Mike Portnoy interview

Mike Portnoy: ...it was kind of crazy because it was a gift for my grandfather. He gave it to me for my 11th birthday and he had a heart attack that day and passed away a few days later. So it was almost like his final gift to me and kind of passed on his lifeblood to me through a drum set. But that’s how old I was when I got my first drum set. It was just a small little like four piece kit, but it was something that to at least get to learn how to get around the drum kit and play a hi-hat, a snare, and a bass drum and learn all the basics.

El Estepario Siberiano: Can you actually remember the brand?

MP: It was called a Royce. It was like a no-name local brand.

EES: You didn’t you keep it, right?

MP: No, I wish I had it. I do have my first real drum set that I bought once I was playing for a few years and I wanted to get better. I wanted to have a bigger drum kit too cuz I was really into Neil Peart and Terry Bozzio, Simon Phillips. So I wanted to have a big double bass drum set. One summer I worked three jobs to save money for my first drum set. And that was the Tama Imperial Star kit that I used on the first two Dream Theater albums and tours. So I still have that drum set. I still had that at home. And that was the one that we recorded When Dream And Day Unite and Images And Words on and the entire first Images And Words tour was with that drum kit. I still have that one back at home.

EES: So you’ve been a Tama guy...

MP: Yeah, since then. I mean, that was all my favorite drummers back then were Tama guys. Like Neil Peart played Tama back then, Simon Phillips, Bill Bruford, Stewart Copeland, they were all Tama drummers. I think it’s still like that. I think most kids pick their drum brand based on who their favorite drummers are.

EES: Can you remember the feeling you had the first time you played the drum kit?

MP: The one that my grandfather bought me, that first drum kit – a few months before that, I went and visited my cousins down in Florida and they had a drum set set up in their garage and they couldn’t take me off of it. I just wanted to play all the time. So that’s why my grandfather knew I wanted a drum set and ordered it for me. But yeah, I mean I would practice hours and hours and hours every day. I mean, this is back in the ‘70s, so we didn’t have videos on YouTube and things that you could see. So you would just have to listen to records with headphones and learn that way. So back in the mid-70s when I started, I was listening to The Beatles and Ringo Starr, Led Zeppelin with John Bonham, Keith Moon with The Who, Peter Criss with Kiss. That was all the stuff I was learning how to play drums to, and I would just sit in my room with headphones and play along to my records.

EES: That’s amazing. Actually, you were talking about practice, about how to practice and how you—

MP: Well, I should ask you how to practice! I’m actually the worst with that now. I mean, when I was younger, I would practice hours and hours and hours and hours every day. My life is so much different now. It’s harder for me now. And I don’t necessarily have the time or necessarily the drive, with my family and everything at home. But when I was younger, my practice regimen was every day for hours and hours.

EES: Exactly. But that’s exactly one thing that I wanted to ask and specifically talking about this particular point where my generation has access to a lot of videos and a lot of educational content. People often forget, the new generations, that before it was not that easy. You didn’t have access to s*** and still the best drummers in history were born on that time before. So I’m super curious about how you actually managed to practice because many people don’t know it but you are self-taught.

MP: Yeah, very self-taught. I mean, I did go to Berklee once I graduated, but that was not really for drumming. That was more for music theory, harmony, ear training, sight singing – I was taking all those classes. But yeah, I’m primarily self-taught and like I said, it was just listening with headphones and you have to imagine these things cuz you couldn’t... you would see like The Beatles on TV or The Rolling Stones, but only very, very famous people would be on TV. Even the movie The Song Remains The Same – the Led Zeppelin movie – came out in 1976 and the only way to see it was to go to a midnight movie like on a Saturday night, or my local library were showing The Song Remains The Same. So I went to the library to see the screening of it, and that was the first time I could see John Bonham with my own eyes. Or The Who movie The Kids Are Alright that came out in ’79; I went to the movie theater and saw it. That was my first time seeing Keith Moon and visualizing it. Up until then, you just have to listen with headphones and imagine.

I think that’s probably why the evolution of drumming has taken off to the level it is now, because there’s so many tools for drummers today to see people like you and all these amazing drummers that are on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, and now there’s just endless supply of inspiration. So for me as a 58-year-old man, I’m still inspired by all these drummers and these up-and-coming drummers doing stuff that I can’t even imagine, and it’s just because I think today’s drummers have those tools that we didn’t have.

EES: Yeah. A lot of tools to develop it. I mean, I agree with you that people nowadays are doing crazy things and playing to speeds that I never thought were possible and creating techniques that I never thought were possible. But I feel like there’s a massive search in the technical aspect of drumming. But on the other hand, I feel like people are really, really struggling to find the musicality. And that’s something that I also wanted to ask you about – like what’s the balance, the perfect balance for you? Are you a drummer that bets on musicality or are you a person that relies more on technique?

MP: I’m not technical at all, which is weird to say playing the music I play with Dream Theater, because Dream Theater’s music is very progressive and technical. But honestly, me as a drummer to me, I think it’s more about playing the song than playing the drums. And there’s a lot of amazing drummers like you that play the drums like I can’t even comprehend it. I don’t understand how limbs can move that fast. I just don’t understand it. For me, maybe it’s just because it’s beyond my abilities. To me, when I’m playing drums, I’m thinking more about the song. I have to play the song more importantly than playing the drums. And when writing music, like with Dream Theater, for instance, I’ll be behind the drums and that’s my tool to express myself and that’s my instrument. But still, when we’re writing music, I’m thinking about the guitar part, the keyboard part – what everybody else is doing – the composition, the melody, the instrumentation, sometimes the lyrics. So I’m thinking about all those things and the drums. But that’s just me. I think there’s a lot of incredible technical drummers that do what they do, and I wish I could – I’m envious of it. I just don’t have the discipline at this point in my life. But it blows my mind seeing the abilities, the speed and the stamina.

EES: I guess you could say the technical aspect is always more a matter of repetition. I feel like your training has made you gifted. It’s not something that fell from the sky to you. Obviously you trained a lot, but you must have done something, because the musicality, as you said, this kind of music, at least to me personally, it’s very complex music and it’s very hard to make it work. It’s very hard to give it a groove and to make it actually something blessing.

MP: To me, that’s the most important thing is the groove. To me, everything I do has to feel good. And sometimes with this kind of music, I’m very conscious of what’s happening while writing it. I know the numbers, I know the odd time signatures and the rhythms and the patterns. It’s good for me to be aware of those things and to understand them, but at the end of the day, I always want whatever I play to feel good and feel natural. And I don’t want to be thinking about the numbers. It’s good to think about it when you’re composing it and you’re trying to create a part. It’s good to know that stuff, but then by the time we get on tour playing it live, I don’t want to think about it. I think if I started thinking about it, I’ll f*** up. Like, if I’m thinking about what my feet are doing or – as soon as I start thinking about that stuff, it freaks me out. So, I need to just feel it and play and be in the moment and in the vibe and the groove. To me, it’s the most important thing.

EES: That’s also something that I wanted to ask. The shape of the music that you play every day is extremely complex for people that are beginning into the music universe, so to speak. But is it a result of you, not only you but also the guys, looking for freedom – like you want to express your ideas in any kind, shape, or form and later you realize, OK, this is an 11-something, this is a seven, this is that? Or are you aware of, today we’re going to work on this specific time signature and this and that? Is it a result of the freedom of speech, so to speak, or you actually and deliberately try to work on the specific time signatures?

MP: It depends on what we’re going for. If it’s a complicated song, a long song, we’ll spend the time really analyzing it and counting it out. I would always have fun with numbers. I did an instructional video maybe 30 years ago, my very first one, trying to explain odd time signatures and how everything is like a timeline, you know. And 4/4 time, you know, is the same as 8/8 time and 16/16 time. So, I spent a lot of time analyzing that kind of stuff. And it’s good to have those tools and understand it. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you always should. You have to do what’s called for in the music. But to answer your question, I mean, we’re very conscious if it’s a complicated, long song, we’re very conscious of the orchestration. And sometimes I’ll f*** with numbers just to be creative. In fact, we were just rehearsing something at soundcheck – it was this bit from the song ‘Fatal Tragedy’ – and we’re working on it and dissecting it ‘cause it’s been 25 years since we wrote it. But there’s this one bit where me and the guitar are doing two sets of six where the keyboards are doing like three sets of four. So no matter which way you look at it, it’s 12. So, you could take that 12, you could break it into two bars of six, you could break it into three bars of four, you could break it into four bars of three. And that’s kind of my approach to the drumming. I don’t want to play odd time signatures for the sake of it, but sometimes I could use the numbers to be creative and maybe try a different orchestration of a part.

EES: There is one video of you that blew my mind, and I think it’s probably one of the most viral videos for drum nerds like me. But it’s you counting with papers the time signatures. It’s become this kind of meme where, I think it’s ‘The Dark Eternal Night’, and you can see all the time signatures that are happening. Is that how your brain works? Are you aware at the moment, like, OK, this–that–that, constantly flowing, or you reach a point of superiority where you can actually groove with it and enjoy it?

MP: It takes a while to get it to that point, but it eventually gets there. But when we’re writing it, I don’t think you can write crazy s*** like ‘The Dark Eternal Light’ or ‘Dance Of Eternity’ unless you know what the numbers are doing. You have to understand it. So yeah, when we’re in the writing stage, we’re very, very conscious of all those time signatures. But if I had to think like that live on stage, my head would explode. So by the time you record it, it should be comfortable. Writing it is one stage, recording it is the next stage, and then performing it live is the final stage. And by the time we get onto the stage, and we’re performing these things live, I don’t think about it anymore.

EES: I need to know your opinion about a specific thing, a specific topic. Do you consider yourself somebody that’s gifted or do you consider yourself somebody that’s worked a lot of time?

MP: A little bit of both. For sure, for me it’s a natural ability, or a natural talent, because I’m not one of those types of drummers that sits at home shedding for 10 hours at a time; I never was. I would play for a few hours a day when I was younger, and always listen to music, and learn off the records. But even when Dream Theater first started, when we put the band together at Berklee, we would practice six hours a night, five nights a week, and that was just our schedule for years and years and years. So you need to put in the hours. No matter how naturally gifted you might be, you need to put the time in to get the dexterity and the stamina. But I think in a lot of respects, I’m one of those drummers that just was naturally given the ability to go so far. Like I said, there’s a lot I can’t [do]; I’m not a good blast-beater, and I can’t do all the techniques that you guys do. Like, my wrist can only go so fast. I don’t know those techniques. If I spent the time to learn a lot of stuff, I surely would be better at those sort of things. But for some reason, I just have always felt very natural behind the drums.

EES: But you said you were practicing six hours with the band?

MP: Yeah. Every night for years and years and years. And at Berklee, they had these practice rooms that you could only get for two hours at a time. So, you could get it from 6:00 to 8:00, 8:00 to 10:00, and 10:00 to 12:00. You’d have to go in the morning to sign up for the room. So, we would take turns waiting in line at the school to sign up. So, John Petrucci would sign up from 6:00 to 8:00. Then I would wait in line, I’d sign up for 8:00 to 10:00. And then John Myung would get it from 10:00 to [12:00]. And we did that every single day. We woke up every morning, signed up to the rooms at night, and then that night we’d go for dinner in the cafeteria at Berklee, then wheel all our gear into the practice room and practice from 6:00 to 12:00 every night, five nights a week. And then even once we left Berklee and went back home, all those years that we were writing Images And Words and all of those first couple albums, we were practicing six hours a night, five nights a week.

EES: That’s insane. Who does that?

MP: And we would spend so much time writing a song like ‘Metropolis’, that middle section, we would spend sometimes hours just on like one bar of music. And if it’s a really complicated couple of bars, we’d just loop it. We’d just take a four-bar phrase and loop it. And we’d slow it down and just do that for like an hour. Then slowly speeding it up a little faster. And that was the kind of discipline as a band we would spend.

EES: Forgive me for not knowing the answer to this, but is it normal – at least in Berklee – because I’ve never been into a school that has a level of exigence – because that’s probably the top music school in the world. But was it normal, the rest of the guys...?

MP: Well, when you’re in a place like Berklee, if you’re there, if you were accepted, you’re gonna be good. So for me, I learned as much from the students at Berklee as I did from the teachers. All day long we’d be taking these classes – ear training and sight singing, all these things I was learning and getting the tools for that kind of stuff. So you’re learning from the teachers during the day, but also all night long. We would be in one practice room for six hours a night, but every room, there’s people that are just incredible musicians, and you’re just as inspired by the students as the teachers, ‘cause everybody there is just driven and thirsty for knowledge and just wanting to be the best you can be. And you’re inspired to have to be on a certain level to be at a place like that. So that was always something that made you rise to the occasion, and that’s the way I feel with Dream Theater’s music. Even coming back to Dream Theater’s music after being out of the band for so many years – with a band like this, there’s a certain level that is expected that you have to maintain. And I could play in some of the other bands I played in all through the years, and it doesn’t have to be this [high] level of technical proficiency. But for a band like Dream Theater and music like this, you have to be on your game to deliver it each and every time.

EES: Your father became a DJ because he saw Clint Eastwood in a movie.

MP: Exactly.

EES: Now my question for you is, who would be your Clint Eastwood? Do you have one that made you go all in, like “I want that – I want drums”?

MP: I often say Keith Moon, but there’s a bunch of guys. Ringo Starr was a huge, huge one for me. Neil Peart was a huge, huge one for me. But seeing the type of drummer Keith Moon was made me want to be an animated drummer, ‘cause somebody like Ringo or Neil Peart, as much as they’re my heroes, on stage, they’re very subdued. Whereas when I saw Keith Moon just bouncing sticks off and throwing and twirling, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. I knew I wanted to be that kind of a drummer. And another one who gets such a beating – his reputation – but Lars Ulrich, believe it or not, was a big influence for me. And a lot of people give him a hard time over his technique and everything, but to me, he was an influence for me because it was more than just drums. He was the leader of the band, he would write the setlist, he would deal with the fan clubs and the merchandise, and he was co-producing the albums and co-writing the music. He, to me, was a role model. And even to this day, he still is. I went and saw Metallica a few weeks ago, and more than just the drumming, his personality and his presence, he was so important for Metallica’s success that, to me, that was the thing. And Neil Peart too – Neil wasn’t just the drummer; he was the lyricist, and he would oversee the artwork. So, it’s drummers like that, that do more than just play the drums. Those are my role models.

EES: No, you have accomplished that. It’s true. And I totally get what you mean. There’s some people that really can play like f*** but there is an X factor in there in the equation. That’s something that you have. It’s an energy. It’s a vibe. There’s people that just fill the room with this energy. And the Lars Ulrich thing, I don’t understand. I received so many comments about him. I don’t know where the hatred comes. I don’t know where that started. I don’t know what happens.

MP: And he was a pioneer for the style of music that Metallica plays. When they came out in 1983 or whenever it was, that was a game changer. They were inventing an entire style of music, and he was at the forefront of it. So, you’ve gotta give him credit for that. And those first four albums, his drumming was very aggressive and progressive. It wasn’t until the Black Album where he started to pull it back a little bit, but those first four albums I learned so much about metal drumming from those albums. And not just Lars, but also Dave Lombardo, Charlie Benante, Vinnie Paul, Mikkey Dee with King Diamond – those were all big ones for me in that time period.

EES: Did you know that you wanted to be a drummer? Was it your dream or do you just love drums and whatever happens, happens?

MP: I think I knew maybe because I couldn’t do anything else well. If I had to change that light bulb over there I wouldn’t know how to do it. So because of a lack of any expertise in any other field I think I had to become a drummer cuz it was the only thing I knew how to do. But yeah, I always wanted to be a drummer. We talked about my first drum set before that I was taking piano lessons and learning how to play piano and it was just never rock and roll enough for me. I think once I started playing the drums that’s it. I was just so hungry about drumming. I was just obsessed with it. Back then we didn’t have internet like we were talking about, but I would get Modern Drummer magazine every month and I would just stare at every picture looking at all the different drum sets, even the ads for the different drum companies or cymbal companies. I would just stare at them and I was obsessed with learning how to, reading drum notation and analyzing other drummers and their styles. Especially once I started getting more into progressive music like Rush and Yes and Genesis, I started analyzing time signatures. I became very interested in that kind of stuff. And we didn’t have drum notation books and instructional videos. So I ended up going to buy the Rush song book, but it was like for piano. But I would follow along ‘The Trees’ or ‘Xanadu’ or ‘Freewill’. I would follow the piano notation to learn how to count in five and seven and 11 and nine. So that’s how I learned the odd time signatures, just reading the notation, which wasn’t always drums, and just learning how to count and how to feel something, listening to those early progressive albums, Rush, Yes, Genesis. And I knew that I had to be a drummer cuz it was all I can do.

EES: Now that you’re talking about Modern Drummer, like you said when you were younger, you were just looking at it and you were fascinated by it. But truth is, as time went by, you have won how many awards?

MP: 32.

EES: 32 awards from that magazine! How does it feel? Because for you at some point it must have been like wow this magazine, you know, as you said—

MP: Yeah. Forget about being on the cover, just to even have my first article in Modern Drummer magazine was like, “Oh my God!” and now I’ve been on the cover like five times. To me it’s surreal. And if anything, I feel embarrassed by [all the awards] because I always say this, but it’s the truth. You know, music and drumming is not a contest. It’s not something that should be like an Olympic sport where you get the gold award, you get the silver award. The reality is, there’s thousands of drummers out there that can play circles around me. You could do it with one hand. You do with one hand what I need all four limbs to do!

EES: It’s totally different.

MP: So to me, it’s like I almost get embarrassed by winning the awards cuz I don’t consider myself great or better than anybody else. If anything, I’m very self-conscious about it now, especially because there’s so many other drummers that are so technical and doing things that I can’t fathom. So, every time I win one of those awards, it’s almost like, oh God, I don’t want people to think that I think I deserve it because I don’t. I think if you’re picking up a pair of drumsticks and you’re able to make something musical out of it and your heart is into it, then you should win that award. Everybody deserves those awards. To me, if anything, it’s a nice acknowledgement of just recognition I guess of maybe being an inspiration for somebody. So that I have so much gratitude for, and to be somebody’s favorite drummer, that’s great. I say it’s like favorite drummer, but there’s no best, there’s no greatest. You can’t mark things in those terms really.

EES: It’s hard. Eventually it’s more subjective. Is there any point in your life where you feel like f*** I made it? Because the way you’re talking, since you were super little you had this goal, you wanted to be a drummer. At some point you must have been like s*** I made it, like here. I don’t know if it was the Modern Drummer or a show somewhere. At some point you must have that click, that switch flipping inside of you where you just feel an enormous amount of gratitude.

MP: That’s it. It’s gratitude. You know, there was benchmarks throughout my career, but it’s important to note that it didn’t happen overnight – it took a lot of work. The first seven years of Dream Theater’s career, from 1985 to 1992, were spent practicing and writing, practicing and writing, and frustration, things maybe could happen and never happened – they would fall through. Opportunities that ended up not happening, and just time after time, things knocking us down, and we just kept getting back up and persevering. We just never gave up. We believed in ourselves. And that’s what you have to do. I think, if you really persevere, you can overcome anything. But there were little benchmarks, like when Images And Words came out, seven years into our career at that point. Suddenly it was on the radio and it was on MTV, and suddenly we started touring in a van, and we were happy just to be playing outside of the New York area. So the first time we toured in a van, we didn’t care that we were in a smelly van with just the five of us. We were excited to be playing Texas, California, and Ohio for the first time. And then, suddenly, we went overseas, came to Europe for the first time. That was all so exciting. That, to us, was everything we dreamed of, and that was success. And then, things start to accumulate. Then, you start to get on the covers in the magazines, or win the awards, or play bigger venues. I guess it’s constantly little benchmarks. And still, to this day, the band’s been together 40 years now, and we’re still finding these little achievements. Like we’re playing a couple of venues that we’ve never played before that we always wanted to play, and all these years later, we’re finally getting to play them. So it’s things like that, that you strive for.

EES: Across all these questions, there are some values that I wanted to talk about that you are describing perfectly. And I think one of the virtues that you have, not only you, but my guess is that the rest of the band as well, is exactly what you were talking about – the feeling, the accomplishment, and the fulfillment with the little benchmarks. And that’s something that defines successful people. I don’t know why, but the fact that you can feel gratitude – life is going to knock you down, unfortunately, and it’s going to happen constantly. Most people just surrender, and some of the people just persevere, and they try to go for it, and they try to find the pleasure in the little things and the little achievements. And it’s something that I need these people behind the camera to understand that. That’s why I’m asking these questions. I want the people to understand the war behind, and the times that you decided to get back up and go after it again and again.

MP: You have to persevere. I mean, the only guarantee of not succeeding is if you quit and give up. Well, then that’s a guarantee that you’re not going to reach your goal. Before we went to music college – to Berklee – originally my parents wanted me to go to a normal college, not a music school, so I could have an education and something to fall back on. And I said, as soon as you give yourself something to fall back on, then you’re gonna fall back on it. You’re gonna suddenly just settle for that. And I didn’t want to settle for anything other than making it, and that’s why after a year at Berklee... we met each other, we formed the band, and we just believed in ourselves so much that we went back to New York and just followed the band and followed our hearts. But it was many years before anything happened. And then even once it started happening, even once Images And Words did well, suddenly we had a gold album and we were on the TV and the radio and playing all this – that wasn’t the end of the problems – that was more like the beginning of them. Because now suddenly you have managers and agents and record companies and money and legal things and all of these other things and expectations. Like once we had one hit song, suddenly now the record company’s expecting you to have that every time. So you have those pressures. With success comes not necessarily the end of the rainbow – it’s the beginning of a lot of the struggles. And you have to constantly be at it. There were a lot of periods in Dream Theater’s history after we had our initial success where we almost threw in the towel just because it’s a hard, hard industry. The music industry is one of the most cutthroat businesses in the world. And you have to just believe in it and persevere and have that passion, and if you really do believe in it, it will happen.

EES: Did your parents at some point go like, “F*** this is a superstar”? At some point they must have known.

MP: Sadly, my mom never got to see my success ‘cause she died when I was 17, before I even went to Berklee. She only ever saw me playing drums in my local band when I was in high school. And she was proud of me then – that was enough for her. She was so proud of me. But yeah, my father, who ended up naming the band Dream Theater, he passed away about 15 years ago, but he got to see a lot of all the stuff happen, and so proud. And my wife and my kids – I don’t think a band like ours would be able to have succeeded if we didn’t have our family support, and our wives and kids. All five members of Dream Theater are all married. We all have kids. It’s unheard of that a band that’s been together 40 years can have all of their families intact. No divorces, because we always placed a real importance on the family values. Everybody in Dream Theater, because we all have families, we all are very understanding of how that is important for everybody. So we make sure to accommodate those personal needs, and luckily, I think that’s why here we are 40 years later with all of our families, because that was always a very important thing for us to respect.

EES: With Max, how do you feel? At some point you must have been walking through your house and suddenly you listen to him playing something that’s f***ing amazing.

MP: Max is part of your generation of drummers that can do these things that I can’t comprehend. I mean, Max can do all these blast beats and things like that, that I can’t do. So, I’ve learned a lot from him. You know, not only your guys’ whole generation inspires me, but my own son has inspired me. And he’s grown into such a great musician now. He’s playing bass as well in his bands. He’s playing drums and bass in his band Tallah and I couldn’t be prouder. He grew up in a household that was supportive of music and following your dreams, and I never pushed him to play the drums, but I surely supported him with whatever he wanted to do – and it turns out he wanted to play drums.

EES: I want to ask you one more thing. I’m going to wrap it up soon. If your life was not about drumming, what else are you interested in? What would you think you would like to spend your time doing? I know you’re into movies. You love music.

MP: That’s my biggest passion. But beyond music is film and TV. Like, there’s so much good quality TV shows out there these days, too. But yeah, that’s what I basically do with any free time I have, aside from music. I love watching films. I’m very into certain directors – Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino. These guys, to me, are as big of influences for me as any of my musical heroes. So yeah, I think if I wasn’t a musician, I’d probably be doing something in the film field. But I think I had to be a musician. I was destined for it. It was just the only thing I really knew how to do with passion and skill. Everything else I’m horrible at! [laughs]

EES: We are grateful for what we have. I feel the same in that sense. You went to music school [but] I don’t have the music studies, I only know how to play drums. So, I know the feeling of, yeah, this is what I have to do. I love doing it, but what can I do? I’m horrible with math or whatever. Yeah, this is what we have to do. But it’s a curse and a blessing.

MP: It’s a blessing. I gotta say, what you do for the drum community is amazing. You have been a blessing to the drum community. So I must give you that credit, and you’re gonna take that credit!

EES: I’m going to take the credit, but I’m going to take that to wrap the interview. Brother, I want to tell you right now, looking you in the eye – and hopefully I will not cry – I would not be here without you. It’s interesting. It’s even philosophically, it’s f***ing amazing, because I wouldn’t be here without you, and hopefully at some point some other people will be there, you know, and it’s like a constant circle, and it’s in constant motion.

MP: Thank you, man. You’re as big a part of that story as anything. You’re probably one of the most seen drummers on the internet. That’s great, and you should be proud of that, because you caught everybody’s attention with your technical abilities, but now people, I think, love watching you because of your personality and your passion for the drums. And people like you are so important for the evolution of drumming, and you’re a big, big part of that. So you gotta take that credit.

EES: Brother, I appreciate it, and I appreciate that you took time to make this possible.

MP: That’s my pleasure, man. I’m glad we hooked up.