Dream Theater: Images And Words

Thirty years after its release, on July 7, 1992, Rock Hard offers you a return in images and words on an emblematic album, which became the ultimate reference in progressive metal, Images And Words by Dream Theater. For Rock Hard, the band’s founders looked in the rear-view mirror with enthusiasm and frankness, to describe a period of turmoil and then of creative enthusiasm leading to the record that will remain forever associated with them.

1989: A False Start?

At the release of its first, When Dream And Day Unite, in March 1989, Dream Theater can be satisfied with the good reactions aroused in the specialized press. In the English magazine Kerrang! a reference of the world metal press, then-journalist Derek Oliver explained that he had “not heard such musical dexterity since the glorious days of jazz rock or Dixie Dregs”, comparing John Petrucci (guitars) to “a hybrid between Jeff Beck and Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music)” and adding that in Mike Portnoy (drums), he sees “an even better drummer than Billy Cobham or Neil Peart (Rush).”

In spite of other excellent reviews, Dream Theater quickly realized that their label at the time, Mechanic Records, was not going to promote the album at all. If the two promo singles were sent to radio stations, it was without conviction. The two titles in question were certainly remixed by Terry Brown, Rush’s historical producer, but the label didn’t even bother to modify the cover of the second one, contenting itself with imposing a sticker with the title ‘Status Seeker’ in the place where ‘Afterlife’ was printed! And no tour was organized, not giving the quintet an opportunity to defend its pieces on stage, except during 2 shows opening for Winger in February, 1989. Then followed a difficult year for the band. Feeling that Charlie Dominici, their singer, did not meet their expectations, Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci, Kevin Moore (keyboards) and John Myung (bass), made the decision to separate from him in the autumn of 1989, just after he got a tattoo the logo of the group...

Desperately Looking For A Singer

The search for a replacement turns out nevertheless much more complicated than envisaged. While the quartet continued to compose songs in instrumental form, they actively sought the rare pearl that would enable them to restart on good bases.

The first one they contacted directly was John Arch (ex-Fates Warning). Indeed, the members of Dream Theater already knew and appreciated him. But after a few attempts, he did not find himself in the very directive way of the musicians to test him and to indicate him what he must do with his voice. What will confirm the following applicants...

During that period, the group received about 200 tapes of candidates for the position, and auditioned a number of them during 1990.

Among the serious leads was John Hendricks, a Florida-based singer whom the band brought to New York in February 1990 to record two new songs, ‘To Live Forever’ and ‘Don’t Look Past Me.’ His look and his more pop voice (between Thom Yorke of Radiohead and John Arch) seduced the band, but not their manager at the time, Derek Simon, nor their label. Back to square one.

Then Steve Stone, from Seattle, entered the scene. Mike Portnoy described his singing as a cross between Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche) and Steve Perry (Journey). The contact goes well, even if Steve feels the same way as John Arch – that his creative role would be reduced. The recording of ‘To Live Forever’ is judged convincing and Steve Stone makes his stage debut with Dream Theater on June 9, 1990 at Sundance, a club in Bay Shore, Long Island, opening for Marillion. After a few instrumental songs, Steve sang ‘Metropolis – Part 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper’, ‘A Fortune In Lies’ and ‘The Killing Hand.’ But his stage presence is catastrophic. To give him an idea of what they expected, Portnoy & Co. made him watch Iron Maiden’s Live After Death video beforehand. But the singer took it literally and kept beckoning the crowd, as Bruce Dickinson did in that video, with “Scream For Me, Long Beach” which is rather embarrassing when they were playing a Bay Shore club, not the Long Beach Arena. The adventure with Steve Stone ended the day after this concert.

On rare occasions, Dream Theater performed on stage in an instrumental configuration, like on November 17, 1990, still at the Sundance in Bay Shore. During this concert, 3 new tracks were unveiled: ‘A Change Of Seasons’, a 20-minute epic track (which would be released as an EP in 1995, see our sidebar), ‘Take The Time’ and ‘Learning To Live.’

The next serious candidate was Chris Cintron, who had already recorded an album with his band Reckless and provided backing vocals on Twisted Sister’s 1987 album Love Is For Suckers. At the end of 1990, Chris recorded a demo of ‘A Change Of Seasons’ and more or less explicitly joined Dream Theater, but his artistic relationship with Kevin Moore was strained, while the other musicians had doubts about his behavior, which sometimes seemed strange.

During this period, the band was also still looking for a label that would be willing to negotiate the exit of their deal with Mechanic Records. In 1990, their manager, Derek Simon, contacted Derek Oliver, who had left Kerrang! to work at Atco Records, a subdivision of Atlantic Records, in New York. Excited by an instrumental demo, Derek Oliver wanted to get the band signed by his boss, Derek Shulman (also ex-singer of the famous band Gentle Giant), while expressing his doubts about Chris Cintron’s voice and attitude. He made it clear to the musicians that the deal with Atco could not be done with Chris in the band. However, the four continued to work with the singer, hoping that Derek Oliver would change his mind. Unfortunately, their manager Derek Simon did not feel too good about Chris either, who missed at least one meeting with him. A missed chance? Chris did not feel well treated by his comrades, who explained to him that his only role would be to sing, and not to participate in the writing of the lyrics or the vocal melodies.

In the meantime, they had to eat, and in spite of an outstanding devotion to their group – and the intensive practice of their instruments – the members of Dream Theater were obliged to take on activities that allowed them to survive financially. John Petrucci recalls, “We all had jobs during the day, and we rehearsed and composed at night. I taught guitar lessons, Mike Portnoy was a delivery boy for Chinese restaurants, and John Myung hauled fish. He picked up huge quantities of tuna at the airport and delivered it to different markets, sometimes with shifting schedules. I don’t know how he could reconcile that job with our rehearsals!”

Christmas 1990: A Gift From Canada...

It was at this time, at the end of 1990, that a package arrived from Canada, containing Kevin LaBrie’s bio, a photo of him and a tape of a recording with his band Winter Rose. Mike Portnoy remembers that this singer had a good look, and a voice that borrowed as much from Geoff Tate as from Steve Perry. Having caught the eye, and especially the ears, of the four musicians, Kevin James LaBrie was invited to come and visit them. He landed in New York on January 19, 1991 and spent 4 days with them. Quickly, they recognize he was the singer they were waiting for! John Petrucci confirms: “We were about to integrate Chris Cintron, but without being totally convinced of our decision. When we received a picture of James and a recording of a Winter Rose concert, it immediately clicked. He was clearly the one we were looking for. And when he came to New York, the current passes immediately.” Kevin LaBrie, who would have to use his middle name, James, because of the presence of another Kevin in the band (they already found it confusing to have two Johns in the band), even recorded a demo version of ‘A Change Of Seasons’ during this short stay. They still had to announce the news to Chris Cintron, who fell from his chair when he learned that he was no longer a part of Dream Theater.

The Dynamics Finally Set In Motion

At the beginning of 1991, the group managed to break its agreement with Mechanic Records and in March, the owner of the label Atco, Derek Shulman, agreed to finance the recording of a 4 song demo of Dream Theater with their new singer, as a test. The production was entrusted to David Prater (former drummer of Nektar and Santana), very fashionable considering his success with the debut albums of Diving for Pearls in 1989 and Firehouse in 1990. In response to Derek Oliver’s questions in private, and especially not in front of the band, concerning the good match between James LaBrie and Dream Theater, David Prater reassured him by indicating that he felt capable of coaching the singer so that he could live up to expectations. However, Derek Oliver continued to have this doubt and approached Robert Mason, singer of Adrian Dodz, whose album David Prater had just finished recording. Also, whereas the quintet recorded the 4 songs which became known by the name Atco Demos in Bear Tracks Studio, Derek Oliver and Derek Simon made an offer to Robert Mason. He refused it to instead join Lynch Mob, the new band of George Lynch (ex-Dokken), replacing Oni Logan. No member of Dream Theater was then aware of these negotiations, as confirmed by James LaBrie: “None of us was aware of this affair during the recording of the disc. In fact, it was me who told the others. When I asked John Petrucci if he really wanted to audition Robert Mason, I could tell by his reaction that he had no idea of what I was talking about (laughs). It’s an amazing thing. Robert has a beautiful voice, but I don’t think it would have fit with the songs that are on this album... I had a similar experience when, at the time of the release of Images And Words in the summer of 1992, we were looking for a new manager and we were, among others, in discussion with Rod Smallwood, the manager of Iron Maiden. One day, Rod took me aside and asked me if I would be interested in auditioning to replace Bruce Dickinson in Maiden, which I refused. It would have been paradoxical to be angry at Derek Oliver while accepting to audition for Maiden. My choice was made, and it was Dream Theater.”

With that out of the way, the sky cleared and after listening to the Atco Demos, Derek Shulman signed the band to his label, despite a last minute offer from Epic, who were impressed with the songs they heard. At the time of announcing the good news and the financing of their forthcoming album, Derek Shulman and Derek Oliver are formal: in any case Dream Theater must not change its approach of the composition to try to follow trends of time or to obtain a hit, but should remain true to themselves.

The band then worked on new compositions, including ‘Another Day’, ‘Surrounded’ and the instrumental ‘Oliver’s Twist’ (which became ‘Pull Me Under’), so called because of Derek Oliver’s request to have new songs. As a result, two older songs, ‘To Live Forever’ and ‘Don’t Look Past me’ were dropped from the track-listing of what would become Images And Words. John Myung recalls, “We kept the newer songs and especially the ones we thought were strongest. When you have a lot of time on your hands, you have the chance to make a kind of natural selection of songs.”

A Recording In Pain

On October 14, 1991, the big day arrived: the band returned to Bear Tracks Studio for a month and a half, still with David Prater at the helm, despite the reluctance of the band and its entourage to call on him again, due to the tensions that had arisen in May, as well as his fee.

But the label was very sure of its choice, and the concession was therefore made on the side of the musicians, as Mike Portnoy recalls: “We had been in limbo for two years, without a label and without a singer. This was an incredible opportunity. We only spent 5 days in the studio with David Prater in May 1991, and we didn’t get to see all the aspects of his work and, above all, his behavior. Certainly, during the recording of these demos, we had a few warning signs about his personality and the difficulties we might experience working with him. But again, you have to put things in context: at that time, we were in the middle of nowhere, totally desperate, maybe to never record an album again. We had no choice but to force ourselves. Later in our career, we regained control over the recording of our albums, and we would not tolerate such behavior. But at that time, we simply had no choice; we had to move on! In 1990, we could have thrown in the towel, when we couldn’t find a singer and were in conflict with Mechanic Records. But after bringing James into the band in January 1991, and with Derek Oliver in negotiations with Atco, things were different and we were determined. This was the moment we had been waiting for and we were excited about this second chance.”

Derek Oliver was convinced that David Prater was a genius, even comparing him to Tony Visconti, the iconic producer of T-Rex and David Bowie. James LaBrie shares this view: “He’s a genius, in the original sense of the word, and he doesn’t think like everyone else. He’s very smart and brilliant, but also eccentric... He’s probably not even close to the line between genius and insanity.” John Myung, who admits to having gotten along well with David Prater, actually praises his artistic qualities: “Beyond all the debates between the pro- and anti-David Prater, I love the way the A Change Of Seasons EP (1995) sounds. The production is sublime. Musically, I think he’s really the right person for us, but we couldn’t work with him after that EP.”

But before even starting to work in the studio with this dreaded producer, on the first day another cold shower awaited the band, who learned that they would not be able to include their most emblematic and epic track (it lasts 20 minutes!), ‘A Change Of Seasons’, on this record. “It was one of the first songs written for this album,” recalls Mike Portnoy, “and it was always our intention to include it on the record. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t write any more lyrics, because I already have the lyrics to that 20-minute song, which is very personal. So I told the others that I didn’t want to take on any more lyrics for this album. It was just the first day that David Prater put Derek Oliver on the phone, and he dropped this bomb on us, telling us that the label firmly refused to allow this track to appear on Images And Words. It was a heartbreaker. We were totally devastated by this news, because it’s one of the major pieces of the puzzle, and a part of the balance we found for the album. The argument is that a 75 minute record is pretty incongruous, especially for a major label debut. In retrospect, looking back 30 years, I have to admit that it was probably the right decision. But at the time, it was particularly hard to take. I realize now that it could have been disastrous and handicapped us. At the beginning of the 1990s, nobody was writing such long songs anymore. It was more a question of principle than of technical constraint, related to the fact that the CDs were then limited to 74 minutes.”

Once this huge disappointment was swallowed, the band started to work under the leadership of David Prater and Doug Oberkicher, the sound engineer.

During the month and a half that the recording lasted, the group lived in a rented house nearby, which allowed them to tighten their bonds with the singer. Indeed, John Petrucci, John Myung and Kevin Moore grew up in the same neighborhood and played together as teenagers. They then formed Majesty (which would change its name to Dream Theater in 1988 because of a group already bearing this name) in 1985 with Mike Portnoy, whom they met at Berklee, the most prestigious music school in the United States. James LaBrie therefore had to find his place in this very established collective. “We were having a great time. We were totally dedicated to this album that we had to record and this collective adventure was very strong and brought us closer. John Myung brought his rice cooker and we ate rice all the time, with lots of different sauces, as if we were going to die the next day. We all put on weight during this period: we arrived at the studio in jeans, we left in tracksuits (laughs)” remembers the singer.

On a professional level, relations deteriorated very quickly between David Prater and the two strong heads of the group, or at least those identified as such, namely Mike Portnoy and Kevin Moore. David Prater even accused the latter of sabotage: according to him, Kevin Moore demanded the rental of a lot of expensive equipment, including a grand piano, and deliberately played bad chord inversions, which John Petrucci blamed on inexperience, not ill will. As for the tensions with Mike Portnoy, they were probably exacerbated by the fact that David Prater is a drummer himself, so he paid special attention to this instrument. 30 years later, Mike Portnoy still talks about it with some bitterness: “David Prater gave us ALL the details of EVERYTHING he had done. Every moment of every day, he reminded us how great he was at everything! He tried to get me to simplify my drumming, but he didn’t get his way (laughs). It was unthinkable, and that’s one of the reasons why we really got into it. I was stubborn. I was only 24 years old and I wanted to show what I could do, and above all, this is my way of playing.” This is confirmed by the singer, James LaBrie: “David Prater was really infernal with Mike. He was always telling him how to play this part or that part; while the whole band was telling him to let Mike do it, because his playing contributed to the identity of Dream Theater. David Prater really had a problem with that. He also had a problem with Kevin, who he asked to play his parts more aggressively. Except that Kevin and Mike are great musicians, and above all they knew what they had to do, and how to interpret the songs they had written.” Nevertheless, the drummer is now quite lucid: “We spent a lot of time writing these songs, as evidenced by the various demos we made. David Prater did not force us to simplify the structures themselves. He did, however, change some aspects of their orchestration, for example by making the bass lines a tone below the guitar and keyboard parts, so as not to saturate the sonic landscape. He also asked us to make some of the keyboard parts more accessible. Overall, he spent a lot of time making the album as approachable as possible, including the vocals, making sure that the vocal lines were catchy and not just breathtaking in terms of technical performance. So I have to give him credit for that.”

John Petrucci acted as a mediator between the producer and his two bandmates. “I was often the go-between or the peacekeeper between David, and Mike and Kevin. Bear Tracks has a studio and a loft where you can rest, both separated by a glass door. I can still remember David storming into this relaxing space to vent all his anger about Kevin to me, thinking I was a bit of a lawyer or counselor for the band. I had to constantly rebuild the bridges between them. David Prater and I got along well, but I sensed this strong tension with the other two.” Despite this essential role, he too was not spared by the producer when it came to talking about music: “Originally, ‘Surrounded’ had a guitar solo. I remember very well when I wanted to record it. After listening to me play it, David Prater came up to me, stood in front of me and said, ‘That sounds like a bad Van Halen solo! You have to do something different.’ So we decided to replace it with a rhythmic pattern.”

On the vocal side, newcomer James LaBrie categorically denies the lack of freedom given by the four musicians to their singer, as evoked by John Arch, Chris Cintron or Steve Stone. “I asked the others to play me the songs, to share with me the vocal melodies they had in mind, to provide me with the lyrics, but then to trust me on how to integrate all that and interpret the songs. And that’s what happened. Of course, I listened to their comments and if they wanted me to sing a part in a certain way, I did it. But in 95% of the cases, they accepted my suggestions. As an illustration which happened during the sessions, we had to relocate one day to the Record Plant Studio, in the heart of New York, because the Bear Tracks Studio was occupied. So that day it was just David Prater, Doug Oberkircher and me as I recorded ‘Learning To Live’ in the version that was chosen for the album. I knew how to sing it. They trusted me to give me space to express myself, while actually being able to tell me frankly how they saw things when they had a specific idea in mind that seemed more appropriate than what I was suggesting. From our first meeting, I think the others realized quite quickly our connection and of my capacity to understand and integrate their model. When I discovered Dream Theater, I was into Rush, Yes and Pink Floyd, and I was overwhelmed when I heard what they sent me. Each of the musicians is of a hallucinating level! I’ve never heard that before. I told myself that if I ever had the opportunity to show who I am and what I can do as a singer, it had to be with them, with Dream Theater.” And contrary to a rumor that circulated when Awake (1994), the successor to Images And Words, was released, with its notoriously more aggressive vocals, David Prater did not have James LaBrie record several versions of the vocals: “The idea was really for my vocal parts on this album to be fairly natural. The only more aggressive part I was offering was in ‘Pull Me Under’ (James LaBrie then starts singing the corresponding passage). David Prater really liked this part, but I told him that I didn’t want to record the whole album in that mode. I wanted it to be clean, strong and pure. Then, when we recorded Awake, which is a much heavier album, I adapted. I know it offended some people, but this more snarling vocal was more appropriate for that record than on Images And Words. After that, it’s true that in live performances, as you can for example hear on the official bootleg Live In NYC 93, I sometimes allow myself to sing the songs of Images And Words in a more aggressive way, according to my mood.” The singer is lucid about the progress made with this album: “Unlike When Dream And Day Unite (1989), the band wanted to write real songs with Images And Words. It’s not the technical aspect that comes first. Our mindset was not ‘Let’s show what we can do,’ but rather ‘Let’s write songs’. The technical side gave a certain flavor to the songs, but what was important was the maturity acquired on this second album.”

The Delivery

With the band having mastered their songs to perfection, Images And Words was recorded in a month and a half. The band left the studio on November 24, 1991, not without a final surprise from their producer, as James LaBrie remembers: “We felt like we had done something out of the ordinary, but its success was not in our hands. Now people had to want to listen to it. On the second-to-last day of the sessions, David Prater came up to me while I was taking a leisurely stroll around and said, ‘I’ve never worked on an album like this in my career. It’s like nothing else. It’s either going to make you famous all over the world, or it’s going to end up in the bargain bin. But I have a feeling it will be the former.’ Fortunately, he was right, thanks in part to the support of college radio stations, which had taken a liking to ‘Pull Me Under.’ That same day, after finishing mixing the album, he offered us the opportunity to listen to it from start to finish in the studio control room, either that night or the next day. We chose the next day, and when we showed up the next day, David was not there anymore! He took a flight that morning, because he had a new recording session starting elsewhere. We were a bit surprised, and annoyed, but we still listened to the record in this control room on huge speakers. And there, we were really satisfied with the result. We just had to hope that our label would support us. For the record, and not many people know this, we recorded Images And Words entirely without even having signed a contract with Atco. It’s only the day after we left the studio that we signed it, in the Time Warner building in New York...”

A long wait followed, since Images And Words only landed in record stores on July 7th 1992, 8 months later, leaving the band plenty of time to doubt that it would ever be released, or even that it would be truly supported by the label, at a time when grunge was taking over everywhere and sweeping away all other styles. Mike Portnoy recalls, “It was over half a year from the time we finished recording this album to the time it was released. It seemed like an eternity, so much so that at one point we even thought that Atco might decide not to release it after all, and that would be another blow to us. Probably the remains of our bad relationship with our previous label! It was also the time when we were looking for a new manager, etc. And after its release, we stayed at home for several more months before going on tour. Without a tour and a video, we felt like we were reliving the time of When Dream And Day Unite. Fortunately, the passing of time tends to erase the bad memories, and you only keep in mind the best, in this case the excitement of recording a new album after all the problems we went through, the relief of having finally found the right singer, the pride of signing on a big label, working in a real studio and releasing an album that sounded good. Indeed, the production of When Dream And Day Unite really suffered from the short time we spent in the studio to record and mix it. It’s all very rewarding. But we still had the question in the back of our minds: ‘Isn’t this going to be another false start, like with our first record, rather than the moment we’ve been waiting for since we started making music?’ So we had to be a bit more patient, before we could see that this album was a real start and really launched our career!” Atco’s initial support for the record was, however, rather timid, recalls James LaBrie: “They only pressed 8,000 copies at first! What do you want to do with that? Fortunately, following the intensive radio passages of ‘Pull Me Under’ in the fall of 1992, our sales increased to 50,000 albums per week and we became their priority.” Because it is indeed the success, unpredictable, of ‘Pull Me Under’ which makes rock the destiny of this album.

The band was initially not convinced of the choice of this song, even in shortened form, as first single, and would have preferred a more commercial track. But Derek Oliver insisted. Following the first positive reactions of the university radio stations, a corresponding video was recorded at a live show on October 21, 1992 in Chicago. And soon after, this video was played 5 to 6 times a day on MTV, installing Dream Theater in the metal landscape.

Here is the band reassured... And proud of this album, as Mike Portnoy recalls: “Of course we were proud of it! Especially the fact that we made this record at a time when you needed to have balls to release an album like this! We could have dug our own grave with it, being totally against what the public seemed to expect and appreciate at that time. So it’s all the more gratifying that at the time, no one else was making music like this. Even the bands that were in this state of mind, like Fates Warning or Queensrÿche for example, tended to polish their music a bit in the early 90s. We really had no other alternative than to win our bet or to sink forever.”

As for being aware of the repercussions that this album would have 30 years after its release as the cornerstone of the whole progressive metal genre, it was not obvious. “We were convinced that we had made a record that was true to our musical ambition, but we had no idea how it would be received. Especially after the disappointment we had with When Dream And Day Unite, we didn’t have very high expectations... We were just happy to be able to release a record again. And every person who would listen to it would contribute to our happiness. We put all our heart in the presented songs, rich in emotions for us. These songs were the ones that got us through difficult times, the ones that we held on to when we felt we had no support from anyone. We never tried to censor ourselves. The idea was just to make the music that we had in us. We had a vision of what the band should be and we tried to go even further than on When Dream And Day Unite, with even longer and more adventurous tracks, like ‘A Change Of Seasons’, ‘Metropolis – Part 1’ or ‘Learning To Live.’ Afterwards, the way people would react when they listened to them was not up to us. So we could only cross our fingers. Luckily, it seems that perseverance paid off,” concludes the drummer.

John Myung’s assessment is unequivocal: “I don’t have any bad memories of this period, and I only keep the positive ones, especially the fact that we are still here, after having made a great career for 30 years. What can I complain about?”

The final word goes to Derek Oliver, who sums things up quite well: “This album is an amazing creation, generated in near chaos by a group of people with sometimes very dogmatic positions. While experiencing the combined intransigence of Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci, Derek Oliver and David Prater was a situation I don’t want to repeat any time soon, I think it was no stranger to creating one of the great rock albums of the 90s.”

Thanks to Djul and François Jorge

Images And Words: Title To Title

In order to complete its dive into the origins of this album, Rock Hard reviewed each of the tracks on the album with its creators, which reserved a few surprises and allowed us to glean information that was previously completely unknown, including some of the band’s members!

1 – Pull Me Under

Mike Portnoy: ‘Pull Me Under’ was added to the track listing at the last minute, because Derek Oliver wanted a more metal and shorter song. Of course, it’s still 8 minutes long, but at the time, for us, it was short (Laughs). The original version of ‘Pull Me Under’ is even longer than the one that appears on the album, because it contains an instrumental part that we remove, to incorporate sometime later in ‘Erotomania’, on Awake (1994) (Editor’s note: This can be seen by listening to the demo version of this song, then titled ‘Oliver’s Twist’ – in homage to Derek Oliver – which appears on the Images And Words demos released by the band in its Official Bootlegs collection). However, we were aware that we were not in tune with the music industry standards of the time. That’s why when Atco chose ‘Pull Me Under’ as the single to send to the radio stations, we thought they were totally crazy. ‘Another Day’ is the natural single for us, especially not ‘Pull Me Under.’ But once again, our record company is right. In 1992, in the middle of the grunge wave, it was absolutely inconceivable to us that an 8-minute song would attract the attention of radio or MTV. But it probably worked in the end precisely because we propose something totally against the current... This song was composed very quickly and simply, in an almost organic way, and it’s probably also what makes its quality. It hadn’t been worked and reworked for years, and we didn’t ask ourselves many questions about it. We spent the whole year 1989 putting together and polishing ‘Metropolis – Part 1’, bit by bit. The same with ‘A Change Of Seasons’ and ‘Learning To Live.’ We spent a lot of time composing these songs, analyzing each passage under a microscope. As a result, the ease with which ‘Pull Me Under’ was composed was a form of liberation. On my side, I fought for ‘Metropolis – Part 1’ to open the album, not ‘Pull Me Under.’ For me, ‘Pull Me Under’ should be the first track on the B side. But once again, the label got their way, despite my persistence, and once again, they were right.

John Petrucci: The guitar chords that start the song just came to me, without thinking. It’s not that common. Musicians call it “divine intervention”: you play without thinking, and it gives you something magical. I think it’s great. I record them on a very small Zoom amp, which is usually used for practice. It was David Prater’s idea to use this amp for the album, much to my surprise. So we recorded this intro riff six times, always on this little amp, and then changed the speed each time. Then we did the same with an acoustic guitar. The result of all this is what you hear on the album.

2 – Another Day

‘Another Day’ is the first ballad of the band. Is it an obligatory exercise?

Mike Portnoy: We didn’t actually write one for When Dream And Day Unite, although ‘To Live Forever’, written during the Charlie Dominici era, could be classified as such. While we are a metal and progressive band, there is a part of us that loves and respects bands like Journey and U2. We are fans of melodic rock, and that contributes to the balance of an album. Dream Theater is built on 3 musical pillars: progressive, metal and melodic. We tend to emphasize the first two aspects, but the third one is really important.

John Petrucci: This song came naturally, without conceptualizing the fact that we wanted to write a ballad. At that time, we didn’t build an album like we can today. We wrote songs, period. I was fascinated by Chords Chemistry, the book written by Ted Green, a jazz guitarist. It allowed me to discover a lot of things and a new way of working the guitar. I was inspired by it for many parts played without saturation on this album. I then wrote the lyrics of this song as a tribute to my father, who was fighting a terrible disease at that time.

Whose idea was it to get Jay Beckenstein (from the jazz fusion band Spyro Gyra) to incorporate a saxophone solo?

Mike Portnoy: I think it was David Prater’s idea. We didn’t know that the recording studio we were in belonged to Jay Beckenstein. ‘Another Day’ is a very accessible song and David Prater’s suggestion to have him play on it was a natural fit.

James LaBrie: He won’t mind me revealing this now because the statute of limitations has expired, but before entering the studio that day, Jay Beckenstein smoked a huge joint on the doorstep! He then showed up, grabbed his saxophone, and played the solo you hear on the album in one go. I’m not kidding: he recorded it in one take... This guy was amazing. He then simply told us that he loved this song and that he really wanted to play it.

3 – Take The Time

Mike, we’re guessing that the rap part at the beginning of the song was your idea, right?

Mike Portnoy: What do you think? Of course... I’m the only one that listened to rap music at the time, and I was really into it: Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, etc. For this song, we decided that each of us would write part of the lyrics. The groove of the first verse made me want to transpose it vocally into the world of rap, and that’s what I had in mind when I wrote my part of the lyrics. We used samples of Zappa, the Beastie Boys and Chuck D from Public Enemy.

How did the others react?

Mike Portnoy: I don’t remember any objection from them. At the time, Kevin Moore and I were the two members most interested in samples. We used them on the demo of ‘Don’t Look Past Me’ and again on ‘6:00’, ‘The Mirror’ or ‘Voices’ on Awake. So it wasn’t a problem.

Sidebar

The promo CD of ‘Take The Time’, second single taken from the album for radio, proposes two versions of this song: the normal version (8 minutes, 21 seconds) and an edited version (5 minutes, 57 seconds). On the booklet of this promo CD, the group wrote the following message, for the attention of the programmers and hosts: “This CD contains two versions of ‘Take The Time.’ Sure, the full version is a bit long, but think of all the things you have time to do in 8 minutes (answer a phone call, go to the bathroom, take a short nap, etc.). So we’d appreciate it if you’d take the time to broadcast this version.”

4 – Surrounded

Mike Portnoy: This is a song that Kevin Moore suggested to us when we were preparing the album. One day, he played us a demo he recorded alone, just with keyboards and his voice. It’s an example of the more melodic side of Dream Theater’s music that we wanted to explore.

James LaBrie: This is probably my favorite track on the record. One night when the album was finished, Mike’s father, Howard, a great guy, came over and brought a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne for each of us. So we listened to the album sitting in chairs, drinking champagne, to celebrate the end of the recording. After listening to ‘Surrounded’, Kevin Moore stood up, without saying a word. He came over to me and hugged me. I could see that he had tears in his eyes. He simply said, “That was beautiful.” What a compliment from the man who composed that piece! Maybe that’s why I like this song so much, because of the emotion it reminds me of: we were young, enthusiastic, bound by a true friendship. By the way, Mike and I recently managed to reconcile, which is a very good thing, and I’m happy about that.

John Petrucci: John Myung, Kevin Moore and I grew up together in the same town. So we had an extremely strong musical connection. I always loved what Kevin Moore was doing, and he’s also a very good lyricist. He’s got a crazy talent.

Are you still in contact with Kevin Moore?

John Petrucci: Unfortunately not, which may sound strange.

5 – Metropolis – Part 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper

Why did you add “Part 1” to the title of the song?

Mike Portnoy: It was a joke! You have to ask John Petrucci, because he wrote the lyrics.

John Petrucci: Because Rush did! (Laughs) We were probably the biggest Rush fans on the planet at the time, and on the Rush album A Farewell To Kings (1977), there’s the title ‘Cygnus X-1 – Book One.’ So I’m adding “Part 1” to our track called ‘Metropolis’! It sounds very mysterious.

Mike Portnoy: The working name of this song was ‘Crumbling Metropolis.’ When we wrote a song, in its instrumental state, we chose a working title that related to what the song was about. Then, the person in charge of the lyrics altered it, according to his lyrics. John Petrucci wrote lyrics about Metropolis, an imaginary city that inspired Fritz Lang and comic book writers. He finally chose to add “Part 1: The Miracle and The Sleeper” to the title to sound really prog (laughs). We never intended to write a second part. But after years and years of being asked about it, we finally broke down and wrote it. We didn’t do it in half measures, because it became a whole album, Metropolis – Part 2: Scenes From A Memory, in 1999.

John, your bass solo on this song has become iconic. How did you come up with the idea?

John Myung: Our songs are the work of a group, and they have a consensus. And then the others told me that we probably needed a bass solo on this part. So I thought about it and came up with this tapping part. But that’s what I really like about this band: this collective spirit that pushes you to create. The parts I play wouldn’t really make sense outside the band. They fit into a collective context. We share a musical vision.

6 – Under A Glass Moon

Mike Portnoy: The working title of this song is ‘The Battle Of Jimmy Cocoa And Fish Face.’ When we wrote it, the main riff was quite slow compared to the final version. [Mike then starts singing this riff in a slow version, chanting the phrase that gave the song its working title while providing the rhythm by clapping his hands...] But to get back to the song itself, it was written in early 1991 and its double bass drum part has become quite emblematic of my playing. It’s usually the first part that people try to learn, along with the intro to ‘6:00.’ I love that song, because it’s very heavy, but with a pretty jazzy guitar solo. I’ll let you in on a secret, something that even the other band members don’t know. The first guitar riff after the intro is something I swiped from a song on the first Pretenders album. It comes from the song ‘The Phone Call.’ [Mike Portnoy then grabs his iPhone to play us the track in question.] I know it’s not very elegant to do such borrowing, but I told myself that no one would notice, which indeed was the case. But now that the statute of limitations has expired, I can admit it. The other members aren’t Pretenders fans, so they didn’t even notice (laughs). They’ll find out when they read your article.

James LaBrie: I really like ‘Under A Glass Moon’, especially John Petrucci’s guitar solo, which is phenomenal.

Indeed, John, your solo on this track is often mentioned by Dream Theater fans as one of the most outstanding in your repertoire...

John Petrucci: I think there are two reasons for that. First of all, the other instruments, the bass and the keyboards, are playing behind a unique and rather strange pattern, which is not usually the background for a guitar solo. Usually you hear simple chord progressions in the background of solos, not parts with rhythm changes like on ‘Under A Glass Moon.’ So this led me to imagine an atypical solo, in line with this background motif. During a break in the sessions, I spent some time at home listening to what we recorded to work on my solos. I can assure you that this one is not improvised and required a lot of work, to fit the context perfectly. It is a real work of composition.

7 – Wait For Sleep

This short piece is very linked to the next one, ‘Learning To Live’, even though they were not written at the same time...

Mike Portnoy: Absolutely. We even played ‘Learning To Live’ as an instrumental several times in 1990. We didn’t add the ‘Wait For Sleep’ intro until the Images And Words recording sessions. It was Kevin Moore’s idea to take the main motif of the song and make it into this beautiful piano/vocal prelude.

8 – Learning To Live

This track is probably one of the most breathtaking in your repertoire, and the one on which we can best perceive the intensity of the bond that unites all 5 of you musically. The harmony between all the instruments and the vocals is quite incredible...

Mike Portnoy: I agree. After the deletion of ‘A Change Of Seasons’, ‘Learning To Live’ became the quintessential track on this record, the most constructed and the one that defined us best. We definitely found our style and sound with this album. The Majesty demo (1986) and When Dream And Day Unite (1989) sound like the work of a band searching for its style, its identity, whereas I think Images And Words gives the feeling of a band that has found its way. It’s no coincidence that 30 years later, ‘A Change Of Seasons’, ‘Take The Time’, ‘Metropolis – Part 1’ and ‘Learning To Live’ remain classics in Dream Theater’s repertoire.

James LaBrie: In January 1991, when I came to New York to audition for the band, I found myself on the second day of my stay in John Myung’s room – don’t misinterpret this! (Laughs) – with Mike Portnoy recording me on an 8-track tape recorder, singing ‘A Change Of Seasons’ and ‘Learning To Live.’ Kevin Moore was on the first floor of our apartment, and when he heard me do the final part of ‘Learning To Live’, he came into the room and sayid “You can really sing that!” And at the time, yes, I could. This was before the vocal cord rupture that I experienced in October 1994, due to food poisoning, and which still prevents me from reaching the highest notes of this song...

John Myung: Each song was composed in a specific way. The beginning came to us in rehearsal. Mike came up with a drum pattern, I put a bass part on it and pretty soon we finalized the first part, which we called ‘The Heart Of The Sunrise’ between us. [It’s a habit of Dream Theater to name, during the composition phase, its parts of songs by titles evoking their influences.] Then, the song was developed by the band as a whole. We continued to compose and alter our songs until we considered them finished. In this case, it’s a pretty long, adventurous track.

John Petrucci: This song is special in that I think it manages to “encapsulate” Dream Theater in all its diversity and aspects. There is this Yes side that John Myung mentioned just now, but also a very heavy part like Metallica. It’s a very progressive track, in the first sense of the word, in the line of the compositions of the great English bands of the 70’s, while being also very modern and translating our heavier influences, like Metallica and Iron Maiden. This song defined our style. Once again, David Prater put his stamp on the sound. The guitar solo in the middle section was supposed to be electric, and if I record it acoustically as well, it was only to enrich the background sound. In the end, David Prater chose to keep only the acoustic solo, which at the time annoyed me. I was a young, feisty guitarist. I wanted to put guitar solos and shredding everywhere, and he managed to control my impulses, to the benefit of the quality of the songs, I must admit. It was really interesting to work with him. At the time, it was very frustrating, but now, as a producer, I realize his great added value.

A Change Of Seasons: Catching Up In 1995

In May 1995, the band finally recorded its famous song “A Change Of Seasons”, which had not been able to appear on Images And Words, to release it as an EP. David Prater was once again in charge, despite the enormous tensions experienced 4 years earlier. And it was once again Derek Oliver who imposed this decision on the band, considering that after the relative commercial failure of Awake (1994), calling upon David Prater again (himself surprised by this request) was a way to put all the chances on their side to be successful again. Especially since the departure of Kevin Moore had reduced the potential tension factors. But this time, it was not with Mike Portnoy that the clash occurred, but with James LaBrie! The interested party remembers it very well: “When we recorded ‘A Change Of Seasons’, it was very close that I came to blows with David in the studio. I wasn’t messing around. He wanted me to sing the whole song several times in one go, while I wanted to record it verse by verse, because I needed to be totally focused on the lyrics I was singing. That’s my way of working, which allows me to give the best of myself. Except that he didn’t want to listen to me, and at one point, he told me straight out, in a very arrogant way, “You’re going to do what I ask you, period”. This made me angry. I put the headphones down and stormed into the studio control room. He insulted me, and Doug Oberkircher – the sound engineer – had to physically intervene to separate us. I then went out to get some fresh air before coming back to record, verse by verse, in David’s absence. The next day, he came to see me, apologizing and telling me that we started on the wrong foot. After that, things were really back to normal”.

Interviews conducted on March 7, 2022 (Mike Portnoy), April 4, 2022 (James LaBrie) and April 25, 2022 (John Petrucci & John Myung).