Atlantic City on a private plane with her boyfriend – it was just a private plane with four people – and she was getting ready to go to the airport. I was going out with my friends, and I was just about to run out, and I remembered this lesson. I turn around, I went back to my mom and gave her a big hug and a kiss and said, “I just want you to know I love you,” and she was like, “Wow! What the hell is that? Where did that come from?” I had never done something like that. But it was because of that carpe diem lesson I got that day, that I had this final goodbye with my mom. She gets on the plane, and the plane crashed right off the shore of Atlantic City and I never saw her again, but I had that moment and that changed my life. So I tattooed ‘Carpe Diem’ on my arm and I wrote the song ‘A Change of Seasons’ with Dream Theater, which told that whole story. It was quite a heavy thing for a 17-year old kid to adjust to, losing your mom so unexpectedly like that. Between that and going through all the divorces and stuff before that, both my mom getting remarried and my dad getting remarried, so I pretty much grew up pretty quickly. I had to learn about life pretty early on.

JC: Back to Mike Portnoy early on, you were actually in a couple of bands before Dream Theater, is that correct?

MP: Yeah, just typical high school s***. My first band was called Intruder and it was typical... when you’re in junior high school and 15, 16 years old, you start playing your instrument, you want to jam with other guys.

JC: A garage band?

MP: Right, exactly. We would play the local church and stuff like that. We were doing like Van Halen covers and Mötley Crüe and Ozzy. We were playing like ‘Mr. Crowley’ and stuff like that in St. Mary’s church. So I cut my teeth on that, learning covers and having fun. Then I formed my first band of originals, Rising Power. You [can] still find that stuff on YouTube; we did some demos and stuff and it’s out there. Then Inner Sanctum was my first metal band. Inner Sanctum was more in the vein of Motorhead, early Sabbath, early Priest, Maiden and stuff like that, because it was the early ‘80s. The thrash scene was just coming around, so I started getting into that. The thing was I had this crazy taste of all different styles; I loved everything from punk to classic rock to thrash metal, and then I graduated high school and went off to Berklee. I also was a big prog fan. I was a big fan of Rush, like Neil Peart was my f***in’ hero and I wanted to learn about playing giant drumkits and odd time signatures. So when I went off to Berklee, I met John Petrucci and John Myung, and we put together the band that became Dream Theater. But that whole progressive direction was only just one style of what I liked. I could have went off to Berklee and met some guys that were Sex Pistols fans or Ramones fans and could have just as easily going in that direction, or guys that were into playing like Cream and Hendrix and the Doors, and I could have went in that direction. I just loved so many different kinds of music that–

JC: We have that in common, actually. We both have a very eclectic taste.

MP: That’s the key to music. Variety is the spice of music. And I’m still like that to this day. I mean now post-Dream Theater, I have all these different f***in’ bands going in a million different directions because they’re all a part of me. I got known for being the prog guy because of Dream Theater, but that was always just one side of me.

JC: Well let’s get into that one side. You kind of grazed over it a little bit here – you went up to Berklee School of Music in Boston and that’s where you met John and John. I mean obviously you’re at the school but what were your first impressions? How did you guys meet? What was that first encounter like or do you have any memories of what the guys were at that age?

MP: I remember the specific day we met and we got lucky because we met real quick. We met, I think, the second week of school like September ‘85. The two of those guys went to Berklee together; they lived in King’s Park, Long Island. I lived in Long Beach, Long Island, which is about a half hour south of where they grew up. Long Island is huge, man; there’s people from everywhere. And same with Berklee, people from all over the world are at Berklee. So for three guys to all be from Long Island and connect and be into the same music was pretty amazing. I remember I was wearing a Talas T-shirt – that’s Billy Sheehan’s old band before he joined the David Lee Roth band – so I was wearing a Talas shirt and I was in one of the practice rooms drumming, and they could tell that I was into heavy stuff. I was jamming on Maiden tunes and Rush tunes, and they came up to me and they’re like, “Man, you heard of Talas? You know who Billy Sheehan is?” I was like, “Yeah,” and then we started talking. It’s funny that it was Billy Sheehan and Talas that brought us together and now I’m in two other bands with Billy years later. We immediately started talking and we had common influences – they were huge Rush fans and they were huge Maiden fans, and we just started jamming. And we were total outcasts because back then at Berklee it was nothing but jazz heads, and we were the only kids that were like listening to that kind of stuff: Priest and Maiden and Metallica. We started jamming six hours a day every single day and just getting to know each other and started to writing original music and that was pretty much the origins of Dream Theater.

JC: So you guys formed Dream Theater there. How soon after you first meet in ‘85... are you guys cutting a record and doing all this? Did you guys just leave Berklee, like, “F*** it, we got what we need”?

MP: Exactly! That’s the thing – if you graduate at Berklee, you become a school teacher, a music teacher. [laughs]

JC: You’re only there to meet other musicians, right? [laughs]

MP: Yeah! You go there to meet musicians, drop out and become a rock star, so it was like, “Mission accomplished!” The hard thing was, we all had to really convince our parents to let us go to Berklee. I remember my mom, before she passed away, she wanted me to go to a ‘normal’ school and get a college degree so I can have something to fall back on, and if she hadn’t died in that plane crash, and she had lived, I may not have gone to Berklee, I don’t know.

JC: What would you do? Now did you ever think about what you would’ve been if you weren’t a f***ing rockstar?

MP: All of our lives would be so completely different – not only mine, but John Petrucci’s and John Myung’s, my wife’s. It was all a path that led us to become who we became. If my mom had lived and I hadn’t gone to Berklee, all of our lives would be totally different – it’s crazy. Anyway, I finally had to convince them, “I want to go to music school.” So I finally go to Berklee, and then after a year there, we have to come back to our families and say, “Well, now we’re dropping out. We just want to form a band and play.” It was tough for our families to accept, and when you think about it, it took balls on our behalf after a year of just meeting some guys at college and jamming, that you want to just drop out and pursue a career. It took balls, but it showed how dedicated and devoted we were. We really believed in ourselves, we knew that there was some really special talent there. It worked out, but it took time because we didn’t get our first record deal ‘til like ‘88, ‘89.

JC: Were you doing shows before that?

MP: We were just playing the Long Island scene and doing demos on my little four-track recorder. All the early recorders, all the early Dream Theater demos were all done on my little four-track, that I got as a high-school graduation present, and we got signed off of that actually. I became friends with the guys in the band called the Crumbsuckers – they were a New York hardcore band back in the late ‘80s. The New York hardcore scene at that point was made up of, like, Cro-mags, Agnostic Front, Ludichrist, Leeway and the Crumbsuckers. I became friends with the Crumbsuckers and they were signed to Combat Records, which was the same label that Megadeth was on at the time. And just from our friendship, and those guys [were] hearing the s*** that I was doing, they brought our demos to the label and from there we got our first deal. But that wasn’t until ‘88, ‘89, and even that first record we made went nowhere. We made an album called When Dream and Day Unite that came and went. We had a different singer, so it wasn’t until our second album Images and Words that we actually broke. At that point, we were already seven years into being together. We were just writing and grinding it out, and people thought we were this over-night success with Images and Words, but at that point, it was already seven years of just being in the basement and writing all those tunes and just persevering and just being patient... and patient and patient. So it took a while before we got to that point.

JC: That’s pretty incredible. I didn’t actually realize that, because the first time I heard anything was from Images and Words. You guys had a music video out and I remember seeing it on MTV back in the day.

MP: It was crazy that a band like ours got any MTV play, because we were writing these long songs, and that was in the era of grunge. When Images and Words came out, that was all about, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and we were the total outcasts. Even bands like Queensryche and Maiden and Metallica were getting away from the longer songs and they were even getting more streamlined, so we were coming out with these 10-minute songs with all this shredding playing and odd time signatures, and it was probably so shocking that we got any attention. But I think maybe we got attention because we were the only band doing something different. So it hurt us in a lot of ways, but it helped us in some ways, too, just because we stood out. [The video for ‘Pull Me Under’] was all over MTV and it’s like, “What the f***?!” It was like a cheesy little 500 dollar video, done for nothing.

JC: Everyone should go back and check out this video to see what Mike Portnoy used to look like. It is f***in’ epic! [laughs]

MP: I look like my son Max actually! No beard, long, black, curly hair, playing without a shirt.

JC: Everyone was looking gorgeous, I’ll say that. It’s coming right out of that glam rock going into the grunge.

MP: Oh, it was horrible! The ‘90s was so bad, actually. I look back, and it got worse and worse. By mid-to-late ‘90s, it was the worst!

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JC: You guys had an up-and-down career throughout Dream Theater, you’re one of the founders of it and one of the main writers. When you guys [were] writing, what was that process like? When it came to writing, what was the dynamic like between the guys?

MP: Right out of the gates, everybody kind of knew their personalities. Out of those guys, I was always the most outgoing one, I was always the most vocal one. So I think it became inevitable that I kind of became the quote-unquote de facto leader in the band and I became the spokesman that did most of the interviews and made all the connections with the different people in different bands. It’s just the nature of my personality, and the nature of those guys personalities being quieter, kind of more introverted people. I guess that established the balance of the writing process. Usually the writing in Dream Theater was myself and John Petrucci being very, very much the driving force. Dream Theater with me wasn’t like a traditional rhythm and bass section. To me, it was more of a classic drum and guitar rhythm section like the way James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich have in Metallica, or the way Dimebag and Vinnie Paul had in Pantera. It was definitely drum- and guitar-driven with Dream Theater. So me and John kind of became the drivers, and as time went on we became the producers. We took on the reins and produced all the albums, the two of us. For my 25 years there, we wrote together; I was always one of the co-music writers, but also I wrote a lot of the lyrics in the band, and any time I wrote lyrics I wrote the vocal melodies and did a lot of singing in the band as well, co-producing the album. I guess by nature of my personality took on a lot of the responsibilities and stuff like that in the band, kind of like Lars does with Metallica. Lars was always a role model for me – the way he would deal with all the fan-club stuff and the merch and all the special shows and special things like that they would always do. So I think it was just kind of my nature for all that time.

JC: Speaking of those dynamics, ultimately we all know now that it came to a head and you guys parted ways. That will actually take us into when you joined us and helped us out on the Nightmare album and cycle. Just real quickly, I want to say that this was not the first time that you had filled in for a drummer that had passed away, because you jumped in with Twisted Sister.

MP: Yours was the first one with somebody that had passed. I mean I had filled in with other bands like Fates Warning and Overkill and a few different bands through the years. I’d done fill-in work, but your situation was the first time I was stepping into a situation where somebody that had passed, and as you guys have all spoken about so much through the years, it was a heavy situation to walk into. I really was feeling for you guys. I think I got the call from Larry I think a few days after the funeral, and I know you guys at that point had decided you were gonna go ahead and make the record, and then I came in there. We were in the studio together – I don’t know – a few weeks later at that point, so obviously the wounds and the emotions for you guys were obviously very, very fresh. I came in really respecting that and walking on eggshells to make sure (A) that you guys were emotionally cool, but also (B) musically. I didn’t want to impose myself on what you guys are doing. Obviously that record was all about honoring Jimmy and I wanted to make sure that I honored that. And I came in there and told you guys, “Mold me like I’m your clay. I’ll play exactly what Jimmy did on the demos, or if you want me to do my thing, just say the word. But whatever you want, I was there to serve you guys.”

JC: Yeah, that was what was so cool about it. I remember first meeting you outside the NAMM show at a dinner, and I my first impressions were, “OK, this guy’s awesome, he’s willing to do whatever for us.” That’s just so cool because we grew up listening to your drumming over the years, and to meet someone and have them be that respectful was super cool. We were really stoked to have you come in and help us out. You mentioned that you said, “Mold me to what you guys want,” and I think we pretty much did it because I think we berated you pretty hard a couple of times in the studio! I remember us being in the control room and I think one of your lines was, “Oh, you want me to sneeze on two and fart on three or what?” [laughs]

MP: I had never been produced like that before because with Dream Theater, I was self-produced and nobody was ever allowed to say anything about my drumming in Dream Theater. I did what I wanted and that was it. But with you guys, it was a different situation, and I really wanted to respect what you were going through. I think perhaps maybe if Jimmy hadn’t passed away and if I was coming in and I was replacing somebody, then maybe I wouldn’t have been that open about it and I might have been a little bit more territorial. But being that it was such an emotional situation, I was totally willing to do whatever you wanted. If you wanted me to play less, I’d play less; you wanted me to play more, I played more. I remember you guys really know what the kick pattern is, and I would literally have to sit there and do exactly what you guys wanted because it was what Jimmy had done on those demos.

JC: Yeah, because the album was done. At first we didn’t even know if we were gonna continue as a band, and then the next step was, “OK, we need to get this last piece of music of Jimmy’s out.” He was a huge component of the writing process – some of the songs were all him – and we’re like, “We owe it to Jimmy to get this out. Who are we gonna get to play the drums though? We can’t use the demos because they were played on an electric kit. We need to do it justice.” So we reached out to you. That’s when we thought, “Who could possibly do this? What kind of drummer out there has the chops that could pull off what we were going for?” and your name came up in it. We all kind of went, “Yeah! Let’s see if he’d be down to do it.” Because back in the van days, we were listening to Train of Thought, and I remember ‘Honor Thy Father’ starts out with that crazy drum fill right of the bat. All of us go looking around and going, “What the f*** did I just hear?!” and then we’re like, “How do we try [that]?” and we listened to just that fill over and over and tried to transcribe it in our heads. Then finally Jimmy goes, “Ah! I got it! Hit play again!” and then he did it with his hands and feet on the dashboard. So we were fans. We’re like, “OK this guy’s a f***in’ incredible drummer, he’s got the chops. Let’s see if he’s down to do it.”

MP: And I was honored, honestly. I was honored to be asked because I really respected you guys as a band, and I really respected Jimmy as a drummer. It’s funny, I could hear a lot of my style in Jimmy style already, so it was really strange to come in and learn a lot of his fills which already sounded a bit like my fills to begin with. So the whole thing was coming around full circle in a strange kind of way. For the most part, I just let you guys direct me when I’m making the record. I also really respected how much you actually took me in, ‘cause you guys could have been dicks and kept me at arm’s length, but you guys were really cool to me and made me feel at home and made me feel a part of the family.

JC: I think it started with the mutual respect. That’s what really kicked it off.

MP: I get asked about that session and that album all the time, and I have to say I’m kind of torn, because on one hand, it was really sad and really emotional for you guys and I could tell that you guys were hurting and missing your brother. And here I am in there and I don’t want to overstep my boundaries. But on the other hand, I really enjoyed working with you guys. I really loved your camaraderie and the brotherhood that you guys had, so it was kind of a bittersweet thing for me. On one hand it was really sad and the other hand it was a great experience that I have fond memories of.

JC: And that actually takes me to the next part. At the end of the sessions, your parts were done – the drums were already laid down – and we’re starting to do our next thing, and you’re like, “I know you guys aren’t thinking about touring right now, but if you ever do get out there – you just want to play a couple of shows – I can make myself available to you and I’d love the chance to play some of this stuff live with you.” We’re like, “That’s a cool idea,” but again at that time, touring was not in our thought [process]. But then eventually we did decide to tour and you came out with us. Do you have any stories? I mean you’ve been on tour for years at this point with Dream Theater and everything like that, and then all of a sudden you’re in with these young punks! [laughs]

MP: First thing I had to do is start getting in shape to keep up with you guys.

JC: I remember that. You wanted to go shirtless again; you hadn’t gone shirtless in years.

MP: That was the goal ‘cause I hadn’t played shirtless in years. I started working out and eating with you guys, dieting with you guys, and I ended up losing like 30 pounds and the goal was by the time we get to the LA show towards the end of that run, I have to be able to play shirtless. And sure enough I was and I played shirtless at that show.

JC: You were pretty jacked there for a minute, man! We could see some abs going on there.

MP: I know! It was crazy. I was in the best shape of my life. I guess you guys were in your late 20s and I was in my early 40s – I think I’m about 15 years older than you guys – so I had to keep up with you guys. I didn’t want to look like the fat old man. You guys whipped me into shape and I appreciate it. I actually ended up having a lot of fun doing all that. But yeah, I have got so many great memories of that tour. Doing the whole Uproar tour with you guys, Disturbed, Stone Sour and Hellyeah; it was a great run. Not to harp on the passing of Jimmy, but that was your first time without him, and Hellyeah was out there with Vinnie without Dimebag, and Cory was out there with Stone Sour for the first time since Paul [Gray, Slipknot bassist] had passed. There was a lot of camaraderie and similar situations with all you guys kind of dealing with that. But anyway, the shows themselves were great. I absolutely loved playing with you guys. As we were talking about earlier, my music taste is so broad that after playing such technical stuff with Dream Theater for so many years and years and years, it was great to just get up there and have a good time and just play metal tunes. It was a nice change. So for me musically it was a lot of fun just to do something different.

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JC: So ultimately, we end up parting ways after all this fun on tour and everything like that. As I recall, we had pretty much decided that this was always gonna be an interim kind of thing for you to come into Avenged Sevenfold. At a certain point near the end there, I think we were at the end of an American tour about to go over to Europe, you mentioned that you were thinking of leaving Dream Theater, and we were like, “Oh. OK.” Not thinking much of it, and then you were like, “Oh, but then you guys could have me for all time,” and we’re like, “Uhh OK, let’s wrap our head around this.” And we wanted to make sure that if you leave, it’s not a guaranteed thing that you’re gonna be with us for all time. Also we were like we don’t want to look like the dicks that f***in’ split up Dream Theater!

MP: Right. I get it.

JC: So that was kind of our thought process, and we were still in our heads going, “Well this thing’s gonna end here, and we’re gonna have to move on.” But why don’t you tell it from your perspective, how you were feeling, why the departure from Dream Theater.

MP: I look at it like I think we were both what each other needed at that time. I think you guys needed to get back on your feet. That’s the way I felt, like I was there to help you guys. And you guys – whether you knew it or not – were there at a good time for me too, because I was 25 years into Dream Theater at that point, and I was fried, and I was burnt. I just needed a break, and touring with you guys was very refreshing for me, and it showed me that there’s more out there than just the little Dream Theater bubble that I had been in for 25 years. So you guys were really good for me at that point as well; you kind of opened up my eyes to other things. I pretty much made the decision that I needed a break from those guys; I needed to be able to explore other things, whether it be with you guys, or if it was not with you guys, with something else. And I knew that it wouldn’t necessarily work out between you guys and me, because I didn’t know if you were ready to make a commitment. And I knew that the whole Dream Theater thing sparked up so much drama at the time, with all the Blabbermouth headlines. Any time I did an interview, it became like f***ing headlines. It was horrible, and believe me, I never wanted that. And I’m sure, for you guys, that became a huge distraction. I’ve always been a social media guy – that’s always just the way I’ve been – and I know you guys keep that s*** in check. I could tell the way it was going down that you guys wanted to stay focused on Jimmy’s legacy and whatever you were gonna do next, and I get the fact that the timing wasn’t right, but for me, it didn’t matter. If it wasn’t gonna be with you guys, I needed to do other things with other people – that was just what I needed in my life and my career. Dream Theater was on my back to make commitments to a time table, because they wanted to go on, and I just wasn’t ready to make those commitments. So, anyway, what happened, happened, and at that point, I finished after a year with you guys, and then at that point, you guys moved on and I went on to do what I’ve been doing ever since now. It’s been over nine years and I’ve got dozens of different bands and projects. I’ve put out literally 40 albums since that time. Even Dream Theater – and I’m not saying this to slack them – but even they have only put out four albums since I’ve been gone. I think I just needed more than that; I needed to be able to play with Metal Allegiance and Flying Colors. Then I went and I played with Twisted after you guys, after they had a similar situation with A.J. passing. After the experience I had with you guys, walking in with Twisted was a very similar thing as well – those guys were still hurting; they wanted to honor his legacy. So I knew how to handle that. I also did gigs with Stone Sour and all these other bands, Metal Allegiance, all the bands I put together – The Winery Dogs, Sons of Apollo, Flying Colors. So it’s been an incredible ride, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I have this tattoo here that says ‘No Regrets.’ Everything happens for a reason. And whether or not it worked out with you guys, or whether or not it worked out with the Dream Theater situation, everything happens for a reason. I couldn’t be happier with the path I’ve been on since that experience with you guys. And I’m grateful for the experience I had with you guys, but I’m also grateful for the way it worked out that you guys went on to do your thing. And you played with two great drummers now, and Brooks is amazing. He’s perfect for you guys. And I’ve gone on to do all the different things I do. So I think everybody’s happy.

JC: Absolutely. I remember it being a little dicey for us there for a second at the end. There was the day when you’re like, “Hey, if you guys want, I’d love to stay on here,” and we’re like, “OK, well let’s think about this.” And then I believe the next morning you were like, “Hey, I quit Dream Theater.” We’re like, “Oh... What?!?!” [laughs]

MP: I was gonna do it no matter what.

JC: You were gonna do it either way, but on our end, we were like, “Whoa! We’re gonna look like the a******s that split up Dream Theater!” [laughs]

MP: I get it – I do. It was just tough times.