An Interview with Mike Portnoy

Here’s a transcript of my interview with Mike Portnoy, exactly as it appeared on usenet and Ytsejam on March 1, 1993. Sure, it’s a little dated, but that’s part of what makes it interesting reading 3 years later... a lot of the things Mike talked about have come to pass, although not exactly in the ways he had speculated. :) Anyway, enjoy, and feel free to send me feedback!

By the way, some of the stuff you’re about to read crept its way into the Ytsejam FAQ although I was never properly credited. :( It’s not really that big a deal, but it would be cool if someone acknowledged my input and set the record straight.

Alright! It’s finished! For those of you who DON’T subscribe to Ytsejam (the Dream Theater mailing list), here’s the deal. On Saturday I had an interview scheduled with Mike Portnoy for my radio show (The Metal Machine on WPSU), and thought it would be a neat idea to post it to usenet as well. I came up with a whole interview’s worth of my own questions, but I thought it would also be a cool idea if I could include questions from net.fans all over the world. So I posted an article (to the mailing list) to this effect, received a bunch of questions via e-mail, and incorporated them into the interview.

The scenario: It’s about 8:30 pm on Saturday, February 27th. I’m at Hammerjack’s in Baltimore, and the pre-show “meet & greet” party for the band, a bunch of Rock 103 contest winners, and some other various VIPs is in full swing. I’ve just finished talking to Mike and his tour manager about when and where our interview will take place, and the consensus is: after the party, upstairs in the dressing room. Cool. I have a couple of beers, hang out with my friends, mingle with the band a little (who are finished with soundcheck and have just taken a peek at the final edit of their new video), and about an hour later the party is over. Mike, myself, and a couple of others go upstairs to a little room adjacent to the dressing room, close the door, sit down on the floor Indian-style, and start to B.S. I pull out my notebook and tape recorder, press RECORD, and the here’s what happened:

Mike Portnoy: [talking directly into the microphone, acting goofy] Hi, this is Mike Portnoy! And we’re here in Baltimore, in some shabby room at Hammerjack’s.

Jeff Hochberg: So, this is pretty much the last couple weeks of the tour here in the U.S.?

MP: Yeah, we’ve been out 5 months now, and we’ve got about 2 more weeks here, workin’ our way up the east coast... then we get a much-needed 10 days off, and then we go to Europe for a month. So we’re gonna be leaving for Europe at the end of March and we’ll be there till the end of April... we’re playing England, Germany, Scotland, Holland, Italy, France, Spain, places like that. Places that we’ve never been and have always dreamed about...

JH: And what happens after that? I read in an article somewhere that you’re supposed to be touring through the fall?

MP: Well, I’m sure we’re gonna tour all year, up until the end of the year... I’m not sure exactly what our plans are for after Europe, but one of 2 things will happen, I mean, by the time we get back from Europe, that’ll be 7 months on our own, headlining, so we’re definitely ready to move up. The ideal situation for us would be to pick up on another major tour, an opening slot, just because we’ve done 7 months on our own now, so... hopefully, there’s a couple things in the works with another major act that could work out, and if for some reason those fall through, then we’ll just continue doing what we’re doing now...

JH: I know you had that one show over the summer with Iron Maiden... have any other bands approached you about an opening slot?

MP: Yeah, well, there’s a couple of things in the works... I don’t wanna jinx ‘em, I’m superstitious [grins]...

JH: ..that’s cool....

MP: ...hopefully they’ll pan out, and during the summer we’ll be out with another band.

JH: And when you do come back to the States again, will it be another big huge leg, because people are asking from all over the place, you know, “when are they coming back to the west coast? When are they coming here or there...”

MP: Well, definitely summertime we’ll be back in the States, doing it from the middle of May on, it’s just a matter of whether we’ll be doing it ourselves or with another band. We’ve hit pretty much all the major markets in the States at least once, doing clubs and stuff, and next time out we’re probably gonna a step up and start doing theaters and stuff... we’ve been doing a bunch of theaters on this leg now, just because the response has been so well. The turnouts are great, so we’re gonna start stepping up to bigger places, finally.

JH: You mentioned before that you guys had just checked out the new video that just got finished, can you tell us anything about it?

MP: Well, it’s a video for “Take the Time”... it’s an edited version, of course, but it’s not that bad, because it’s still about 6 minutes long... It’s actually, in our eyes, the first Dream Theater video, because the video for “Pull Me Under”, as great as it’s done for us, I mean, it’s great that MTV is playing it as much as they are, but it’s not really the video that we wanted. It was a last-minute thing, it was done on a low budget, we didn’t have too much input into the making of it, it was just like [snaps his fingers] the label just put it out just to have something out there. So luckily MTV’s playing it, I mean we didn’t even expect that, so that’s great, we can’t complain, but this time out, this video is really the first video that we’re really involved with the making of. It’s just a performance video, there’s no conceptual footage, no other actors, it’s just us playing and it really showcases us playing, you can see the instruments, and it has a lot of personality to it. It’s just a performance thing...

JH: Was it actually at a show, or did you play in an empty hall, or whatever?

MP: Yeah, it was a soundstage where we filmed it. It was a 14 hour shoot, and the soundstage had about 3 different stages, so we shot some of it in one setting, and some of it in a different setting, you know, but no audience involved. This way we could just focus on what we were doing, whereas the first time around the footage of us was live at a show, so we weren’t able to really focus on the filming of it.

JH: OK... let’s see...

MP: Would anybody like some gum? [shares his gum with us, and then leans over and says directly into the mic] This is good gum!

JH: I don’t think I really have to ask this, but I think I will just for the record anyway: how do you guys feel about the edited versions of your songs?

MP: It’s definitely... insulting to us, as artists or whatever you want to say, you know, just to have something that we spent so long putting together just chopped up and thrown away like that, you know? It’s like bringing up a baby, spending all this time bringing up a baby and then somebody just takes it and like tattoos it or something... So, it’s tough. It’s a tough call, I mean at first we completely objected to doing edits and stuff, but I guess with a band like ours where we’re writing 8, 9, 10 minute songs, it’s inevitable that some stations are going to need shorter versions to fit into their format, so... it’s alright, we can deal with it, as long as we have creative control over what the edit is. And luckily a lot of the cool stations are playing the full-length versions anyway... and the most important thing is: I’d rather have the label let us record the 10 minute versions and then edit it for release than having us edit them to begin with on the record. I mean the most important thing is, when its 10 years from now, they’re not gonna be listening to the edited version on the radio, they’re gonna have the record in their record collection, and that’s gonna have the full-length versions. So, the versions that are on the album, at least they’re full-length and we’re able to have the full songs there. Even if somebody hears the edited version on the radio, they’re gonna go out and get the full-length version anyway, so that’s most important.

JH: Just out of curiosity, are the edits a contractual thing, or pressured on you, or voluntary....

MP: It’s just one of the many creative pressures... it’s one of those creativity things you lose control over. The more people you have involved and the more “business” it becomes, the less creative control you have.

JH: So there’s no clause in the contract or anything.

MP: No, but it’s like... if we refused to have edits, then they’re not gonna release singles and do videos, so we have to get the music out to reach people some way or another... Actually, the CD single for “Take the Time” has liner notes on the back that we wrote, asking radio programmers to take the time to play the full-length versions.

JH: Really? Because I have the promotional single right here, and it’s just plain white.

MP: Yeah, that’s not actually the fully packaged one, that was just an advance one that they sent out real quick. You’ll probably be getting the real one this week if you haven’t already. It’s fully packaged and it’s got a cover, and on the back it’s got a note from us asking you to play the full-length version. It says, “Think of all the things you could do in 8 minutes, you can go to the bathroom, you could have a cigarette, [everyone laughs] you could catch up on some sleep...” so hopefully we can persuade them to use it as “bathroom music”.

JH: A-ha... inside the mind of a DJ. Let’s see... when I talked to you in Pittsburgh, you mentioned something about an EP possibly coming later this year with “A Change of Seasons” on it?

MP: Well, it’s still a possibility. Whatever our next release is, “A Change of Seasons” will be on it. Whether or not we do the EP or we just hold it for the next album, we don’t know yet, I mean there’s been talk about us doing an EP with “A Change of Seasons” and some live tracks, but it’s just talk right now. But it will be released... whatever our next release is, it’ll be on there.

JH: And that’s your lyric-writing debut...

MP: See, that’s why I don’t have any lyrics on this album, because “A Change of Seasons” was supposed to have been on this album, and, I mean, that song is the equivalent of like 4 or 5 songs, lyrically. So when everyone was saying, “OK, I’ll write these lyrics, I’ll write these lyrics...” for all the rest of the songs that are on the album, I didn’t take any because it would’ve been too much [laughs], and I ended up getting dicked out of lyrics altogether...

JH: Yeah, I have that song on a demo...

MP: With vocals, or without?

JH: Without. I’ve never heard the one with. What are the lyrics about? It’s kind of weird to talk about a song that no one’s heard yet, but...

MP: It’s sort of like a whole conceptual thing broken down into 4 different sections, lyrically. It’s using the different seasons as a metaphor for the different emotions that the main character is going through... it’s almost like The Wall, it’s sort of like this one character who’s going through all these different emotional things: he’s dealing with death, he’s dealing with relationships, and it’s sort of like his point of view, and... going insane and not being able to cope with all these problems, and it’s just using the seasons as a metaphor for all these different emotions and feelings that he’s going through. So each section is a different state of mind for the main character.

JH: Would you ever consider doing a concept album in the future? Some people say that Images and Words is kind of thematic in some ways...

MP: Yeah, that wasn’t on purpose, that was just coincidental... because we were all writing, drawing from the same inspirations. All the lyrics on this album were written during the period when we didn’t have a singer and were changing labels and changing management, so we were all dealing with bad situations, and that came out in the lyrics. But, I mean, “A Change of Seasons” is as close to a concept album or a concept piece as we’ve ever gotten, so there’ll be that, and someday, I mean, we’d love to do it. All of our favorite bands have concept albums, you you know, Genesis, Marillion, Rush and Yes.... so it’s something we would love to do...

JH: Hmmm...

MP: ...Queensrÿche...

JH: Tell me a little bit about how you guys get together and write...

MP: Basically, the four of us – I say four, not including James just because he wasn’t there for the writing of this album – the four of us just get to rehearsal without any preconceived ideas and we’ll just start... you know, somebody will have an inspiration musically and start coming up with something, and maybe I’ll come up with a cool time signature change on the drums or something, you know, a different groove, and that’ll spark the bass line, and then the guitar and keyboards will – and this is just one example, I mean it’s different of course with every single section of the song – but, it’s just like a chain reaction thing. We get together and start shooting out ideas and the sparks start flying, you know, the creative sparks just [snaps his fingers] keep going, and then we all start putting in these ideas, and it’s like, “well, let’s take this part, and we’ll play it this time in 3/4, and then later on we’ll do it in 4/4, and we’ll bring it back in..” All these ideas just keep accumulating and accumulating and growing, and it turns into the song. It turns into a 10 minute song, next thing you know... [laughs]

JH: We heard you guys playing at soundcheck, working on some stuff...

MP: Yeah, that was actually “A Change of Seasons”. We haven’t played that in about a year, and we’re gonna actually make its premiere next week in New York. We’re doing this show at the Limelight next week, it’s next Thursday, March 4th and they’re promoting it as like a big theater show, almost like going to a play... no opening band, we’re gonna do two hour-long sets, with a 20 minute intermission, and they’re gonna hand out programs, like a playbill, they’re gonna have ushers in tuxedos, they’re gonna have curtains all around the stage and stuff... So, we wanted to do some special stuff there, so we’re gonna do a bunch of unreleased stuff, a lot of old stuff that we haven’t been doing, and...

JH: Do “March of the Tyrant”!

MP: Oh god [laughs]... that is OLD.

JH: I love the ending of that song. In fact, was gonna suggest that if you were trying to think of other stuff to do as B-sides or whatever, make that into a instrumental...

MP: I would love to do some of that old stuff, but it’s tough getting the whole band to agree even to do stuff off our first album, so no one feels like we’re taking a step backwards, you know, “we wanna look forward to the future...”, that whole attitude, so... But I would love to do some of that old stuff, just for the nostalgic purposes.

JH: OK, along the same songwriting-type lines, this is something I’m personally really curious about: how do you guys write the vocal melodies, since your songs start out as instrumentals? Do you come up with it as a band, or hand the lyrics to the singer and say “work on it” or what?

MP: No, actually, the melodies come from whoever happens to write the lyrics. Usually what we’ll do is we’ll go through that whole music-writing process that I was just talking about.... we’ll go through that, we’ll put the song together, and as we’re writing it. we’ll consciously say “OK, this’ll be a vocal section, this’ll be the first verse, OK, then this’ll be the chorus, this’ll be the second verse...” So we know where the lyrics are gonna go once the song is done, and once the song is done, then one person will say, “Hey, I’ve got an idea for the lyrics” and somebody will just grab the song and go away and write lyrics. The case in the past has been that whoever wrote the lyrics, wrote the lyrics with melodies in mind, so... up till now it’s been weird, because we’ve always written without a singer. Our whole first album was written before Charlie was in the band, and this whole album was written before James was in the band, so whoever writes the lyrics writes ‘em with melodies in mind, and then, in the case of this album at least, they would work with James and give him the melody ideas and phrasings that they had in mind when they were writing the lyrics, and then James, of course, embellishes them and puts his touch on them, but usually the lyricist works on all the melodies.

JH: How many vocalists, roughly, did you audition before you found James?

MP: Well, we got about... over 200 tapes, but we didn’t physically audition 200 people. But yeah, we got about 200 tapes, I’ve got a box about that big [pointing to a box] filled with tapes.. But out of those 200 or so tapes, we only only auditioned maybe 20. I mean, it took a lot for us to actually call up somebody. You know, out of all those tapes.... there were so many different qualities we were looking for, and the only one you can really get off the tape is the voice, and only so many people even got past that first point where we actually liked the tape and called the person up. So we auditioned about 20 people, and some of them, we would work with – there were a couple people we worked with for like weeks or months at a time – and then other people just came down for one audition and we just knew it wasn’t it. So... it was tough, man, it was a very, very tough period for us.

JH: What did the audition consist of, and what were the criteria, aside from finding someone who could go *Aaaaaaaaaa!* in tune...

MP: Well, we were looking for, obviously, someone with a wide range and a good voice, a good strong voice... something that was melodic, so those were all the aspects of the voice we were looking for, but there’s also their “look”, you know, we wanted someone who looked unified with us as a band... that was a little bit of a problem with Charlie, and somebody who had a common musical direction. A lot of musicians like progressive music and the kind of music we play, but very few singers can actually get it, you know – most singers want to do more commercial stuff. So it was tough to find a singer with a common musical direction or vision as ours. So that was important, and of course a personality, somebody that we can live with every day for the rest of our lives and be able to work with. And as far as the process goes... if we liked the tape, we would call the person up, chat with them, see if they were cool or not, we’d tell them to learn a bunch of songs off the first album at that point, because that’s all that was available. They would come down, run through those songs... if they got past that part, then we would start breaking out new ideas and saying, “hey, sing this” and seeing how well they could improvise, how well they could take creative ideas and mold them. So it was very, very frustrating, and a long process...and only one survived, and that’s the Canadian that’s in the band now. [laughs]

JH: A good choice, I’d say. Just out of curiosity, what ever became of Charlie?

MP: He’s a lot older than us, he’s in his 40’s now, his early 40’s, and it just never worked out with him, and as far as what he’s doing now, I don’t know. We saw him once on this tour, and that was our first time seeing him in years...

JH: Was the parting amicable? Was he fired?

MP: He was fired... he didn’t leave the band. We kicked him pretty hard, actually. But we left on good terms. I mean, I lived with him for about a year, when he was in the band we lived together. We were all pretty close, so we left on good terms, but then things went sour after that because he was bad-mouthing us, and I guess things would get back to him that we were bad-mouthing him and stuff, so it got a little rough after the breakup, so we didn’t really stay in touch with him. I don’t know what he’s doing.

JH: OK, this is a little bit off the subject, but a lot of people have been wondering about the status of Watchtower and Fates Warning. I figured since you’re friends with ‘em, you could let us know what the deal is....

MP: Actually, I just saw members from each band. As far as Fates Warning goes, we just saw Ray in Arizona and Jim in L.A. just a couple of weeks ago, and contrary to popular belief, they haven’t broken up, they’re working on new material, and looking for a new record deal. They got out of their deal on Metal Blade, which is something they had to do to really move forward, but it’s gonna take a while before they can really get a new deal, you know, this stuff takes time, so.... they’re just working on new material and looking for a new deal, and they’ll be back. And Watchtower... we just saw Doug and Rick when we were in Austin 2 weeks ago, and they’ve been on hold for years for two reasons: first of all, because they’ve been looking for a new singer, and they can’t find a new singer, and Ron, the guitarist, he’s been through a couple of hand operations. He hasn’t been able to play guitar in a couple years, so his hand is finally healing, he’s finally playing, and they’ve just been waiting for his hand to heal all this time, and now he’s finally playing again, they’re getting the band back together, and they’re still looking for a singer, but we also saw Jason McMaster, who was their old singer who’s now with Dangerous Toys, and they were talking about possibly doing a reunion album, like Jason going back to the band and then just doing an album together. So, there’s what Watchtower’s doing....

JH: Cool, thanks. OK... compared to your first album, this album obviously has such a fuckin’ awesome, huge sound. How much of this to you attribute to your producer, better technology, bigger budget, or all of those things?

MP: Probably the first and the third. Better technology is probably only because it was in the hands of the right people, but I think the 2 reasons that the album might sound bigger and better are obviously the producer... I think David did a great job getting the sounds, the record sounds really good and full and clear, and everything is audible. That’s one factor, and the other factor is obviously money and time. Being on a major label, we got a much bigger budget, I mean, our first album we did in like 3 weeks on $30,000, this time around we had over 2 months and we did it for over $200,000. So, you know, you get what you pay for; you get more studio time and you get a better producer... so, those were all the factors, I suppose.

JH: Taking all that time and care in doing the album, what types of things did you do differently? In particular, the drums and the guitars sound much, much better...

MP: What did we do differently? We were able to just concentrate on everything a little bit more, and work on getting better sounds. The first time around, everything was so rushed, we had 3 weeks, and that’s including the mix, so we had about 2 weeks to record and about a week to mix the first album. It’s sort of like, you get in there, bang out your parts, OK, on to the next instrument, it’s like one after another. This time around we were able to really pick the parts apart and analyze them and try different ways of playing them, different ways of orchestrating them... and, you know, we were just able to relax and be able to concentrate on the sounds and the orchestration of the instruments.

JH: Is the snare drum sound a triggered sample?

MP: [snort] ...yes. Unfortunately... that wasn’t my choice, it was forced upon me by our producer. But I won’t get into that.

JH: It sounds nice and punchy, though.

MP: Yeah, it’s punchy, but... It’s big when it’s supposed to be big, but it’s also big when it’s not supposed to be big.

JH: Was that the only thing, because I can’t tell if the rim clicks and stuff were samples also...

MP: There was an occasional acoustic snare drum mixed in, I mean, we recorded all my natural drum sounds, and then had the option of triggering it, so at times, when it was really dynamic or there were a lot of intricate parts going on, we tried to mix in the acoustic snare sound as much as possible. But the one thing that bothers me about the album is some of the stuff on the drum sounds. I think they sound great overall, but there’s a lot of fine-tuning that I would have personally liked to have done, but, you know... that’s another story.

JH: What’s the status on plans for re-releasing the first album? Are there any?

MP: Hopefully... I mean, everybody’s looking for it, everybody’s asking for it, and nobody can get it. Atco is looking into buying the rights to it and re-releasing it. Someday it’ll happen, I’m sure, but hopefully it’ll happen soon. Hopefully this year, but I don’t know.

JH: Any chance of remixing it or anything?

MP: Yeah, if they were gonna re-release it, we would like to remix it. And people have asked if we would re-do the vocals: I don’t think so, just because, you know, that’s not the way it was. So we’d leave Charlie on there, and hopefully remix it. As far as James doing those songs, we’d like to release live versions or something so people can hear him singing it, but... Hopefully that’ll all happen. We’re crossing our fingers, just because a lot of people are looking for it.

JH: OK, let’s see here... “The Killing Hand”. This is more a question for John, but someone wanted to know what the inspiration was for the lyrics on that song. Isn’t that a science fiction story he wrote, or something?

MP: Yeah. I’ll answer for John, so it won’t be COMPLETELY accurate, but it’ll be my interpretation of the story that he tells. It’s science fiction... it’s just a story he made up, it’s sort of a Twilight Zone sort of story that deals with somebody – at least this is was he says – it deals with somebody standing in front of a wall, like a memorial, and seeing all the names of people that have died from a war, and the character is wondering how they all died, and somehow he gets miraculously brought back in time and he’s able to see actually how all these people died... and there was some sort of holocaust or something... and I’m being very vague and general, but this is basically it... he witnesses a holocaust or something, where there’s a leader wiping out all these people. Basically, he goes back to the wall, you know, by the end of the song, “when I go back again, will it be the same”...

JH: Yeah, I’m rushing through the lyrics in my head as you’re describing it...

MP: So he goes back to the wall, and then there’s one more name.. “one more name appears” on the wall, and it’s HIS name, and the big twist... the big Rod Serling twist, I believe, is that HE was the Killing Hand. He was the one, by going back in time, that killed all these people, or something like that...

JH: Wow.

MP: ...and the key phrase is: “or something like that”. [everyone laughs]

JH: Is “Metropolis” the same type of thing? Does he do a lot of writing like that, like writing a little story first?

MP: Yeah, I guess John’s lyrics come from from like a storybook sort of thing, a fictional thing. Of course there are exceptions, but I think that’s more of where he’s coming from, almost like the old Neil Peart lyrics. And Kev is more from like a religious or a spiritual sort of inspiration, he writes a lot of stuff like that.

JH: That leads right into my next question. Does the band have any particular religious or spiritual beliefs? Not as a whole, but the individuals...

MP: Not as a whole. Individually, I mean, I’ll speak for myself, I don’t have any particular religious beliefs or anything, but I think if there’s any person in the band that is very inspired by religious and spiritual sort of things, it’s Kev. You’d have to ask him, but he’s real into that sort of stuff. John Myung, too, he’s really into that sort of thing too, so Kevin and John are more up that sort of alley.

JH: What were some of your personal drumming influences, who made you want to pick up sticks and start playing?

MP: When I started... I mean, I grew up listening to music since I was a little kid... my dad was a disc jockey on the radio, and he was very hip, he was listening to a lot of the stuff in the 60’s when I was born, so as soon as I was born I was listening to the Beatles, and the Who, and the Stones, and Hendrix, and the Doors... so I was like this little rock-n-roll kid when I was real young. I mean, I was like the only kid in my elementary school who had hundreds of records and stuff, so, when I started playing drums, back then I was listening to a lot of Kiss and stuff like that, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who, so those were some of my first big drum influences, like Keith Moon and John Bonham. Then I started listening to stuff that was a little bit more progressive, like Rush and Yes, so Neil Peart was my drum GOD for years and years and years, I mean that’s all I did was listen to Rush. The same goes for the other guys in the band, too, Rush is the big one. So I was listening to Peart and stuff like that, and a lot of Frank Zappa... his music was a big, big influence on me, and still is, and then through the years I started listening to a lot more heavy stuff, a lot of the heavy thrash bands like Anthrax, Metallica, Testament, Pantera, so all those drummers influenced me with my double-bass and stuff. And then a lot of more jazz-oriented stuff, like Chick Corea, like Dave Weckl on drums, and Al Di Meola and stuff like that... but I don’t know. It’s not only drummers that influence me, it’s just music in general. I can get as much inspiration on the drums listening to the production on a Public Enemy album as I can listening to a Chick Corea album listening to Dave Weckl play drums, or listening to Jane’s Addiction or Pantera, you know, so it’s just trying to listen to as many different styles of music as possible and just take it all in.

JH: Someone came up with the idea to start a petition drive to get you guys on tour with Rush.. [laughs] He wanted me to run that by you and see if that would have your blessing. You guys are on the same label and all...

MP: Yeah! Yeah, do it. Hey, I mean, that would be incredible. It’s just a matter of timing at this point.. I don’t know when their new album is due, but I haven’t heard anything about it. We’re gonna be touring all year, so it would be great if it could work out. Actually, another one of our childhood dreams came true a couple of weeks ago. We’ve always wanted Rush to hear us, or see us, or bring us on tour with them or whatever, and just a couple of weeks ago, actually, not Rush, but the other big one for us – Yes – came down to see us when we played out in Hollywood, so that was incredible for us. We were awe-inspired by them, man, it was like we were scared shitless to go on. [everybody laughs] We’re hanging out in the dressing room, and they all came in, and it was like, “Fuck, man, how the hell are we gonna go on now?” So that was cool...

JH: This may be covered by the possible EP, but do you plan to release a commercially available single, maybe for the next single, because all the others all the way back to “Status Seeker” have been promotional-only...

MP: I think so. I don’t know if it would be in America, though. I mean, I know there’s been talk about them doing it in Europe, because CD singles are really big over there... when you get CD singles, most of them are imports. So I know there are plans to do that, because we have some stuff we want to put on the B-sides, like we have a song “Forever” that you probably know from one of our demos... we’ve recorded that, so we have that sitting on the shelf that we could use for a B-side. I don’t know if they’re gonna release anything in America, but they might, we’ve heard talk about it.

JH: Who wrote the words to that song, by the way?

MP: “Forever”? John Petrucci.

JH: Another good one for John. What’s been your most memorable moment so far on this tour, do you think...

MP: Oh, that’s easy. Actually, Yes is now up there, but until Yes coming to see us, hands down, the most memorable thing for me was the first night in Japan. We went to Japan back in November and did a bunch of shows. The first night we played there, I mean, it was the biggest rush I’ve ever had, playing there and coming on stage in the dark, and the intro tape is rolling, and then we kick into “Metropolis” and the lights go on, there’s like thousands of screaming Japanese kids... it the biggest rush I’ve ever had, it sent chills down my spine. To me, that was the most memorable thing...

JH: The first album has already been re-released over there, right?

MP: Yeah. They sell the albums in the lobby when you play in Japan, so not only did we have merchandise for sale, they had big stands where they sell both albums, so they had boxes and boxes of the first album out there. The same with Germany, too, I know it’s still available over there...

JH: Are there any moments you’d rather forget about?

MP: Well, there’s a few cities I’d rather forget about.. [laughs] I don’t know, there have been a couple of shows... Luckily, thank god, almost all the turnouts have been way beyond what we expected. I mean, I would say since we’ve been back out this year, 80% of the shows have been sold out, and the others are all packed. But there were a couple cities toward the beginning where the turnouts were just ridiculous. We played a show in New Orleans and there were like 40 people there, and then a couple places like Omaha, Nebraska and Cedar Rapids, Iowa and places like that...the turnouts were good there, but it’s just that the crowd reaction is so weird, you know, they’re very laid back and they don’t really know how to take to the band, so there have been some weird experiences.. but they’ve all been experiences, so I’m glad I’ve experienced them all.

JH: I understand the Majesty demos are on CD in Europe?

MP: In Germany.

JH: Is that a bootleg, or was that something authorized...

MP: No, it’s bootleg. It’s a mass-produced bootleg. It’s somebody who obviously mass-produced like hundreds or thousands, I don’t even know, of Majesty demos on CD.

JH: How does it sound?

MP: [laughs] Well, the demo to begin with doesn’t sound that good, I mean it was done on my 4-track and it’s kinda wishy-washy, so the conversion to CD... it doesn’t sound any better because it’s on CD. When I found out about it, I told them, like, “Shit, I wish they came to me for the master tape”, because I’ve got the master sitting in my bedroom, at least it would’ve sounded better. So this is probably off of a tape that was like a couple of generations down, so the sound isn’t that good, but it’s a cool collector’s item.

JH: What is your opinion overall about bootlegging in general?

MP: Well, you’re asking either the right guy or the wrong guy, because my personal opinion is... I mean, the first half of the tour, I was letting people in with video cameras and cassette tapes. I personally have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it’s cool, because I’m a collector myself... I have bootlegs of like every band, video and audio, so I’m fully supportive of it. However, there are 4 other people in my band, and a crew and a manager and a tour manager, and since then I’ve been told not to let anybody else into the place with tape recorders and video cameras. So, I personally have nothing against it, and when I see somebody filming, I don’t say anything... and I hope that they get away with it, and I pull ‘em over afterwards and say “Hey, send me a copy” [everyone laughs], you know, but the crew and the rest of the band don’t feel comfortable with it.

[extended personal chit-chat about tape trading, etc. deleted]

JH: Well, that’s about all I have. Did you guys think of any other stuff while we were talking? [addressing my friends Dave, Eric, and Tom, who are also metal DJs at WPSU]

Dave: Yeah, I thought of one. Was it a conscious effort not to drag an opening band out with you, and just hook up with a local band in each city?

MP: No... I mean, I don’t even know who we would take out. If we headline during the summer, if we don’t get on another package and we go out ourselves, we’re gonna take a band out, I just don’t know who it would be. This time, I don’t know why it didn’t happen, it just didn’t, so we have different bands in every city. We had no objections.. there have been a couple of bands that have done a bunch of dates with us, this band here, Psychotic Waltz [pointing at his shirt] did 3 shows with us on the west coast, and there have been a couple of bands that have done various shows with us... It wasn’t our decision, I mean, we’d love to take somebody out, especially if it fit musically.

Tom: Fates Warning...

MP: Yeah, Fates... hey, we’ve been talking to them for years about touring together, but right now the timing wouldn’t work out. They’re not gonna have a new album out for at least a year, I would assume, but we’d love to do it. We’ve always talked about touring together. Anything else?

JH: I’m trying to think. I guess not. Can you do a couple of ID’s for our show?

MP: Sure.

[remainder of the time is spent recording a couple of radio ID’s for our show, and small talk about this and that]

So there you have it, folks. Hope everyone enjoyed it. (You’d better, it took me 7 hours to transcribe!) Thanks to everyone on the Ytsejam mailing list who offered question ideas. I included just about all of ‘em, I think. Anyway, stay tuned for more interviews like this in the future, hopefully...