Originally published in The Metal Voice YT channel · February 2024
Bumbelfoot interview and Mike Portnoy response (excerpt)
InterviewMike Portnoy9 min read
Jimmy Kay: All right, new band Whom Gods Destroy. I’m assuming this is like the splinter group of Sons Of Apollo, right? Let’s just start off right there. I remember Sons Of Apollo; great momentum on the first album, even better momentum on the second album. Then COVID smacks down and everything completely falls apart. What happened?
Bumblefoot: Well, we were on tour. We had doubled our attendances. Everything was going this way. [pointing up] It was going great. And we got four shows into a 20-show tour in Europe and we had to pull the plug, COVID and all, and went back home. And then Derek and I, and Jeff the singer, we wanted to start working on album number three. It’s like we have all this time now to nurture it. But not everybody was on board to do that. Some people had their own plans and things they wanted to do, which they did, and so killed the band. So what happened was it split into two bands. Jeff offered to be the singer for this band that I had with old friends of mine called Art Of Anarchy. He knew that during the pandemic we’d get together and record songs, and he said, “You’ve had all these problematic singers. You should have just worked with me from the beginning and everything would have been fine.” And I was like, “I agree.” So he offered to be the singer, and of course the band all said, “Hell yeah.” And so now I have Art Of Anarchy with Jeff. And Derek and I just continued writing as we did with Sons Of Apollo, where we just write the music, and we kept doing that. We realized that with certain members not interested, we couldn’t really continue with Sons Of Apollo. I mean, Jeff was interested. He would love to do a third one. But we found new band members, so started with Dino on vocals—
JK: Yes, from Whitesnake fame, I guess, or kind of, right?
BF: Yeah. So we got Dino, and then we got Yas on bass, which is kind of funny because he’s this incredible guitar player. But then again, Dino is also an incredible, amazing keyboard player and songwriter and everything. All the guys in the band are multi-talented. And we got Bruno on drums, and it became this. So it really started from the ashes of Sons Of Apollo. We crawled out and we continued writing what could have become a third Sons Of Apollo album, but it wasn’t gonna happen.
JK: So were these the songs – I wouldn’t call them leftovers – but ideas that were being worked on for Sons Of Apollo?
BF: No, they were all fresh, brand new stuff we were writing. No leftovers.
JK: I don’t mean it in that way. I don’t mean leftovers in the freezer. I meant like the impetus, the start of new ideas for the third album.
BF: Yeah, I mean, well, even still, like we could have had a bunch of unfinished music that we never worked up for Sons Of Apollo past albums that we could have brought into this, but we were writing fresh. We just started writing, and it wasn’t long after we started that Dino joined and it started going in the new direction.
JK: I saw Sons Of Apollo in January 2020 in Montreal at the Corona Theatre, and there was such great momentum. So you have all these skilled artists in the band with so much history and experience. Is it hard to keep a group of guys like that, or artists like that, and keep it as an ongoing band? Because you got Portnoy, you got Billy Sheehan, you got yourself, you got Jeff Scott Soto, and of course Derek. Is it tough to keep it going economically, as well as maybe ego-wise, perhaps? I don’t know.
BF: Nothing is easy. It can be easy if everyone just shuts the f*** up and does their job. And yeah, if people think about the hive and not just their self, yeah. If you have the mentality of being a team player and not just a selfish f***, then a band can easily work and last for decades.
JK: All right. I mean, it’s a shame. Dino is sort of an up-and-coming singer, right? Is it easier to work sometimes with more of those guys versus the more established players? They’re more flexible, that’s what I’m trying to say.
BF: Yeah, nobody is an employee just because they were born later. I should also say, before it gets twisted around, I’m not calling anyone in particular a selfish f***. I’m just saying that in bands, in every band, you’re gonna have the narcissist. You’re gonna have usually a drug addict narcissist. You’re gonna have the conspiring, greedy a******. You’re gonna have the one that is just riddled with depression and thinks that every note is the most important thing that happened. Also, you have people that forget that if you have four or five people in the band, you should only be getting 25 or 20% of your ideas going through. And if you’re hogging it up, you’re taking away from everyone else, and it’s not a fair scenario. Someone is going to feel like they’re left out and not being heard and not feel like an equal. So I always say, in a band of five unemployable, dysfunctional dudes, if only one out of five of your ideas makes it through, then everything is fair. And you have to be able to be okay with that. 20% times five, that’s how it should be. You have to accept that mentality and anything beyond that think of as a bonus. Bands are a really f***ed up marriage.
JK: Well, yeah, I mean, because now you got five to deal with, right, instead of one other person. But maybe it’s better to do this: have two experienced guys who know their way around to control things in a good way, right? The management, the money, they know, they’ve been around, they know what to do. Then you have the up-and-coming guys who have the talent and they’re easier to deal with. That’s what I’m getting at.
BF: Well, hopefully. I mean, people are people at any age, and I find that very often the older people are the more immature ones and the more petty ones. But even though the guys are younger, they have busted their ass their whole damn lives, and they’re not newbies at all. I mean, our drummer Bruno, how long has he been playing in Angra, and how many things has he done with how many people? All these guys are seasoned as f***. They’ve done it all. I guess the only difference is I’m at a point in life where I’m finally getting to the point of being jaded and bitter and just ready to stop, where they still have that “yeah, let’s get out and tour,” and I’m like, I just want to go home and pick raspberries in my yard. There’s only so many decades that you could do something before it’s like, enough already. I’ve missed too much of life. I’ve missed too many funerals and too many births and weddings and everything, and been an absentee member of my family in my own life. So it does get to a point, at least for me. Actually, maybe just for me, because I know people in their 70s that still love touring. But for me, I just want to produce other up-and-coming artists and help them get out there and do their thing and be at their best and teach and just support the next generations of people that are doing this. I’m done. I’m as good as dead as far as I’m concerned. I had my life. I lived it. I don’t need to live it anymore. If I die tomorrow, I’ll die just fine. I won’t feel like, “Oh, but if only I did this or that.” No, I’m good. So I’m at a point where I have that peace where it’s like, all right, now let me take everything, all the ups and downs that I experienced, and pay it forward and use that to help and guide others as they launch themselves. That’s what I want to do. That’s where my heart is at. But I’m in two bands, and I gotta get out and play.
JK: Saying that, it’s not really the case, but here we go. But I know what you’re saying, like if it all ended tomorrow, you’re happy.
BF: Right. And I guess what I’m also saying is ‘I try to get out, but they pull me back in’, kind of thing.
JK: It’s like the mafia, right? Tell me about the musical direction. For the people who haven’t heard the rest of the album compared to the first two singles that were released, how would you describe it?
BF: It’s similar. If you know Sons Of Apollo, it’s like Sons Of Apollo with the intensity knobs turning the 10s up to 11s. And yeah, the proggy stuff is pretty proggy. The solos are crazy. The melodies are melodic. The heaviness is heavier. To me, it’s just more intense. And I remember when we were first showing it to the label, they were a little concerned because they were expecting Sons Of Apollo 3, and this was described more as it’s like a constant pummeling. It’s like, yeah, as it should be! Just come in swinging!
JK: It does look, I’m going to be honest, like, I mean, with the exception of the vocals, it sounds like the musical style of Sons Of Apollo. It’s proggy. It’s like you said, it’s in your face and it’s aggressive. But at the same time, it’s soft. And I love Derek’s contribution on keyboards. He’s a great keyboardist just on all levels.
BF: Each person is a very specific key ingredient in the mix that creates the flavor of what it is. And that goes for any band. Like I’ve always said it, the thing that’s great about bands is that every single one is one of a kind in all the history of mankind, in the entire universe of everything. Whether it’s some kids playing in their garage or some band that’s been around for 40 years doing it, there’s only one grouping of those individual souls that come together, that add what they add, that make it what it is. Every band is so special when you really think about it.
JK: I agree. And if Jeff would have been in the band as the singer, it would have brought it back to Sons Of Apollo, right? It would have been said, okay, this is pretty much Sons Of Apollo, right, minus two guys. Is that why he didn’t come with you guys for the ride for Whom Gods Destroy?
BF: Well, I mean, there was the whole thing of if it’s not the five guys of Sons Of Apollo, it’s not Sons Of Apollo. If two members do something together, it’s a new band. If three members do something together, it’s the old band missing two members. And that goes for both Art Of Anarchy with Jeff and Whom Gods Destroy with Derek. Yet we have done other things together. So it’s not one of these things where it’s all hate and division. It’s just the band unfortunately couldn’t continue, and we’re doing what we can in some capacity, one way or another, to keep it going.
Obviously Ron is (discreetly) pointing the finger at me (and possibly Billy as well?), but I must publicly squash this rhetoric that is implying Sons Of Apollo’s demise had anything to do with me rejoining Dream Theater. That didn’t happen until Oct 2023…the reality is when the SOA tour got cancelled because of Covid in 2020, by the time there was any talk of writing new stuff and a possible 3rd album, I already had commitments with Transatlantic, NMB and The Winery Dogs (w Billy as well).
I can understand Ron, Derek & Jeff’s frustration with this, but the reality is the ONLY way I was ever able to juggle and balance all my bands all these years was to block certain windows in my schedule for each band or project to have time for an album/tour cycle.
Sadly, SOA’s album/tour cycle window got killed by Covid and by the time the world reopened again, I already was booked with my other bands and projects.
Anyways, I’m happy for those guys that they were able to continue working together in other musical capacity’s…but make no mistake, at the time, it had nothing to with me rejoining DT!