Mike Portnoy interview

Moderator: How about the fact that Mike is back in Dream Theater?

Mike Portnoy: Thank you!

Mod: I think that’s question on everybody’s mind. Can we get a little bit of the backstory of how that came to happen, how you got back in the band?

MP: Well, it’s been 13 years now. It’s crazy how time flies. But the last couple of years, I guess during the pandemic, I reconnected with John Petrucci. Once we were in lockdown and all of my 87 bands couldn’t tour, and Dream Theater couldn’t tour, John Petrucci was doing a solo album, and he asked me to play on it. And then from there we decided we wanted to do another LTE album, which is with Jordan Rudess. And then shortly after that, John asked me to go on tour with him. So it just seems like we’ve been kind of reconnecting through the last few years. And we have such a long history – almost 40 years now – together. Our families grew up together, our wives played in a band together, and our kids grew up together. So honestly, it just felt like it was the right thing in the right time.

Mod: I saw that your daughter posted something where she was like, “I can’t wait for this part of it, with all the kids together on tour.”

MP: I mean they literally grew up all together, in the top bunks across from each other on the bus. My daughter and John’s daughter have lived together in New York for the last four or five years. So there’s so much family history beyond just the music that it just felt like the time was right to do it.

Q: What are the odds of the first album that you make with Dream Theater again after the long hiatus being Metropolis part 3? [laughs]

MP: We haven’t talked about it yet, but that would be the obvious thing. But maybe because it’s the obvious thing, we wouldn’t do it. But you never know. It definitely would be fun to do, but I don’t know. We’re gonna start from scratch and reconnect and just go into the studio and live together. We’re in a different phase of our lives. When I left the band 13 years ago, we were all in our 40s; now we’re all in our 50s and 60s. It’s gonna be interesting to see how we exist now in this new world. So I’m just looking forward to being with the guys and making music together again.

Q: Will your time in the band affect how many Mangini songs you guys play?

MP: It’s too soon to tell. When I left the band 13 years ago, I was the one writing the setlist and things like that. We haven’t even discussed what the new dynamic is gonna be. I’m open to it, of course, so I surely would do it, if that’s what they wanna do. But it’s definitely gonna be a different dynamic. When I left all those years ago, I was running a lot of stuff, and I think now they’ve gotten so used to working more as a collective band that I think it’s a very different dynamic now that I’m gonna have to find my place in without stepping on anybody’s toes. I have to respect that they’ve been doing it all this time without me. So whatever they wanna do, I’m up for it. But that being said, there is so much music of ours to come back and play. Personally, I look forward to revisiting all that stuff, but if they wanna do the newer stuff as well, whatever they want is fine with me.

Mod: We’ve seen you in a number of bands over the last 13 years or so. Is that going to continue? Will you continue to do Winery Dogs and some of the projects you’ve done?

MP: Before the Dream Theater thing happened, I think I was up to like seven bands or eight, or something like that. So obviously I won’t be able to do all of them, and right now the focus is going back to Dream Theater and focusing on that. So I have a feeling some of the bands will survive and some won’t. But I think it’s very likely that The Winery Dogs will continue. We still are continuing. I leave for Japan on Tuesday for a few weeks over there with The Winery Dogs. And we just filmed a live Blu-ray last week at the last show in Europe, so that’ll be coming out. There’s still other things on my schedule. I still have a show with Metal Allegiance in January in Anaheim, and I still have some shows with Flying Colors, which is my band with Steve Morse and Dave LaRue. We’re playing on Cruise To The Edge in March. So I still do have these other obligations and these other things that I still have on the calendar with all these other bands. But I think once all of those obligations clear, I’m gonna focus on Dream Theater at least for a while.

Q: Is there a chance that the setlist will become dynamic not static?

MP: Once again, I gotta find my feet and my place in the new dynamic, but the setlists were a big, big passion of mine all those years in the band, and I was the one that wrote a different setlist for every show. Personally, I love that, and I know the fans love it; it makes every show different from each other and exciting and interesting, but once again I can’t come in and just force my way into the existing dynamic that they’re used to. Hopefully we’ll meet in the middle somewhere. There’s probably gonna be a lot of things that I won’t control anymore, but then there’s hopefully a lot of things that maybe they want me to take control over. If I had a priority list of the things I’d like to take back and be able to oversee, doing the setlist would surely be at the top of my list; that’s definitely one of my strongest passions and I would love to see rotating setlists. But once again, it all has to be comfortable for everybody.

Mod: Going back to your beginning a little bit, your father was a radio DJ, so is it fair to say that that is the start of your passion for music?

MP: Absolutely. My dad was my biggest influence, and he wasn’t even a musician, he was just a music fan. I was born in April of ‘67; I was born the day that the Beatles completed Sgt. Pepper and literally 6 weeks later when it came out, I was already surrounded by it. So I grew up listening to The Beatles and The Who and Zeppelin and all that stuff; my dad turned me on to all that when I was a kid. Then he became a radio disc jockey in the early ‘70s and I would do his radio show with him. So being surrounded by constant music and different bands and different artists surely played a huge, huge role in my love for music and becoming a musician.

Mod: Did you get to meet any of your idols as a kid because did you do interviews and stuff like that?

MP: It was a lot different then than it is now. Now everybody can meet everybody, especially with VIP package and things like that. But back in the ‘70s, I would have done anything to meet Kiss. It was just not a reality. But my dad being in radio, he had some in like that. I think at the time in the early ‘70s he knew Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles and everyone that was part of that scene in the early He took me to see George Harrison in ‘74, which was one of my first shows, and McCartney and Wings in ‘76. So he just really was introduced me to the whole world of rock and music and concerts and things like that.

-----

Q: Do you have some highlights or a favorite pre-show ritual?

MP: There’s no highlights because the 22 hours that you’re waiting to go on stage are the most boring 22 hours of the day, so there’s not many highlights. It’s literally just sitting in the dress room looking at your phone, and then you start to warm up as you get closer to showtime. It’s such a meme where what you think is going on backstage is big parties and everybody’s going crazy and there’s strippers and everything, but what’s really going on is everybody’s literally sitting in the dressing room looking at their phone and just waiting to rock. As far as my routines, I like to warm up and stretch a little bit; you don’t wanna go on stage cold, you wanna have the blood flowing and have the muscles warmed up a bit. I used to always get massaged before all the shows because I was having constant back and neck problems and arm issues and stuff like that, so I try to get that done whenever I can. But yeah, it’s a matter of just sitting around and waiting to rock.

Q: Who’s your favorite drummer?

MP: I can’t pick one because they’re all so important to me, but the first big three [were] Ringo, Keith Moon and John Bonham. Those are the three guys I grew up with when I was a kid – The Who, Zeppelin and the Beatles. Then I discovered Rush, and Neil Peart became part of the big four. Once I discovered Neil and Rush, I discovered more progressive music and that’s when I started listening to Bill Bruford and Phil Collins and Simon Phillips and Terry Bozzio. So those were all my heroes when I was a kid.

Then as music evolved, even once I started my own career, I was still constantly inspired with whatever was going on around me. So even when we were starting Dream Theater in the ‘80s, I was listening to Anthrax and Metallica and Slayer and all those double bass drummers, which played a big part in me learning how to play the metal stuff and the double bass stuff. Even now, I’m blown away and constantly inspired by the level of drumming, especially online. You look at social media – Instagram and YouTube – I’ll see an 8-year-old girl from Korea playing my drum parts with Dream Theater with one hand. [lots of laughs] So the bar just keeps rising and rising and rising, and it constantly inspires me, kicks me in the butt and makes me want to keep working on it.

Q: I’m curious about that final conversation where you guys kind of put ink to paper and said, “Let’s do this.” Was there any negotiation? How did that conversation go?

MP: It’s weird because I’ve dreamt about this for the past decade. I don’t mean I’ve dreamt about it like it was my fantasy or my goal, but I mean I literally have had dreams about it while sleeping and waking up like, “Wow! What would it be like if that had ever happened and if I ever went back to the band?” and now that it actually happened, it seems like it happened quickly, but like I said earlier, it’s been evolving and the relationships being rekindled for years. I think me and James LaBrie were the last ones to reconnect, cuz he and I hadn’t spoken for a long, long time. But in answer to your question, we didn’t even talk business. John Petrucci called me, and I don’t want to divulge too much of the conversation, but basically we started talking about it, and it was like a hypothetical thing, like, “Would you be interested if...” whatever, but we didn’t really talk business, we didn’t talk about anything other than the dynamic. We didn’t talk business or money or any concrete plans. It was more just kind of like, “Hey, this is where I’m at this stage and this point of my life, and this is where they’re at, and would it be compatible?” If anything, he maybe expressed some concerns about how we would fit together at this point in our lives and career, and we realized that we were totally on the same page and it just felt like totally the right time.

Q: Anything else going to happen with Sons of Apollo?

MP: There’s no plans for now. I’ve seen Bumblefoot and Jeff Scott Soto both coming out in the press saying because I went back to Dream Theater it’s over, but the reality is we were kind of on the shelf for a while anyway. Really the pandemic shut that band down, at least for the time. We came out of the gates in 2020 full throttle. We just put out a new album, we had a whole year-long tour booked for the entire year, and within the first month or so of being on the road, the pandemic shut us down, so it was the best laid plans for that band. We had a whole album that we were ready to tour off of and support, and once we got shut down and put into lockdown, it kind of got put on the shelf for a few years. We had some makeup tours we had to do but Billy wasn’t able to do them with us. So as much as Ron and Jeff may pinpoint it on me in Dream Theater, I think we were already kind of in a holding pattern for the time being anyway, so there’s no plans as of now. But I never say never.

Q: You guys [covered] Number of the Beast and Master of Puppets. Those albums [are] iconic ‘80s metal, but they’re not super prog. What was the mindset of [covering those] whole albums?

MP: The main thing for me – back then – was to do things that were outside of the obvious comfort zone for Dream Theater. See, over the last 13 years after I left the band, then I was able to do all of those things and show my love for everything from the Beatles to Pantera and everything in between, but back then when I was still in Dream Theater full-time, I didn’t have any of those kind of outlets. So I started putting together these things, like I did these tribute bands with Paul Gilbert. I did a Beatles tribute, a Who tribute, a Zeppelin tribute. And then I had this idea with Dream Theater, “Let’s cover full classic albums.” We did Maiden and Metallica, and we did Dark Side of the Moon, we did Deep Purple’s Made in Japan. So the idea back then was to do something that was outside of the typical prog comfort zone for Dream Theater. And since then, I’ve done so much of that, but at the time that was an outlet to try to do some different things than the typical 20 minute songs with a million time signatures. Cuz I was this Beatles fanatic – I don’t want to say trapped in a prog band – but actively working in a prog band, and I didn’t have an outlet for my love for all these other styles. So some of those fun shows and setlists and stuff kept it interesting.

Q: Are you still going to use your famous catchphrase on tour?

MP: Are you talking about ‘eat my ass in balls?’ [laughs] I’m older and wiser now. [laughs] I don’t know. I think if I want to keep everybody happy, I’ll keep my mouth shut. That’s the thing, honestly – not to make a joke out of it – but the first 25 years with Dream Theater, I was from the age of 18 to 42 or whatever, and now we’re all in a different phase and different point in our lives. So it’s going to be interesting to be this age doing it with those guys. I used to walk around saying, “Eat my ass balls,” or play shows with my underwear on my head. I think that was just the way I was back in my 20s and 30s when I was drunk and stupid. Now I’m just old and stupid.

Q: You could have joined Phish.

MP: Well I am playing with Umphrey’s McGee, which are kind of like Phish, so I’m doing gig with them for New Year’s. It should be fun.

Q: What are your thoughts on Mickey Hart as far as his drumming compositions?

MP: I’m not the biggest Deadhead to be honest. My jam band knowledge is Phish. I mean Phish was where I got the idea for Dream Theater to cover full albums cuz they had done the White Album and they had done I think Quadrophenia and they did a whole bunch of different ones, and that’s where I got the idea for Dream Theater to cover classics in their entirety.

Q: Other than your warm-ups before you play, do you have any other kind of exercises you do when you’re not playing?

MP: Like I said before, I try to get massage regularly if I can. But my warmup routine is not anything specific.

Q: You don’t do like any power jogging or anything?

MP: No, although as I get older I probably should start to do more of that kind of stuff, cuz you come off stage and the older you get, the more you really start to feel it. I’m 56 now, and so yeah, as I get older I think that kind of stuff is more and more important for sure.

Mod: With someone like you who has the job that you do, [after] Dream Theater had made it big, and you’re a father at this point, what were the interactions like with other parents in your community at soccer games and stuff?

MP: I live in a very normal suburban neighborhood in Pennsylvania. I grew up in New York but about 20 years ago I wanted to raise my kids in a more suburban area, so we moved to Pennsylvania. And yeah, I would go to my daughter’s dance recitals or my son’s band things. I guess every town’s got a local Rockstar. Like I said earlier, me and all the guys in Dream Theater all had kids and families at the same time, so all of our kids grew up together on the road hanging out backstage, looking for catering and running from bus to bus, so my kids kind of grew up in that environment. Now that my son is in a touring band, he’s done it his whole life. As far as my neighborhood, I’ve always had very, very cool supportive neighbors, and all the other parents and school and stuff have always been kind of intrigued by the lifestyle.