Behind The Scenes

Conceived in 1985, Dream Theater was essentially the brain-child of three students at Berkelee School of Music in the US: drummer Mike Portnoy, bassist John Myung, and guitarist John Petrucci.

During a winter break, they return home to Long Island, New York, where they were joined by keyboard player Kevin Moore. By March of 1986, the fledgling band were calling themselves Majesty, with Chris Collins completing the lineup on vocals.

They laid down demos, but by November of that year Collins and the group had parted company and the long search for replacement ensued...

A year later, Charlie Dominici was recruited into the ranks, and after extensive rehearsals the band finally hooked up with a record company, signing to New York-based Mechanic Records early in 1988. Suitably fired up, they set about recording their debut album ‘When Dream And Day Unite’, produced by Terry Date – who has since sat at the helm of the last three Pantera albums – and released in 1989 on a wave of positive press.

Following this rule breaking debut, a frustrating period followed with the band and record company involved in contractual negotiations. This was a time of change: Dominici left, the group parted company with Mechanic, and then – after securing a new deal with Atco – the remaining four set about finding themselves a new vocalist...

Having already established their style & sound, Dream Theater knew exactly the kind of frontman they needed – and Canadian James LaBrie fitted the bill perfectly; once he was on board, the group entered the studio with producer David Prater, the result being 1992’s stunning ‘Images And Words’ album, a record that had nothing to do with trend & fashion, and everything to do with power, passion and serious musical skill.

Backed by extensive touring worldwide, it’s success and critical acclaim surpassed the band’s wildest dreams.

In 1993, Dream Theater released the ‘Live At the Marquee’ mini-LP and the ‘Live In Tokyo’ longform video, both of them documenting the band’s peerless playing and serious commitment to a great live show.

And now there’s the new album ‘Awake’, released through East West on October 3rd; 75 minutes of original music, packing both craft and crunch, with Dream Theater’s ever-maturing songwriting skills well to the fore.

A full UK/European tour starts in February 1995 – our first chance to witness the band with their new keyboard player, so be sure not to miss out on a never-to-be-forgotten experience!

It was Dream Theater’s awesome cocktail of talents that inspired me to approach them and their manager, Jim Pitulski, to seek permission to start up the magazine. With their blessing, ‘Dream Theater: Images and Words’, the Official Fanzine kicked off in February ‘94.

This quarterly publication – like the band’s career thus far – hopes to improve and go from strength to strength. Your support and contributions are most welcome, and details of how to subscribe are on the back page.

Thanks go to Jim and the band, and everyone at East West for their help in putting this special edition together.

The smile of Dawn... Cheers

Neil Elliott

‘Awake’ To The Album

Guitarist John Petrucci and vocalist James LaBrie discuss the new LP with Neil...

Where does the title ‘Awake’ come from?

John: “When we were deciding on the title, we had a little pow-wow session like we always do, and we were reading through all the lyrics to try and find a phrase or word that might some up the record...and ‘Awake’ was one of them.

“It was actually in a couple of the songs – ‘Innocence Faded’ and ‘The Silent Man’. We started to think about it, and discuss it, and we liked the fact that it could mean a lot of different things…a non-judgmental look at music, or just issues in general.”

The pacing and the sequencing of the album are very good, opening with the shortish(?) songs, and hitting home straight away...

John: “Well there’s certainly a lot of energy on the record.”

James: “It’s obvious that this is a harder album than ‘Images And Words’ – it reflects what we’re going through in life and all the experiences we’ve had in the past four years. There’s a dark side to it...”

The music still sounds very complex and places, but it seems to have been achieved via a simpler writing approach. Would you agree?

John: “Yeah, and I think a lot of that has to do with orchestration. There are a couple of songs on there – ‘Lie’ and ‘Caught In A Web’, for example – where there’s a lot of rhythm playing... there’s no textural clean guitars or breakdown sections, it’s like a non-stop assault!”

“For the most part, ‘6:00’ and ‘Caught In A Web’ are like that, and the overall effect is more straightforward and more powerful because of it...”

When you first listen to ‘Awake’, you don’t think it’s going to be that heavy. Then, when you listen more closely, there is some AMAZINGLY heavy stuff on there...!

James: “True, but even though it’s very edgy and aggressive, which is the road we wanted to go down at this point, I think it still has that symphonic feel to it...”

John: “Some of the riffs are pretty savage, and I love that, it’s so much fun to play. I think the sounds are thicker overall...”

James: “Yeah, we’re really happy with the way it all came out...”

‘6:00’ – a good choice of opening track! It’s very sharp and punchy, with a meaty riff; tell me a bit about this song...

John: “Kev pretty much wrote the whole thing. We played around with the choruses a bit and the ending too, but the majority of the arrangement and all the parts were provided by Kev. What else? Well, it’s probably Mike’s hardest drum song!”

James: “Lyrically it’s about a guy who finds himself in a situation he doesn’t want to be in. He wants to move on, and if that involves giving everything up, he’s willing to do so. This is a theme that crops up right throughout the album – becoming more aware of one’s existence, discovering frustrations, and dealing with them...

“If you don’t take life by the reins and chase after something you both love and need, then things will pass you by. The opening line is: “6:00 on a Christmas morning”, and it means, are you getting up for the right reasons, is it for Christmas or is it for work?”

John: “Kev was saying there was this conflict within the character, getting up for Christmas and sort of losing the meaning of it.”

‘Caught In A Web?’

James: “It was a concept that I came up with, and basically it deals with a rage against conformity. John had melody ideas and the title, so we got together and worked out the lyrics.”

...and what about ‘Innocence Faded’?

James: “A more subtle song that existed on a demo, on a 4-track. John wrote the lyrics about how kids approach their relationships on a more innocent basis, and then as you get older you find yourself growing apart from some of your best friends – as an adult, you tend to have all these preconceived notions...”

What’s the concept underpinning ‘A Mind Beside Itself’? (The overall title for the trilogy featuring the instrumental ‘Erotomania’, ‘Voices’ and ‘The Silent Man’).

John: “I’d already come up with ‘The Silent Man’, and when we came to write for the album, we were throwing about ideas, and I suggested doing a trilogy and having that song be the third part – the first part would be an instrumental, and the middle would have a real epic feel to it. That’s what we did! We created it! “

‘Erotomania’?

John: “Basically, various sections we’ve had for a while meshed together with new ideas.”

And ‘Voices’?

John: “It’s us escaping from that very tight technical approach – the song is very loose, almost like a Jane’s Addiction sort of thing.”

James: “This one concerns a person who is living in a state of delusion. They were affected early on in their life, and now they’ve built a world within their head that has nothing to do with the reality that surrounds them.”

And then there’s ‘The Silent Man’...

John: “The way we recorded it was really cool; we used these natural-tuned acoustics, clean guitar overdubs and fretless bass.”

James: “It deals with a communication breakdown, between a father and son for instance; we feel that we have to play out certain roles when we are around one or other of our parents, and we never get to know the real person. I’m lucky, because I can behave with my own father like I would a friend...”

Next track ‘The Mirror’ has a very dark and mystical feel...

John: “Yeah, it’s almost vampire-like...”

James: “When we were writing ‘The Mirror’, originally ‘Lie’ was a part of it, but then we made it into a whole separate song...

“Mike wrote the lyrics, and they’re about taking things for granted in a relationship and finding yourself in an unfaithful situation. It’s about trying to win back that honor and trust.”

You’ve already mentioned ‘Lie’, what about that?

John: “It’s pretty aggressive, and there are not too many other heavy songs on the album that are short...”

James: “Yeah, it gets to the point real quick, but it’s not just heavy and in your face – everything in the song supports and complements everything else.

“Another Kevin Moore lyric too, this time dealing with dishonesty. Let’s face it, there’s so much deception around, nobody can take anyone at face value anymore.”

‘Lifting Shadows Off A Dream’?

James: “That song has an interesting story. John Myung had this poem about the strength you get from the spiritual side of a relationship, and he wanted to make a song out of it. He had this idea... and just two chords! We worked on it and jammed on it, rearranged his words a bit, racked our brains, and recorded the jam. We came in the next day and listened to the recording, and thought this could be really cool. All of a sudden it evolved into this song, and I think it’s one of the strongest we’ve done.”

Next up there’s ‘Scarred’...

James: “...which happens to be my favorite song on the album.”

John: “That was the first number we wrote when we got together to work on the album in January. We jammed it and it turned into ‘Scarred’. It proved that the chemistry between us was still there, that same feeling we have when we played together back at Berkelee – we were so psyched! After that, we were really confident about the kind of record we could make.”

James: “It tells the story of a character faced with a failed relationship, something that has affected their view of life and their self-esteem, all of their values...”

‘Space Dye-Vest’ rounds things off; tell me about that one finally...

John: “Very off-the-wall, and possibly an indication of why Kevin split with the band. It’s a very personal and very emotional song. I guess some people will hear it and think that this isn’t Dream Theater.

“Having said that though, even in the past, there have been songs that didn’t seem like us, but are very much a part of us now... I think it’s important for a band to evolve.”

James: “Kevin saw a photograph in a fashion magazine of a beautiful model wearing a space-dye vest and fell in love with her. He carried that magazine around for ages, but he realized that the only way the innocence of her appeal could be kept was if she stayed on the page. If he’d met her, all that would have been lost...”