Mike Portnoy chat (excerpt)

Pete Pardo: I know you know this album [Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence] and the songs and the lyrics mean a lot to you, so I don't know if you want to say just a little bit about your memories of this album.

Mike Portnoy: Well that was that was my first studio double album. It wasn't supposed to have been a double album. We were making that record and we wrote the first five songs that make up disc one and that brought us to about 55 minutes or so, and we were like, “Let's write one final song – maybe something in the 20 minute zone. Something like ‘A Change Of Seasons’ length or whatever.” So we started writing the title track, and once we started writing, it just kept growing and growing and growing. Next thing we knew it was over 40 minutes! So at that point it was like, “Okay, I guess this is going to have to be a double album for it to all fit.” So I think if you put it all together it's about 90 minutes or so between the two discs. But yeah, I love that album. I think it's an underrated one. A lot of people, when they talk about the Dream Theater albums I was a part of, they always mention Images and Words and Scenes From a Memory, but I think Six Degrees was really...

PP: ...right up there.

MP: I agree and it was really experimental. We made it at a point where I was really into like Radiohead's OK Computer and a bunch of albums. Even the artwork was very reminiscent of Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails’ Downward Spiral or something. So we were getting very experimental. Every track on there, we were slowing things down, speeding things up, trying different recording techniques. If you listen to the song ‘Misunderstood’ or the last song on the first disc, ‘Disappear’... I mean ‘Disappear’ was just a soundscape experiment for us. And I love that it also has really heavy songs like ‘The Glass Prison’ and some sections from the title track. So yeah, I think it's an often overlooked Dream Theater album and certainly one of my favorites. I think it was probably the most bold, daring and experimental of all those albums.

PP: Yeah. I think when it was released maybe the album for some it kind of went a little over people's heads, but I think over time people have circled back to this album, because I’ve talked to a lot of Dream Theater fans who now really, really appreciate this album, but it was a little bit of a grower, because it is so challenging – it's so complex lyrically as well as musically, but I absolutely love it. I've been lucky enough, I've actually seen Dream Theater live more than any other band. I've gotten to see the band play almost every single track from this album. One of the things I’ve always loved about Dream Theater – and I know you probably had a lot to do with that – is you really always wanted to give the fans their money's worth and the fact that you could go see Dream Theater two or three times on a tour from different places and venues and see a different show every single time, and I loved that about you guys – one of the many things. Do you remember Derek's last show with the band at the Poughkeepsie – I was there.

MP: Oh yeah!

PP: That cold night, it was like right around the holidays.

MP: Yeah! That was I guess December 1998. And we did a lot of covers – I think we did ‘Different Strings’ by Rush that night, mixed together with ‘Analog Kid’ and ‘La Villa Strangiato’ was mixed in there and we did a lot of rare outtakes and B-sides and stuff like that.

PP: It seemed like a bittersweet night for you guys, but it was it was a fun night for the fans.

MP: I remember we had a couch set up on the stage and everything. Yeah, that was Derek's last show. Those days were fun. I used to make myself crazy writing those setlists because I would literally have to look... I would spend every night in the hotel room researching “Okay, we're playing Detroit” so I'd pull up the last five or six times we played Detroit and would have to write a setlist that would be completely different so anytime anybody would go to see us they would get a completely different experience.

PP: I always saw you as the guy who probably said to yourself “You know what? I am a fan just like they are. If I was going to see this band, that's what I would expect from them to do every night.” And that's to me is a lot of kudos for that.

MP: Were you at the Radio City Music Hall show with the orchestra? Because we did ‘Six Degrees’ that night with the orchestra. I don't know if you remember, but we never even announced that we were going to play with an orchestra – it was a surprise that we only knew. During intermission the curtains closed and they all got into position and then I think we opened the second set with ‘Six Degrees’. All of a sudden, the curtains open and rather than hearing the recorded intro to the overture like we were playing on the rest of the tour, suddenly they were there playing it. So yeah, that was that was a great one.