David Ellefson interview (excerpt)

Johnny Christ: Two weeks ago, there was the announcement that Mike was returning to Dream Theater. Have you had a chance to talk to him about this a little bit? I shot him a text other day and it took me a minute to reach out to him, but I’m just happy for him and I can’t wait to see what is in store for Dream Theater moving forward.

David Ellefson: Well, it’s funny cuz you guys were kind of at the epicenter of when it all went the other way! [laughs]

JC: Man, we’ve told that story over and over! We were like, “Dude, we love you Mike, but we’re gonna go a different direction. Don’t leave Dream Theater. Don’t leave Dream Theater.” And then he’s like, “I did it,” and it was like, “OK, that was on you man!” [laughs]

DE: I know! And leap, there is no net! Sorry about that! I get it with Mike. Look, he did everything in Dream Theater, and that’s no disrespect to anybody else, but he did a lot. Like he said, bands are not democracies – someone has to be a leader. He was really kind of the de facto leader. He wrote a lot of the lyrics, if not all of them, he ran the band, let’s say. And every band’s got a guy who leads the charge. So he did that. And he would call me, he would talk to me all the time. “Man, I’m on the bullet train in Japan, it’s f***ing great, we’re flying first class.” He enjoyed not having to work so hard and just be a member. Marty Friedman said the same thing when he joined Megadeth. He goes, “Dude, I’m so glad to just be in a band where I can just play guitar, and I don’t have to run the band, do all the work, do all the stuff.” So I get it. I know that was a big part of it, and he loved playing with you guys. And you guys made a great record together. That was a killer record!

JC: Yeah, he came in at the end and really, really helped us out. Because we had that record done, but we weren’t sure if we were gonna record it and put it out. It took steps after losing the Rev for us to get our feet back on. And Mike was an integral part of that, absolutely, helping get us back on our feet. Nothing but love for Mike and I enjoyed playing with him, too. There was other factors, of course; that was not one of them.

DE: No, look you guys went through – as did Metallica – where someone you know passes away, a key member in the [writing] and stuff – so, it’s a huge transition. It’s funny, the four of us have a Metal Allegiance text thread on our phone, and my son is a huge fan; he’s a total prog nerd. Roman, my buddy, my son; he’s 27 and he’s a huge Dream Theater fan. He’s playing me all these Dream Theater stuff that I’m aware of, but I don’t listen to that stuff that much. I mean ‘Pull Me Under’ was kind of my big song that I loved of theirs. Mike had me actually do a spoken word thing on one of the songs; he would always do a 12-step recovery song, so at NAMM one year, he asked me to do a bit. So me and Satriani, and a bunch of guys did a little spoken word thing on a Dream Theater record. Then Mike and I played on a ton of things together. But suddenly, Roman goes, “Dad, did you hear the news?” I said, “No.” Usually when he says, “Did you hear the news?” it’s someone died, some tragedy. So he goes, “Mike Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater!” I’m like, “No s***!” And then I looked at our thread, because we were chatting about something for our show coming up, and Skolnick’s congratulating him, and then Mike comes back, he goes, “Guys, I’m so sorry I’m late. Obviously, my phone’s blowing up.” So yeah, we sent our congratulations, and I said, “Yeah, now he’ll probably charge us a lot more to be in the band; now his rate went up!”