Derek Sherinian, Virgil Donati interview (excerpt)

Derek Sherinian: If I could give myself a little credit for a second, I kind of pulled the Chick Corea move because one of his solo albums was Return to Forever and then he morphed it into a band. I think once I got the call from Dream Theater that they were gonna make a change in the keyboard department, after the quick frenzy and the “Holy s***!” it became quite obvious that my first phone call was to Virgil. I said, “Let’s take these f***ers down!” [laughs] So Planet X – the band – was my “F*** you Dream Theater!” That’s the starting basis of it; it morphed into something way more than that, but that was the initial energy. “All right, you want to talk technical prog? Let’s discuss polyrhythms and harmony, and let’s see who is doing more, pushing the boundaries a little more.”