Splashes, Crashes, Chinas, And Hi-Hats

This interview took place March 27, 1996 in Munich, Germany, the final workshop Mike performed in Germany on his two week tour. Once again, a portion of this story will appear in M.E.A.T. Magazine, but seeing as how Images & Words is THE Official Dream Theater Fanzine~ and also now an integral part of the International Fan Club mail-outs, it stands to reason that it should appear here as well.

How have the clinics been for John and yourself! Has it been a good change of pace?

MP: The people that are coming are pre-existing fans. The numbers are fairly small because clinics can only really appeal to a certain amount of people. It’s mainly aimed at drummers and guitar players, and there are the various curious Dream Theater fans who come out to get a ‘96 fix. It’s been good. Actually, Tama and Ibanez booked this for us months ago and we figured it would be nice to have a break in the middle of the writing process. Once it started to get towards mid-March it turned out to be bad timing because we were really on a roll with the writing, so I kind of wish we didn’t have to interrupt it. Still, it’s a good break, I guess.

In Frankfurt you mentioned you had six new tracks written and three demoed

There are six written musically, three of them have finished vocals, so three are complete, and three are just done with the music so far. Those six songs are about 50 minutes in total, so I’d say we’re more than half way through the writing process.

So the new tracks you’ve been playing at these clinics, like “Raise The Knife” are still in the work-in-progress stage?

“Raise The Knife” actually does have finished vocals. but I’m just not playing the full song because I want to leave a little hit to the imagination. John is playing along with a new track, but he’s just playing along with the finished demo, whereas mine is a specially made one with the drums and the vocals pulled out. The three that are finished: title, vocals, and everything else are “Raise The Knife,” “Where Are They Now,” and “Take Away My Pain.” The other three only have working titles right now because once the lyrics are done we put the actual names to them; for now they’re called, “Carnival of Clams,” “Catstail,” and ‘‘AnnaLee,’’ but those could change.

When we talked back in September, you had mentioned that you’d felt that Derek was going to turn out to be a great asset to the band in terms of writing. How has that worked out?

It’s been working out amazing. He’s actually contributed more than we had expected him to. We figured he would slowly start to blend in but right off the bat he’s been a real good asset. He’s really creative. he has lots of great ideas. Derek’s playing this new keyboard, it’s a prototype for Korg, and it has these unreal sounds. Some of them sound a lot like guitars, so he’s been doing a lot of wicked guitar stuff with John. The song AnnaLee is something that he brought in almost completely finished: it’s an Elton John type ballad thing and it’s really beautiful it’s incredible, so tor anybody that’s been skeptical about whether or not he can write, I think this will definitely silence them.

Has there been any change in musical direction? Say, a leaning back towards Images And Words or even When Dream And Day Unite?

I can’t tell. To me, it’s what we’ve always done; a little bit progressive, a little bit heavy, a little bit commercial. One thing that’s striking me about the new songs is how melodic everything is. Everything is very catchy; it’s got a lot of hooks and there’s definite radio potential, except for the fact that they’re about 8 minutes each (laughs). Other than that, it could have a little bit more accessibility. It’s a mixed bag. I can’t be objective, but I think it will definitely please everybody.

With the ACOS album, has it done better than you had expected it to do?

Yeah. it did better than we expected in terms of sales because we didn’t expect much. We really didn’t expect to have big sales or anything.

And the Japanese tour was the only one you did for it?

I wouldn’t even call it a tour. Those were just some assorted dates because Japan wanted a couple of shows, and then we wanted to do a couple of shows around Long Island and New York, but that was about it. It was surprising a couple of ways because I won an award from Modern Drummer for Best Drummer for Best Recorded Performance of the Year, and it’s only one song and a bunch of covers. I guess in that respect it definitely did better than I’d expected!

Well, it was long enough to be four songs.......

The funny thing was that it’s considered an EP, but it’s actually longer than Images & Words!

So what’s your prediction as to when the new album will be out?

The plan now is to start recording in June, so we record June, July and August, and have it out in September or October. Things could always change, but that’s what we’re hoping the schedule will be, which is exactly parallel to the Awake schedule, just two years later.

Has James been contributing more to the lyrics this time around?

Well, musically, we do it all without him, because he doesn’t really play an instrument, and he respects us enough to let us do our job, so we write the music without him there. He’s been coming down more than usual with this new material, jamming with us as much as possible with the melodies and stuff, which is new for us. In the past we’ve always pretty much written everything and he’s come in after the fact, but now with him there rehearsing with us, I think it’s making us sound much more melodic as I said earlier. It’s too soon to tell right now because we haven’t really divvied up most of the lyrics, but I’m sure he’ll be contributing a lot more than in the past.

What’s the scoop on the Rush tribute album? I heard you were doing some recording for it in San Francisco.

Yeah. I did 6 drum tracks for it, and it looks like John and James might do a track each as well.

So is this another one of your “babies” that you’re putting together?

Sort of I didn’t put it together, but I was one of the first people to get called. the other being Billy Sheehan. Because I’m such a huge Rush fan, I kinda knew the most out of the people involved, so they gave me a certain amount of creative control. They let me pick the songs, including some that I didn’t play on, and then I helped with gathering some of the singers and guitarists. It was really nice to be handed some of the control over the project, and it’s something I’m really happy to be involved with.

Right now, the basis of the album is definitely nine tracks, six of which I played on with Billy Sheehan, the remaining three done with Dean Castronovo on drums and Stu Hamm on bass. There may be an extra track by Fates Warning, and another track by a band called Cynic, possibly with James singing. On top of that there are going to be all different singers and guitar players. and the people that have already been added are Sebastian Bach (Skid Row), who did two tracks. Mark Slaughter. Jack Russell (Great White). Jake E. Lee. and possibly John. It’s pretty much finished except for some remaining guitar and vocal tracks. so we’re looking at a summer release right now.

How about the rumours about Dream Theater possibly doing a movie soundtrack? Is there any truth to that?

We’ve been talking with some people from Italy for about a year now, so if the situation is right and it looks legit, then we’ll do it. it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. We’re reading through scripts constantly. I wouldn’t count on it, but it’s always a possibility.

Sorta like making a Dream Theater concept album.

That would be great. We’d love to do movie scores.

Like you guys don’t have enough to do already!

(Laughing) You got that right!