John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess interview (excerpts)

Eddie Trunk: How you guys doing? We’ll start with you Jordan – how’s things been, man?

Jordan Rudess: Everything’s been very, very good. Just been enjoying this little break from our tour. Last stop was Asia and now we’re getting energized and excited about running around the States for a little while.

ET: We’re going to talk about that here in a second. DreamSonic is coming up. John, last we talked to you, you were just about to start your solo tour, and we also got into a little talk about your beard and your beard products. How’s all that been going?

John Petrucci: [laughs] Great! The beard’s looking good. You can’t see me, but I’m outside in my tropical backyard and it’s glistening very nicely. It smells really good. [laughs] It’s crazy that we talked so long ago. I did the solo tour with Meanstreak opening. It was awesome, we had so much fun. And as Jordan said, we were just in Asia; we’ve been touring all over. But I’m looking forward to this summer. It’s gonna be something different and something really cool.

ET: We’ll get into that in a second, but John before we move to Dream Theater, as far as your solo record and your tour, yes you did have your wife’s band opening. You had Mike Portnoy playing drums, and then Mike’s wife and your wife were part of Meanstreak, who were the opening act. How did all that go?

JP: It was really cool. First of all, it was great having Mike come out with me. I hadn’t played live with him since he left the band, so that was like 12 years or so. This was the first time we did something live together. It was just a trio, which I love that environment. No offense Jordan, I love playing with you and the whole big Dream Theater thing – but guitar, bass and drums – there’s so much room to stretch. So Mike and I had a blast. We had Dave LaRue on bass. And yeah, the original Meanstreak got back together. Like you said, Mike’s wife Marlene, my wife Rena, John Myung’s wife Lisa, Yael the drummer, Bettina the singer, and it was great, it was an awesome tour. Actually Jordan came to the New York show, and I think he enjoyed it. [laughs]

JR: I did enjoy it, very much so. You guys rock!

ET: For people that don’t know, Meanstreak was more of a regional thing at the time. They never really broke out on a national level, right John?

JP: Right. They played a lot of shows back then, but this was the first cross-country tour through the States and up in Canada. It was great for them. It was great for me. You gotta understand, when I met Rena, she was playing in Meanstreak. Dream Theater opened for them a couple of times. This was like the beginning of our whole thing together, and I even played bass with them on stage a couple of times; those songs were ingrained in my memory. So when they started rehearsals here in my house and when they started playing, I was like, “Oh my God! This brings it all back!” I mean they were the first all-female thrash metal band in that scene back in the days of L’Amour and all that stuff. So it was great having them get back together and play with me.

ET: Now what happens when the opening act gets out of line and the headliner has to put them in line, but then the person happens to be your wife? [laughs] I mean how’d you deal with that John?

JP: I’m not putting anybody in line, put it this way! [laughs]

ET: So the opening act I’m assuming got full PA and as much as they needed on the rider?

JP: Hey listen, this is a very unique and rare opportunity to be able to tour with my wife. “You can have whatever you want.” All the other rules that might happen on a tour don’t apply – it’s family. It was actually cool, because I brought out my crew which is largely Dream Theater crew. We had our lighting guy, our sound guy, our monitor guy, and they enjoyed that as well. Same thing, full treatment. You’re not gonna tell your wife’s band like, “Oh yeah, you guys aren’t allowed to have any lights. Sorry!” [laughs] It’s like, “Just come on, we’re gonna have fun and you guys are gonna enjoy,” and they did and it was really, really cool.

ET: Yeah, because of course it follows you home, unlike another opening act. You don’t have to go home with them! They don’t have to cook you dinner! [laughs]

JP: I’ll tell ya Eddie, it’s funny because we’ve played together before. She’s been a guest instructor at my camps – I have another camp coming up. We’ve jammed many times, but we’ve never toured together like that, and we had a blast. It was kind of like being on this cross-country trip, like vacation going to all these different states and cities, but then we have work to do at night playing these shows. So it was actually cool to do that with my wife. We’ve never done anything like that before. So it was a great experience.

ET: Jordan, I remember last time I spoke to you, maybe not the last time, but a little while ago. I don’t remember if it was on a cruise or if it was at NAMM, but I remember at that time you were promoting something new that you had developed in terms of gear or a plug-in or a keyboard or something; you had even demonstrated it. I know you’re always big into that world. How’s that been going for you, the gear end of things?

JR: Yes, it’s always an interesting world, and with technology it just keeps on growing and just getting faster and faster. The last time I saw you was on Cruise to the Edge. I was doing a solo concert and we had spoken. But yeah, some very cool things going on in the gear world. My biggest application on iOS is called GeoShred, and I use it on stage actually with Dream Theater. It’s based on the technology called physical modeling. It basically rocks and plays all these really cool orchestral instruments, very expressive; so that’s going very well. I have a new kind of technology that’s more like AI that I’m working on right now with an application called Riffler that actually invents riffs in different styles, just in a very, very amazing way. Actually we just came up with the technology that actually scared me a little bit, because it’s like playing a little bit of Jordan’s style and offering that to the public, but I haven’t put it out yet. I just got to think about how that gets released or if that gets released!

ET: It’s funny you bring that up, because I wanted to ask each of you guys about this, being that you’re in such an established band and such an accomplished band. I’ll start with you on this Jordan, being that you touched on it all already. In the news a lot in the last couple months has been AI, and the pros and cons of it, and how it impacts music. I don’t even understand and have a full understanding of it, but what are your thoughts on it as a musician given what you just said?

JR: It’s a very big topic and I personally am very excited about it. If people are being nice, that know about AI, like artists, musicians, graphic artists, they’ll usually say, “Oh, we can use it as a tool. We’ve had tools before. And that’s kind of a cool thing.” But the reality is that the technology – as it’s really always done, but now maybe even more – opens up all these incredible possibilities for new levels of creativity that we haven’t seen before. So it’s a tool, but it’s a complete door opener and it kind of shatters what we know in a lot of ways. And it can be used in so many ways so we can hear and we can see things that we’ve never really seen or heard before. I myself am somebody who works not only in the audio domain, but I’m also really involved in the visual domain. I’m what’s called an ambassador for a company called Lightricks, which is out of Israel, and they do incredible things with AI and photo and video. And I’ve also been involved in the AI part of music as well. I’m very excited about it. How much of it will roll over into the Dream Theater world or even need to, that’s a whole another question. We’ve actually been pretty open to the technologies that I bring in, although it doesn’t completely take over, obviously, what we do, ‘cause we’ve been doing this for a long time. But in general, really, really excited about it. I think it’s cool. People should pay attention to it. And as a creative person, I’m very involved in, let’s say, the positive sides of it.

ET: John, where do you land on it all?

JP: Well Eddie, you might have to start calling me Nostradamus, because a few years ago I wrote a story called The Astonishing. Jordan and I wrote the music to it. It was Dream Theater’s record about, basically, the end of the world due to the fact that AI takes over and there’s no need for humans to be creative anymore. The NOMACs, or Noise Machines, take over and create this horrible music that starts controlling people, and it takes a musical savior named Gabriel to kind of get us out of it. So I predicted it. It’s gonna happen. It’s happening. That’s my take. The NOMACs are coming.

ET: The question is then: are you, John Petrucci, going to be Gabriel? Are you going to save us?

JP: [laughs] No, definitely not me! It’s gonna have to be somebody with a musical superpower like no other. [laughs]

ET: Well you’re right. I completely forgot about that for a second; not only was it a book, but obviously it was an expansive concept record and a tour that you did in support of that. How long ago was that record? Has it been five, six years?

JP: I think so. It definitely hasn’t been 10 yet, but I’m so bad with that too when I try to think of when we release records.

JR: 2016.

JP: Not that long ago. Wow! How was that seven years ago already? That’s crazy!

JR: Now that John has pointed that out, people are gonna have to go back and check it out again.

ET: Yeah! Well that’s it. Maybe with all this AI talk, it gives The Astonishing a whole new audience at some point.

JP: Exactly. It speaks the truth.

JR: We knew that album was ahead of its time. [laughs]

ET: Clearly. So let’s talk about Dream Theater presents DreamSonic 2023. It’s you guys, of course, along with Devin Townsend and Animals As Leaders. John, we’ll start with you, how did this all come together?

JP: We’ve been doing ‘An Evening With’ shows for many years now; it’s a lot of fun, we get all three hours and we get to play so much music. The last few legs, we’ve had like one opening band here and there in certain parts of the world, but we decided to do something different and have a little fun with it. Just bring more attention to the whole prog metal community and world, and do our own traveling festival, much like a Family Values or Gigantour or something like that – city to city. We teamed up with Animals and Devin, which are two great bands, great artists, amazing people in this whole prog rock/metal genre, and it’s gonna be a show. It’s gonna be all about the music, all about the style and that whole world. We’re bringing it through the US and Canada over the summer, which is always fun playing during the summer. So this is going to be something different, something cool and something not to be missed.

ET: The tour starts June 16th in Cedar Park, Texas, and you can go to the Dream Theater website or dreamsonic.com for more information. Jordan, John just said that you’ve done a lot of ‘Evening With,’ meaning no opening act, and I think for a lot of your fans, and of course we already half-joked about how long some of your songs and performances can be, I think for Dream Theater fans in general they love that aspect of what you do. They want that full two, three hour show, whatever it may be. Doing a tour like this with two support acts, are you gonna have to cut down your set? How is that going to be presented?

JR: We do have to cut it down a bit. We can’t have people there all night long, although maybe the Dream Theater fans would stay if we just kept on playing. But yeah, we’ve cut it down a bit, we’ve tried to pick songs from different albums. The View From the Top of the World tour is kind of officially over as per our Asian shows, and now we’re just going to the summer run, so we put together a setlist that’ll cover a lot of ground. I think we’re playing for about an hour and a half, but it’s gonna be a great setlist.

ET: John, in doing DreamSonic, how did you guys arrive at putting Animals As Leaders and Devin Townsend on? I’m sure you had a lot of different options, but why land on those two artists to at least do this initial one?

JP: It’s a couple of things. It’s sort of serendipitous, because those guys – in speaking to our management and agent – were planning on going out this summer as well, and we also have relationships with them. Devin opened for us recently throughout our run in Europe. And Animals has played with us a bunch of times, and Tosin has done my camp. Actually Devin’s done my camp as well. So we have a relationship there. They were going out. Management and agents started talking. It’s like, “We wanted to do this DreamSonic thing. Let’s put it together. This sounds like the perfect inaugural run.” The cool thing about this for us is, we could do this anytime now, and we can have different lineups that kind of showcase bands in the prog medal genre. We could take this to different countries, we can do this at different times of the year. Again this is the first run. I’m so happy to have those two bands with us. It’s just like a great collection of artists that do this type of thing so well. So that’s how that worked out.

ET: Now I know who both Devin Townsend and Animals As Leaders are. I’ve seen Tosin Abasi play; he was the guitar player in Animals. I’ve seen him play on Generation Axe, the tour that Steve Vai put together with Nuno and Zakk and Yngwie and all those guys. But for the audience that doesn’t know these two – and I know Devin Townsend in certain circles has a huge following for the different things he’s done – but can you give a little overview on both of those artists and what they’re about?

JR: First of all, we’re really excited about this lineup as John said, and one of the reasons we’re really excited about it, is because they kind of fit in with us, but they’re also very different. Each of those artists do different things than Dream Theater in interesting ways. I guess I can start with maybe Devin Townsend. He’s really [an] exceptional artist. For those people out there who know his style – styles – you know that he is the type of artist that has a very broad reach. One second he can be doing a beautiful ballad, next second he’s doing the heaviest, crazy metal you’ve ever heard, and then the second after that he’s singing like some wild, crazy Broadway show. I assume that he’s gonna tailor his set to something that he feels will fit into this particular groove and it’s guaranteed it’s going to be really interesting, because he’s an exceptional musician and we really love him and we enjoyed hanging out with him. Animals As Leaders is very different still, and Animals As Leaders in my opinion is probably like the leading instrumental kind of prog rock/jazz fusion group. Of course Tosin is an out-of-this-world guitar player, and Javier is also exceptional; the whole group is great. From my viewpoint, they blend progressive rock and they have a little bit of funk and occasionally even a little electronic infusion. It’s really their own blend. So it’s going to be really an interesting night of music with all three groups.

ET: Devin Townsend was the band Strapping Young Lad, right? He had that band prior, right? So I had had people over the years call that out to me or mention to me, and it’s funny because every time I’ve tried to dive in to learn what he’s about and what that music is about, everything that people have sent me has been radically different. I’m like, “Wait a minute. This sounds like some sort of death metal thing,” and the next thing, it’s like this whole other thing. And I’m like, “That guy may be one of the most eclectic artists out there,” John!

JP: 100%! You never know what he’s gonna dream up and come out with next. You mentioned Vai before – the first time I saw Devin, he was playing in Vai’s band. He was singing and playing guitar, and he was matching solos with Vai, and I was like, “Who is this crazy guy?” I could be mistaken, but I wonder if Mangini might have been on drums on that tour. I’d have to ask Mike of the timeline.

JR: I saw him at the Beacon Theatre. I know I was there as well.

JP: He’s such an interesting guy. We’ve toured with him, you had these conversations that are just as interesting as he is. Not only is he a great guitar player, but he’s an awesome singer. He scares me sometimes. You watch him sing and play, he’s just so unique and puts it all out there. I know he’s on the same label as us, on Inside Out/Sony, and I’ve seen some of the live things that he’s done, like at Royal Albert with his concept records, with all these crazy props and creatures and things. Like Jordan said, then he’ll do some atmospheric stuff that’s totally different. So I’m not I’m not sure what to expect. I know also Mike Keneally – who is a tremendous musician, guitar player, keyboard player – is in his band, so I wonder if he’ll lean more towards the prog side to kind of go along with...

JR: [laughs] We’re all very curious!

ET: You don’t even know what he’s gonna do on your own tour!

JR: We have no idea!

JP: We don’t! [laughs]

JR: I wanted to say that when we were out with him the last time, there were a couple times where I had the dressing room right next to his room, and you have never heard anything like the Devin Townsend vocal warm-up. It’s so trippy and crazy. He’s singing in like a five-octave range and he’s going through the wildest styles. It’s really, really unique. It’s either like you think you’re next to a loony bin or like sometimes... [laughs] It’s really, really crazy and fun.

ET: It sounds like you do, but do you see DreamSonic being a recurring thing? I mean this is the inaugural run. Is this something you envision doing every year, every other year, or how do you see it?

JP: I definitely see it as a recurring thing, for sure. In fact we have everything in place to make sure that that’s possible to do. It’s just a matter of how often we do it. I don’t know if it’s something that is recurring every year or every two years. I see it more as when it makes sense to do, then we can do it. And if it grows into something more than that and it becomes more steady as far as being annual, that’s cool too. I just know our style. I know we’re gonna come out with a new record. We’re gonna wanna go ‘Evening With’ for a while. Maybe when the opportunity arises and we get sick of that, we’ll do a DreamSonic run now that we have it established and it’s its own brand and its own thing. Let’s take out two, three different prog metal bands and let’s do this somewhere in the world. So it has the potential of really growing and being reoccurring. To what frequency, I couldn’t say, but it’s definitely something that we’re going to do.

ET: Jordan, there’s enough depth there when you look at bands you could potentially team up with, because even though this initial run is Animals As Leaders and Devin Townsend with you guys, you guys being such a global band and being out there so much on the road and just being in touch with what’s going on, I’m sure there are a ton of bands you could see also being dropped in here down the line, right?

JR: No doubt. There’s so many great players out there and there’s so many bands that have not had the opportunity even to get out there and play that it would just be fun to look into it and pick the bands.

ET: John, you mentioned a couple minutes ago Gigantour, and I remember that because that was Dave Mustaine’s festival. I forgot that you guys were on that. So were there any festivals or traveling packages like this that you were a part of that inspired you to do this?

JP: That one comes to mind that I remember doing. There’s obviously the festivals that exist on weekends, there’s all different bands playing whether it’s the ones in Europe or here in the US. The traveling kind, as far as I can recall, that’s the type that we experienced that made that something that seemed interesting. And of course back in the day, we also did Progressive Nation, which is something Mike came up with that was along those lines of a traveling sort of reoccurring themed tour. So those experiences and just knowing all these incredible bands that are out there, and wanting to do something different than ‘An Evening With’ has inspired this for sure. Like Jordan said, there’s so many to choose from, and what a great thing to bring attention to this kind of music, and just get it out there; tour during the summer in this case. You don’t get that often, so if we could be at the forefront of presenting that to the world and introducing some of these bands that are successful in their own right but maybe a lot of people out there might not be aware of, then we’re happy to do that.

ET: The date starts again June 16th Cedar Park, Texas. Right now, according to the website, wrapping up July 26th in Phoenix. Do you envision adding more, or is this is this it for now?

JP: Well, we can’t add more because my camp starts just after that. [laughs]

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ET: The last Dream Theater album will be two years old in October, speaking of time flying by, A View From the Top of the World. I don’t think I’ve talked to you guys about it since the Grammy win took place. First of all, who physically attended and where is the Grammy?

JP: [laughs] Thank you! That was a very surreal moment; that was our third nomination. The Grammys that year were moved from LA to Vegas. It was happening in between tour legs, so I think a bunch of the guys were like, “Ah, we’re not gonna go.” Maybe some guys had plans. I’m not sure what you were doing Jordan, but I talked to Rena – I’m like, “You wanna go to Vegas for a few days and go to the Grammys? We win, that’s phenomenal. If we don’t, we hang out in Vegas for a while.” So she was there with me and it was just surreal, Eddie. It was Jimmy Jam announcing the category ‘Best Metal Performance’, and he said, “Dream Theater – ‘The Alien,’” and I’m like, “Are you kidding me?!” [laughs] I’m running up to the stage; I had to give this speech and they were like, “Oh, you only have 45 seconds.” I just felt very proud, because no prog metal bands ever get this. This is like we’re representing over here. Then they give it to you and you walk offstage, and they’re like, “OK, we’ll take that,” [laughs] and then they mail them to you. So we each got a Grammy award and they’re all at our houses and we’re so very proud.

I’m sure Jordan had the same experience where kids and family members and community were elated. My kids were freaking out. I got to call my mom and say, “Hey mom, I won a Grammy!” It’s something that, especially choosing the style of music that we have chosen to play, to get that kind of commercial recognition, it’s not something you expect. And when you start to talk to people – engineers, other musicians, even at the Grammys and stuff – you see people are into this stuff. They’re fans or they just like what you’re doing or they like the style. There’s tons of guitar players and keyboard players and drummers and musicians that are into this more than you would think, and I think that community stepped up and said, “Hey, this song deserves it.”

What was cool about it – I don’t know if you know this story – but the song that won was the first song that we wrote when we got together during the pandemic, just because nothing else was going on. It was like, “Well, what do you guys wanna do?” We’re like, “Let’s just see what happens,” and we wrote that song. That was ‘The Alien.’ That’s a crazy song in 17/8 that’s like nine minutes long; it has all these solos and it’s about terraforming planets. It’s totally the nerdiest prog metal song you can think of. So it was great to win on our own merits and that felt really great too. I tried to express that in my little 45 second speech, but anyway, it was such a moment for all of us.

ET: John, I gotta ask you this real quick, because you talked about your mom’s reaction. Here you are, you have this very, very, very successful international rock band now for whatever it is – 35 years and counting – and tour the world and played to thousands of people, but something tells me that for mom, saying you got a Grammy probably was a whole different level of acknowledgment, because it’s something she could really relate to?

JP: Totally Eddie. There’s recognition you get in the community that really means so much, but it’s very limited to our bubble, whether it be just guitar things or broadcasting things or whatever. But something like a Grammy, that’s like the Oscars of music; everybody knows what that is. For your mom to say, “My son won a Grammy,” that’s a different level.

ET: The reason why I bring that up is because I had a taste of that myself. This is my 40th year in radio and TV, and whatever I’ve done hosting countless radio shows, TV shows, whatever. I wrote my first book like 12 years ago. When I put out a book, there was finally acknowledgment from my mom that I did something! [laughs] It didn’t matter – all this rock stuff. But to go into a Barnes & Noble and see a book with my name on it, that’s when her boy arrived. So I felt like there was probably a similar thing for you guys.

JP: Totally. It’s also because we’re not in that world. We’re not a pop band, we’re not even like in the world of metal. We’re still niche, we’re still in our own weird lane. So it was not only for people that are close to us like our kids, our wives, our moms and everything like that, but our fans were like, “Oh my God! This doesn’t happen!” They were so proud, so it was such a moment.

JR: It was really funny because everybody knows what a Grammy is. Back in the old days, we were like, “Ah, that stuff doesn’t matter. We’re not really in that world.” And we just felt that way and let that be. But the reality is, wherever we go, if we’re introduced by somebody, they always say, “Grammy Award winners,” and that means something to people that have this really strong awareness of that. So I guess it’s an acknowledgment and it’s a door opener, and it just has that meaning because of what it is and the fact that everybody’s so aware of that particular award. And I’ll just say again that we were especially honored because it’s not just the general public that’s voting in the Grammys that gave us this Grammy, it’s our peers, it’s the other musicians, the people that have been listening – like mostly younger bands and musicians and producers that said, “OK, we want to give this to Dream Theater.” And that’s a big honor to know that we’ve inspired so many musicians; that really means something to us.

ET: I’m not gonna lie. I have very, very, very, very strong feelings about the Grammys and how they treat rock and metal music, but that being said, when people win them I’m happy for them because it’s exactly what we just talked about: there’s an acknowledgment there and it transcends your natural fan base or your natural interest from, in this case, family members, which I completely could understand how that flew and went over. Last thing: have you thought about and has there been talk about a follow-up, another record?

JP: Yeah, we have talked about it a little bit. Obviously, we’re gonna finish out this DreamSonic leg. We’ve been touring pretty non-stop, so we’ll take a little bit of time and get started on a new record. We’ve talked about some ideas on direction. We’ve talked about a title, a possible concept – not a concept record, but a direction. So, yeah, it’s starting, it’s bubbling, but no concrete musical ideas yet. We’ll most likely get together towards the end of the year, beginning of the next, and do this all again. It’s my favorite thing about all this, and it’s the same with touring and getting to play live. Every night you walk on stage, it’s a new opportunity to do it again, to play it again, to play better, try better, fix something you messed up. Every record you go into is, as a creative person, just such a great moment. You roll up your sleeves, like, “Let’s do this.” And I love that. So we will get into that for album number 16 towards the end of this year, beginning of next.

ET: And Jordan, is AI just gonna take over your spot? You’re just gonna turn everything over?

JR: [laughs] Yeah, I’m gonna send in an AI robot in my honor to do all the parts. [laughs]

ET: Lastly, before you guys came on the air with me, I had a caller and we were talking about band names. They were saying, “Do you think band names play into a band having success or not?” And I was saying, “No, I don’t really think they do,” ‘cause there’s cool band names and then there’s band names [where] you didn’t know that was a band name – like what the hell is an Aerosmith – it wouldn’t mean anything. So we were talking about cool names, not cool names, whether it had an impact on the band’s success or lack thereof. And John, as a co-founding member of Dream Theater, I’m sure this story’s probably been told and been out there, but where did it come from? What were the origins?

JP: Sure, I’ll tell that story. First of all, we used to be called Majesty, and that’s why whenever you see Dream Theater, there’s a symbol that looks like an ‘M’ and that was our leftover ‘M’ in honor of our previous name Majesty. But when we went to do our first record, we couldn’t use it because another Majesty existed, and they had the trademark and they wouldn’t sell it to us. So we had to come up with a new name and we came up with the most horrible, ridiculous names. I don’t know what we were thinking; we were young, and we were struggling actually. At one point we considered naming our band after the last name of our attorney.

ET: ...which was what?

JP: Glasser. We almost named our band Glasser. Speaking of your theory, we would not be successful, we would not be sitting here talking to you today if our name was Glasser – nothing against our attorney. But the story was we were really, really struggling and Mike Portnoy’s father at the time lived up in northern California – Monterey or Carmel – I think it maybe was Carmel, but there was a movie theater there called the Dream Theater. You can actually go Google it and look up the Dream Theater movie theater, and one day I guess Mike was talking to his dad Howie who’s unfortunately no longer with us, and Howie was like, “Dream Theater would be a good name.” And I’ll never forget we used to rehearse in the basement of a hair cutting salon in Huntington on Long Island, and we were having a meeting and Mike’s like, “Yeah, my dad mentioned ‘Dream Theater.’” We were like, “That’s awesome!” and that was it. It was just like way, way better than any name that we could ever think of, and we thought it was just like the perfect name and it stuck.

ET: Does the Dream Theater still exist in northern California?

JP: It does not, no it doesn’t.

ET: It would’ve been great if you guys went back there and played it, if it was like a lot of old movie theaters or venues now.

JP: It would have been amazing. I remember seeing something online where I guess it had a pretty interesting marquee or sign. I remember Googling it and seeing the sign – it was really trippy and cool. But yeah, we love that name as soon as we heard it. We’re like, “That’s it!” The cool thing about it is it does lend itself to all the imagery and stuff that we’ve become known for in our genre – this whole prog thing, storytelling and surreal, cool, dream-like imagery – it’s perfect.

ET: I don’t know. I think if you would have done Glasser and made the two ‘S’s like Kiss ‘S’s and lightning bolts, it could have been pretty badass dude! [laughs]

JR: [laughs] Oh my God! That sounds awesome! [laughs]

ET: I could see that on a T-shirt – I’m not even joking! What’s in a name any more? Dream Theater is a very cool name – I’m not denying that – but whether it was Majesty or Glasser looked like really like a tough cool name, who knows? I mean that’s the stuff you just ponder and you wonder.

JP: Maybe we’d be more successful if our name was Glasser. Maybe we would have really, really made it.

ET: Or you might have gotten a better deal on legal services.

JR: That’s true. Maybe it’s the font.

ET: Or maybe he would have charged you more because you’re using his name. Who knows?

JP: It was a woman, actually.

ET: Oh, a woman. I’m sorry.