Derek Sherinian interview (excerpt)

John Gaudiosi: A lot was made recently when Mike popped into a Dream Theater show. As a founding member, he has all of that history. You were there with him for Falling Into Infinity and Once in a LIVEtime. You and Mike have always seemed to have a great relationship, but do you feel any kind of kinship toward that band or do you just see it as sort of “it was a project I worked on” along with all the other bands you've played with?

Derek Sherinian: Dream Theater was a very important part of my career, and there was a lot of musical growth that I went through during that time. I think if you listen to my playing before I went in and listened to it afterwards, you can see that there is massive growth in a lot of areas; not only technique, but my signature sound developed on that Falling Into Infinity album; I think that's where it all started to blossom. There was a lot that I learned in that band and it was great to carry on. It was kind of like the best finishing school after Alice Cooper, Kiss, then Dream Theater, and then it was time to go out and make my soul records and go out and start my career for real.