Derek Sherinian interview (excerpt)

Tommy Sommers: I also want to touch on Dream Theater because there’s a lot of fans of Dream Theater. Tell us about how you got involved in Dream Theater and what your time was like with those guys.

Derek Sherinian: Well the Kiss tour ended in ‘93. So right around that time, all these Seattle bands started coming out, and none of the hard rock bands were touring at all. There’s this whole new revolution – none of these Seattle bands had any keyboards whatsoever. So it was like a really dark period in ‘94 where there was just nothing going on. And I remember at the end of ‘94, I get a phone call from – who was it? I forgot who told me about it – but they said that this progressive rock band Dream Theater was hiring a keyboard player. Now I heard the song ‘Pull Me Under’, which I thought was pretty cool. I thought it sounded like Queensrÿche, but with better musicians, when I heard the song. I thought it was good – I thought the chorus was hooky, and so I knew who the band was. So they were looking for keyboards, and I got an audition set up. I remember hearing the music that I had to learn and it was very scary because it’s very technical and it was definitely more difficult than anything I’ve played in the past, but I really wanted to dig in and give it my best shot. So I went into audition, long story short—

TS: Wait a minute. Before you go any further, I want to ask a question: so you get this tape, you know the song, but you you’re saying that this is more challenging than what you’ve done in the past – how do you prepare for something like this? How do you rise up to a challenge like that?

DS: Repetition, practicing slow and working it up to speed, and then retaining it – it’s like a bunch of moving parts. So basically I went in for the audition and I felt like it could have gone either way. I ended up getting the call and I did a four-year run with the band. And I’ll tell you what: my musicianship level from when I started and then after year four, it just went up like huge levels; insane.

TS: So when you were first practicing for this, do you literally take the tape, slow it down –

DS: No. There’s no slowing down.

TS: You just said you practice and you build up, so how do you do that?

DS: Well if there’s certain lines, I’d have the notes written out so I can know what they are, but a lot of it would just be listening to the music over and over again and playing along with it. This is before ProTools – having it on the screen – this is like having to use a ghetto blaster. Total old school style, but it was very difficult and it was a two and a half hour set and with music that I’ve never heard before; odd time signatures, crazy stuff. I made a deal with myself that if I could get through that first show and learn this material, that anything that would come my way musically I should be able to handle.

TS: Well, it’s kind of a real shot in the arm to accomplish that.

DS: No, it’s great. Listen, whether you like Dream Theater or not, to be able to play in that band and be able to play those routines you have to be a badass player. I mean there’s just no way around it; there’s no shortcuts.

TS: I’ve heard that from a lot of different people of how incredibly technical that is just like a lot of the early Rush material as well.

DS: That early Rush is like child’s play compared to the Dream Theater stuff, believe me.

TS: Really.

DS: Oh yeah.